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A STRIKE by hundreds of workers in the PCS and Prospect civil servants' unions closed the British Museum in central London on Monday of this week. They were protesting against £6.5 million of cuts which will lead to the loss of 150 jobs-15 percent of the workforce. "After two other periods of redundancies it was time to make a stand," said Hadrian Ellory-Vandecker, the Prospect representative in the museum. "Management will be cutting back on essential services-there will be gallery closures. There will be a large number of compulsory redundancies. It's appalling." "This is the first time in its 250-year history that the Museum has been closed by industrial action," said Annette C

THE MOOD for a fight for decent pay for public sector workers marked the conference of Britain's biggest trade union this week. So too did the growing feeling for united action over pay across the public sector. The main conference of the Unison union took place in Bournemouth after Socialist Worker went to press on Tuesday.

APARTHEID FOR children-that is what David Blunkett pushed through the school system this week. The government wants refugee children educated separately from the rest. They will be treated as second class and labelled as "problems", and then blamed for the crisis in schools.

RACISTS HAVE been going on the rampage in a series of shocking attacks in Burnley and Oldham in north west England. These attacks are the direct result of the Nazi British National Party encouraging racist hatred in the area.

A NURSE recruited to help NHS staff shortages is the latest victim of the government's crackdown on immigration. Edina Mukwaira spent three years at Middlesex University studying to become a nurse. She was due to start a job at the beginning of this week at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

"SOME people coming to Britain are denounced as economic migrants, yet economic migrants from all over the world are encouraged to be doctors and nurses to fill the gaps." So says former Labour MP TONY BENN.

WHILE THE British media was obsessed with the jubilee and the World Cup, global stockmarkets started sliding again last week. They did so after two major companies suddenly ran into trouble. The treasurer of El Paso, an American gas firm, recently committed suicide. The circumstances were remarkably similar to those of the suicide of the finance director of Enron last year.

MAINSTREAM historians argue that the British working class has always accepted capitalism, and prefers family life to fighting back. This is one of the themes running through Simon Schama's History of Britain, currently being shown on TV. The Great Unrest gives the lie to these claims.

A KEY New Labour policy was roundly attacked at the conference of the MSF section of the Amicus union that began in Blackpool last weekend. Amicus is Britain's second biggest union. It was created this year after the merger of the MSF and AEEU unions.

THE DUMAN family are continuing their campaign against deportation with a national petition. Mr and Mrs Duman and their children-Mazlum, Nazim, Ali and Inan-are a Kurdish family who came to Britain in 1999.

UP TO 15,000 firefighters marched through London on Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday 50,000 council workers across the capital were to strike. And on Monday almost one million council workers across Britain started voting on strikes. All these fights focus on one issue-the miserable level of pay many public sector workers get.

Cut-offs at centre SOME 18,000 jobs have been slashed in call centres across Britain over the last year, according to a new survey. The consultants Mitial say that 200 call centres have shut over the last year due to a programme of rationalisation and mergers. They say the number of jobs in call centres is set to halve over the next five years.