England Follow

THE Nazi BNP is not just a threat in the north west of England.

HUNDREDS OF anti-Nazi campaigners were out leafleting last weekend in the council wards targeted by the British National Party (BNP). Over 250 people managed to leaflet every house in Burnley in the north west of England, where the Nazis were putting up 13 candidates. About 100 campaigners joined Anti Nazi League leafleting in Oldham, also in the north west.

NHS BOSSES in the north east of England have been forced to back down one by one in the face of strikes, and the threat of strikes, by low paid women workers. Medical secretaries have shown it is possible to take on trust managements and win. At Sunderland City Hospitals Trust, workers voted to end their indefinite strike on Wednesday of last week.

THERE IS a major debate inside the three main teachers' unions in England and Wales about merger. Leaders of the NUT, NASUWT and ATL unions are looking to merge. There is a parallel process of an increasing desire for unity among rank and file teachers.

TEACHERS IN England and Wales are on course for a major conflict with the government. Their three TUC-affiliated unions, the NUT, NASUWT and ATL, all passed a joint resolution at their Easter conferences pushing for a 35-hour week and drastic cuts in workload.

People across England will have a chance to say a resounding no to Tony Blair's pro-privatisation and pro-war policies at the local elections on 2 May. Hundreds of Socialist Alliance candidates are standing. They say, "Put people before profit," and want to take on the pro-business consensus accepted by the three major parties.

Delegates at the conference of the most moderate TUC-affiliated teachers' union last week joined calls for action against the government. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) is the third largest teachers' union in England and Wales.

All out and determined to win. That was the message from medical secretaries on the picket line in Sunderland in the north east of England on Monday of this week.

The Socialist Alliance's campaign is taking off across England in the run-up to the local elections in seven weeks on 2 May. The alliance is hoping to stand over 100 candidates in London and over 300 across England. The mood for a socialist alternative to New Labour was seen in Scotland last week. The Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Alliance's sister organisation, won 16 percent in a local by-election.

Train drivers on ScotRail struck on Wednesday of last week and on Monday, bringing services across Scotland to a halt. At the same time non-drivers on Arriva, which runs trains across the north of England, were preparing for action over Easter. This is part of their fight over pay.

Over 2,000 rail workers brought services across the north of England and Scotland to a halt last week as they struck over pay. "This is a demonstration of the power of rail workers to hit back, not least over privatisation," one picket in the RMT union in Newcastle told Socialist Worker.

"We're not militant, but now it's come to the crunch. We've finally had enough, and we're fighting." That's how medical secretary Susan Mann summed up the mood on an angry and lively picket line outside Sunderland Royal Hospital on Tuesday of this week. She was one of 90 low paid women health workers on the picket line at the start of their three-day strike. All of them had the same message. They are fed up of being treated like low paid dogsbodies. Medical secretaries across the north east of England have been fighting to win a higher grade and better pay.