London Follow

Some 2,000 Unison union members at pre-1992 universities in London were due to strike on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. It is part of the ongoing campaign to win an increase in London weighting, the allowance for the extra costs of living and working in the capital, to £4,000. After three one-day strikes across all the London colleges employers in the post-1992 universities made an offer. The 6.5 percent increase was narrowly accepted.

IN ONE of the most extraordinary trade union ballots in history, London postal workers have voted by 19,803 to 91 votes for action over pay. This could lead to unofficial action that would stop the post across London. The ballot was a 99.5 percent vote to take on Post Office bosses. It was called unofficially because national CWU union leaders refused to sanction it.

THE RESULT of a ballot among 30,000 postal workers over London weighting was due to be announced this week after Socialist Worker went to press. The ballot covers postal workers in London employed by Royal Mail, Parcelforce, Post Office Counters, Motor Transport and Cash Handling.

JOHN PAGE and supporters lobbied his disciplinary hearing in Hackney, east London, on Friday of last week. The New Labour council suspended John with two other Unison union activists in December 2002.

HACKNEY COUNCIL in east London is pressing ahead with its disciplinary of Unison union branch officer John Page. In December 2002 Hackney council suspended Unison branch officers John Page, Brian Debus and Will Leng after they raised concerns about racism in a draft report to the council.

OFFICIALS AT the Bloody Sunday inquiry in London weren't certain until the last minute that General Michael Jackson would give evidence as scheduled on 7 April. He's the man in overall command of British forces in Iraq, and so had other compelling commitments.

When Doreen Lawrence asserted that no police officer had tended her dying son because they didn't want to get "black" blood on their hands, the reverberations shook British society. Stephen Lawrence's stabbing in April 1993 followed a series of other murders and racist attacks in south east London, where the Nazi British National Party (BNP) had opened its headquarters.

The last night London burned George Binette, £5

SOME 120 students at City and Islington College, north London, turned up to the Camden Road site to hear a dance, rap and song performance for peace last week. The programme ranged from rap to a recital of Harold Pinter's "New World Order" and a performance of a song by Bertolt Brecht.

LONDON POSTAL workers have this week started an unofficial ballot for action to win an improved London weighting. The decision, which was provoked by the failure of the CWU union's pay campaign to deliver results, has caused fierce argument inside the union. Even branches and individuals who would normally back militant action have criticised London for "trying to take money from the rest of the country".

ANTI-NAZI campaigners in outer east London are mobilising against a British National Party (BNP) candidate standing in a council by-election in Barkingside on Thursday of next week. The Nazis are trying to gain publicity in the run-up to local council elections in England and national elections in Scotland and Wales on 1 May.

A FRIEND of mine was talking to her mother on Sunday. Her mother had always been opposed to her daughter's political activity. My friend was amazed to be congratulated on going on Saturday's demonstration in London. She was even more amazed by what came next when her mother said, "But demonstrations are not enough. People need to do more."