London Follow

MEMBERS OF the white collar MSF union in London are taking on New Labour, and their own union leadership, over the right to vote for Labour's candidate for mayor. At the union's London regional council meeting last Saturday nearly 50 delegates and over 30 visitors packed into a room to debate the Labour Party's refusal to allow MSF members to vote in the election.

Rotten stitch up over London Mayor.

THE NATIONAL executive of the MSF union suspended three leading lay officers of the London Regional Council of the union last Saturday. MSF members in London have been excluded from voting for the Labour candidate for mayor of London. Instead of denouncing the Labour Party leadership for ignoring democracy, the union leadership is trying to place the blame on the left wing London MSF leadership.

FOLLOWING A successful campaign against the Education Action Zone in Hackney, east London, eleven schools have pulled out of the scheme. After an indicative vote among the remaining schools in the EAZ, the National Union of Teachers is now looking to ballot two schools - Kingsland and William Patten - for industrial action.

A GROUP of building workers have been picketing the Laing site off Trafalgar Square in central London. The workers, five bricklayers, had raised questions about conditions on the site. Soon afterwards their employer, Avondale, told the bricklayers there was no further work for them.

A WORKER at a non-union west London call centre has been suspended following a 45 minute stoppage by some 70 workers. Clarence Jackman works at the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) in Ealing, west London. Last Friday dozens of workers stopped work in protest at bad working conditions. The next day Clarence, an MSF member, was summoned to a meeting by management but was refused union representation by the firm, which does not recognise the union. He has now been suspended and is looking to the union to take up his case.

SOCIALIST WORKER'S appeal burst through the £100,000 mark this week. Now the total has reached £114,448.51. The money we received included £365 raised from a walk by 50 people around London's East End through the sites of great working class struggles like the Match Girls' strike in 1888. A walking tour round Manchester raised £214.

THE HABINTEG Housing Association, whose main office is in central London, has agreed in principle to recognise the MSF union as a negotiating body. This follows a recruitment drive in which 27 staff - 50 percent of the workforce - have joined the MSF over the last six months.

AT MORE and more workplaces Socialist Worker sellers are regularly selling on a Thursday or Friday morning. In Peckham in south London 14 papers were sold on 3 workplace sales, with 5 sold at both Jets stationers and Bournemouth Road council offices, plus 4 at Frensham Street DLO. Elsewhere in south London 7 papers were sold at both King's College Hospital and Southwark's education department building, plus 5 at Wandsworth housing department. Central London workplace sales included 5 at both Camden Town Hall and Mount Pleasant post office, plus 4 at BBC Bush House. Meanwhile in Leeds 9 papers were sold at both the Yorkshire Evening Post and Castle House Inland Revenue office, plus 8 at

LABOUR LEADERS are to announce next Tuesday who will be allowed to stand in the vote to decide the party's candidate for London mayor. They have still not said whether they will allow Ken Livingstone to be on the ballot paper. Party leaders could even be set to bar Livingstone from standing to become Labour's candidate, according to a report in the Observer last Sunday.

HUNDREDS OF people joined a march and rally over rail safety in central London last Saturday. The protest was called by the Safety on the Trains Action Group, which includes families of those who died in the Southall and Paddington rail crashes, and was supported by the RMT, ASLEF and TSSA rail unions. Among the speakers was Mick Rix, general secretary of ASLEF, who threatened industrial action unless the government moves to bring in the ATP safety system which could have prevented both Southall and Paddington.

"IT'S A victory for us." Those were the first words of Sukhdev Reel on Monday after a west London inquest jury took just 50 minutes to return an "open verdict" into the death of her son Ricky.