Privatisation Follow

HOUSING privatisation plans in Haringey, north London, have been blocked by tenants. A few weeks ago we found out that the council was about to use funds from the council's "ring-fenced homelessness budget" towards a £612,000 consultancy contract.

Attacks on the firefighters and PFI go hand in glove in the name of modernisation.

OVER 3,000 postal workers were on the verge of strikes against privatisation as Socialist Worker went to press. Strikes will go ahead unless Royal Mail managers back off completely from their plan to hand the Cash Handling and Distribution (CHD) section over to Securicor. Talks between management and the CWU union were planned to take place this week. On a 67 percent turnout CHD members voted by a remarkable 95 percent for action. Immediately after the vote Royal Mail and Securicor announced they were dropping their original privatisation plan.

I could not put down the fantastic book by Arundhati Roy The Algebra of Infinite Justice. It is a collection of the main political essays she has written so far. The book includes new essays on Bush and Blair's "war on terror", the Hindu chauvinist BJP government in India, and the effects of privatisation on ordinary people.

TRADE UNIONISTS and local activists in York have launched an anti-privatisation campaign called PFI Watch. This follows the decision of the New Labour council to push ahead with PFI projects in three York primary schools.

THE GOVERNMENT is on the back foot over privatisation of council housing. Sheffield council has just announced it is officially calling off its transfer, and ministers now acknowledge that stock transfer will be rejected by tenants in most areas.

SELECTIVE STRIKE action is continuing in boroughs across London as part of the campaign for £4,000 London weighting. At Tower Hamlets council, east London, pickets were out again throughout the week, blocking post deliveries at the two buildings where post is dealt with. The pickets were enlivened by petitioning and leafleting for the firefighters and for home care workers whose jobs are threatened by privatisation.

POSTAL WORKERS across Britain in the Cash Handling and Distribution (CHD) section start a strike ballot next week. The Post Office wants to sell CHD to Securicor, a full privatisation that will affect 3,000 workers.

WE ARE planning to hold a mass protest against privatisation in Newcastle on 2 November. We face radical proposals that will mean the wholesale privatisation of services in the city.

MILLIONS OF people in north west England and East Anglia this week faced worry and uncertainty over their electricity supply. An enormous crisis is sweeping Britain's power generating industry, with power stations already being shut and warnings that worse could be to come. Millions across Britain could face the kind of power cuts which hit California in the US two years ago.

THE COMPANIES due to take over the infrastructure of London's tube under the government's PPP privatisation scheme expect to get a 500 percent return on their investment. The figure comes from a study by the Labour Research Department.

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) is demanding that Britain and British firms embark on wholesale privatisation of public services, government documents revealed this week. They revealed that Britain faces WTO demands to "remove all establishment restrictions on hospital and social services, rest, convalescent and old people's homes".