Thousands of rail workers at different companies are in dispute over a number of issues, raising the prospect of coordinated and hard-hitting industrial action.
The drive of the market into public services and the ongoing economic turmoil has opened up the prospect of council workers across the country not being paid at the end of the month.
Panic is spreading in New Labour as it becomes clear that the party faces not just the prospect of defeat at the next general election but an electoral wipe out.
The prospect of cuts to vital services in hospitals up and down the country remerged last week as an "independent" panel backed health authority plans to downgrade services at two hospitals.
The occupation of Afghanistan has entered a new and deeper crisis. A rising number of sophisticated attacks on foreign troops, combined with a growing rebellion in Pakistan and Russia's crushing of Nato ally Georgia, have raised the prospect that the occupation is heading for defeat.
"Increases in food and energy bills will intensify the squeeze on real take-home pay which, for many households, is unlikely to grow this year."Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England on current economic prospects
Some 10,000 members of the GMB, Unite and Prospect trade unions at the Sellafield and Capenhurst nuclear power plants were to start balloting this week after pay talks broke down.
Civil service workers in the Prospect and PCS unions at the British Museum in London came out on strike on Friday afternoon last week over a below-inflation pay offer.
The strike by members of the PCS and Prospect civil service workers’ unions at the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) over below-inflation pay severely hit the running of the museum.
Museum strike over treatment
Over 200 workers in the Prospect civil service workers’ union at the Museum of London struck on Monday of this week against their below-inflation pay award of 2 percent.
Unison union members now have an increasingly good prospect of a fight over pay in local government, this year. Our members are among the lowest paid public sector workers, and are really feeling the pinch.
