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SOME 5,000 nursery nurses in Scotland were due to begin a week-long strike to pile on the pressure in their battle for decent pay and recognition for the work they do.

Review of 'Discovering the Scottish Revolution', Neil Davidson, Pluto Press, £17.99

NURSERY NURSES in Scotland plan to escalate their action against low pay and for respect for the valuable job they do. The workers' Unison union has said that nursery nurses across Scotland will strike for a week, between Monday 8 September and Friday 12 September, unless Scotland's local authorities come up with a decent offer. The week of strikes will culminate in a protest at Glasgow Green on Saturday 13 September.

TALKS BETWEEN the RMT union and management of the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry company over pay were taking place as Socialist Worker went to press. The company had been refusing to meet the union and had launched a campaign in the Scottish press directed at RMT general secretary Bob Crow.

HUNDREDS OF Scottish nursery nurses struck for three days across East and West Dunbartonshire last week. Support for the strike was solid and it closed about 60 nurseries.

NURSERY NURSES in Central Scotland and in Dundee took three days of strike action last week. This was the latest phase of action in the fight of nursery nurses across Scotland for a decent pay rise and recognition for the valuable job they do. At its height the fight has involved up to 6,000 nursery nurses in strike action, with noisy protests in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

FOLLOWING ON from two weeks of national strike action, nursery nurses in Scotland are now taking a rolling programme of selective strike action to win a regrading claim of up to £4,000 per year. Nursery nurses in Ayrshire, Inverclyde, Shetland and Orkney took two days of strike action last week.

Janice Godrich is the president of the PCS civil servants' union and a member of the Scottish Socialist Party. She spoke to Socialist Worker about the upcoming elections to the union's national executive, which begin on Friday 6 June. The socialist Left Unity group and the PCS Democrats group are standing a united list in an attempt to defeat the right wing Moderates group that has dominated the union.

SOME OF the lowest paid workers in Britain are rebelling. Nursery nurses in Scotland and health workers in North Lincolnshire and east London were set to strike this week for a living wage. They are sick of doing important, caring jobs for pitiful wages that won't pay the bills. They want to be treated with respect, not taken for granted as low paid skivvies.

THERE WAS no comfort for New Labour from last Thursday's elections, and little for any of the other mainstream parties either. There were, however, dramatic breakthroughs for the left. The Scottish Socialist Party won six seats in the proportional voting element of the Scottish Parliament elections.

SCOTTISH WATER (SW) has announced 1,400 redundancies over the next two years (900 this year and 500 next year). Around 1,300 jobs have already been lost through voluntary redundancy. A year ago the four unions in SW, Unison, TGWU, GMB and AEEU,went into a partnership agreement with management.

THE GAP between the New Labour government and trade unions was strongly underlined at the Scottish TUC in Inverness last week. Some of the strongest criticism of Tony Blair came over the war. A series of speakers condemned the government for taking Britain into the war.