Gordon Brown, chancellor Alistair Darling, and Bank of England governor Mervyn King lined up last week to deliver pious lectures on why workers must accept wage cuts to help stop inflation.
Members of the Unite union at the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) have voted by 100 percent for strikes over their salary settlement, which should have been paid from 1 April.
Postal workers could start a national strike later this year after delegates at last week’s CWU union conference voted unanimously for action against attacks on their pensions, threats to shut scores of offices, and the menace of privatisation.
The four-day strike over pay by tanker drivers supplying Shell petrol stations showed the power that workers have to disrupt the normal running of the system.
Firefighters to ground airlines
Firefighters in the Unite union at the Highland and Islands Airports in Scotland are to strike on Monday of next week and Friday 4 July after a breakdown in pay talks.
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.
Strike action at the Hackney CT Plus bus garage in east London planned for Friday of last week was called off at the last minute pending talks with management.
Imagine, in a galaxy far, far away, an empire in decline. A disastrous military adventure and the rise of new powers have exposed its weakness. To cap it all, the emperor himself is generally despised as a provincial clod.
The NUT union held a very political young teachers’ conference last weekend. Around 130 teachers came – up from 80 last year. Many of the young and newly qualified teachers at the conference got involved in the union after the strike on 24 April.
