Strike Follow

"WE ARE making a stand for what we believe is right." That was how one worker at the Metzeler car components company in Coalville near Leicester described their battle over pay. The workers, members of the Amicus union, have held a one-day strike every Monday for the last four weeks.

HILDCARE SOCIAL workers in Liverpool were set to start a three-day strike on Friday in a dispute over lack of staff and workloads. Around 145 workers, members of the Unison union in Liberal Democrat run Liverpool City Council, will be out on Friday. They will also be out next Monday and Tuesday.

THERE WERE picket lines in towns and cities across Britain this week as 90,000 civil servants went on strike against low pay. Next week some 50,000 lecturers in the AUT union in universities will also strike. It is a sign that the growing anger over pay is turning into action. Millions of workers face the same struggle to make their wages last to the end of the month and pay the bills.

ANNE, A civil servant on strike this week phoned to say how great it was to see Socialist Worker sellers at the picket line. "We felt part of a wider movement and it was so good to see young people who had been active about the war and other issues coming down to support us. They brought their solidarity and also their knowledge. I hadn't heard about the postal strike last year or several other disputes that are happening at the moment. Your paper is a real service."

STRIKING lecturers at Leicester College have voted to face down their principal and to stay out on strike over half term. The indefinite strike by 150 members of college lecturers' union Natfhe is a vital battle for the union, which has faced a decade of market-driven attacks in further education colleges.

TENS OF thousands of university lecturers are to strike over pay across Britain and Northern Ireland next week. On Wednesday 47,000 lecturers belonging to the AUT union in the "old" universities, those which were never polytechnics, will be out. In addition to Wednesday's strike, lecturers in Wales will also strike on Monday, in England on Tuesday, in Scotland on Thursday and in Northern Ireland on Friday.

THE NATIONAL Union of Students (NUS) has called for a national shutdown of higher education next Wednesday to coincide with the AUT lecturers' union strike next week. The shutdown is part of the NUS week of protest against government plans to impose top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year on students.

OVER 4,500 nursery nurses across Scotland have returned a magnificent 81 percent vote for indefinite strike action to win better pay through regrading. The ballot result, on a 68 percent turnout, comes after a campaign of one-day strikes stretching back to last summer.

"PEOPLE ARE raging," says civil servant Margaret Rose Garrity from Glasgow. "They want more action. We want to bring management to its knees." She summed up the spirit of the strike against poverty pay by 90,000 civil servants on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

LATER THIS month Socialist Worker is producing a special 12-page newspaper in addition to its usual weekly issue. It will mark 20 years since the Great Miners' Strike of 1984-5. It will be full of analysis, interviews and pictures of the year when the state took on the miners. It will be printed on special high quality paper and be distributed along with Socialist Worker on 25 February.

"FORD MAKES £92 million profit, and we're called greedy car workers!" Those angry words came from David Wood, one of 8,000 car workers on strike on Monday in Solihull and in Gaydon, Warwickshire. They work for Land Rover, which is owned by Ford. The multinational wants to ram through a two-year pay deal giving them less wages than workers at Ford's Jaguar plants, and worse working conditions.

OUR ALL-OUT indefinite strike to defend union rights at Leicester College is going from strength to strength. We started our strike on 2 February, and a mass meeting last week voted to stay out as long as it takes to win. Management have been trying for the last year to make us accept worse conditions. Then at Christmas they simply posted out new non-negotiated contracts, cutting holidays, pushing through Saturday working and worsening other conditions. This is union-busting as well as attacking conditions. Our strike is solid, with around two thirds of strikers attending picket lines. Management's claim that 85 percent of lessons are "running normally" does not impress students called