Strike Follow

SOME 1,000 Otis lift engineers, members of Amicus, went on strike on Friday of last week in their continuing dispute over pay. Ken Biggs, the national organiser of the lift section of the union, told Socialist Worker, "This is not just about a 1.7 percent pay deal and an extra 2.2 percent only granted by local managers after individual interviews.

SOME 59 NUT union members at Crofton School in Lewisham, south London, took strike action on Thursday of last week. They are fighting against the redundancies of three teachers on annual contracts at the school.

IT IS with great sadness that we learnt of the death of Ros Gardner, who had been suffering from a long term illness. She will be remembered by many comrades in London, Bournemouth and Southampton. She was a very committed member of the SWP and was an inspiring speaker. She was particularly active during the miners' strike and helped collect large amounts of money to keep Shirebrook, Derbyshire miners going.

LOW PAID workers at the Royal Bolton hospital are the latest group of NHS staff to strike against private NHS contractors. The 150 workers are employed by ISS Mediclean, one of the largest private cleaning firms in Britain. The ISS group raked in £200 million profit last year. Domestics (cleaning staff) get £4.47 an hour, with porters getting £4.61. They are demanding £5 and £5.60 respectively.

"MR BLAIR, we will take strike action again." This warning came from Dave Prentis last week at the conference of the Unison union. He is the general secretary of the 1.3 million strong public sector workers' union. Prentis praised the strikes the union's members have staged in the last year. He warned more would follow unless the government coughed up to tackle low pay and improve schools and hospitals.

SOME 1,000 Otis lift engineers were due to continue their strike action on Friday of this week in a dispute over pay. Otis is the world's largest manufacturer of lifts with businesses in 200 countries. Yet it imposed a 1.7 percent pay deal. Workers, who are in the Amicus union, have rejected a further 2.2 percent offer, which would only be granted by local managers based on individual interviews.

FIFTY YEARS ago, on 15 June 1953, sixty workers on a hospital building site went on strike. They were faced with a new pay deal which meant wage cuts of up to one third unless they increased output by 10 percent. The employers insisted that "productivity" must come first. A familiar enough scene, repeated time and again around the world. But this was in East Germany.

THE FIGHT against low pay by journalists reached a critical stage this week. National Union of Journalists (NUJ) union members at Bradford Newsquest were due to meet on Tuesday to decide whether to reballot for more strike action. They had been on all-out strike until Wednesday of last week.

ZIMBABWE IS in ferment after a big strike closed down much of the country's economy last week. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main parliamentary opposition to President Mugabe, called the action as an intended "final push" to bring down the government.

MASS STRIKES and protests rocked the South American country of Peru as anger exploded against the government's International Monetary Fund (IMF) backed policies. Hundreds of thousands of teachers have been on strike for four weeks demanding higher wages. They have been joined on strike and in demonstrations by students, small-scale farmers, health workers and others.

SCHOOL SUPPORT staff were on the picket line at John Scurr school in Tower Hamlets, east London, on Monday morning. They and hundreds more workers employed by local councils across London were on strike all this week as part of their continuing fight for an increase in the London weighting allowance they get for the extra costs of living and working in the capital.

THE ALL-OUT strike by journalists in Bradford was set to end on Wednesday as Socialist Worker went to press. Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have been striking against a below-inflation pay rise offered by Newsquest bosses.