Strike Follow

SOME 80 people attended a conference in Manchester organised by the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs on Saturday. The morning session was boosted by about 200 firefighters who turned up for what was billed as a rally in support of their strike.

STRIKING HEALTH workers at the Glasgow North Health Trust trust returned to work on Monday of this week after over three weeks of unofficial action. The low paid admin and clerical workers voted overwhelmingly to end their indefinite strike at a mass meeting.

"THIS IS a strike you can't win." That was Tony Blair's message to the firefighters this week. And the Sun pushed the same argument. No one should fall for this bluster. Blair may want to present a tough image. But in reality his government is totally split over the firefighters.

HARDER, MORE determined, and disgusted with John Prescott, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. That was the mood among 52,000 firefighters and control room staff as they learned that the government had scuppered negotiations and forced them into an eight-day strike.

I HAVE been watching the troops running Green Goddesses during the firefighters' strike. I used to be a squaddie many years ago. In 1975 the Labour government faced a strike over pay by dust workers in Glasgow.

ON THE same day as the firefighters' eight-day strike started, over 300 health workers at the Glasgow North Health Trust voted to continue their unofficial strike action. The strikers' mood was determined and defiant. One striker said, "We struck for a decent pay rise for all, and we shouldn't return until we get it."

OUR RECENT strike action has had an effect. At the conference of the Association of Colleges last Tuesday the education secretary, Charles Clarke, announced new government funding of £1.2 billion over a three-year period.

WORKERS IN the Amicus-AEEU union working at the press and paintline section members at Raven Manufacturing near Burnley have now entered their ninth week of selective strike action for a 3 percent pay claim.

THE TWO-day firefighters' strike last week, and the support it got, rattled the government. Large sections of the capital's tube system shut during the strike when workers took impressive action over health and safety (see below). The strike also transformed the 55,000 members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist told over 600 people at a fundraising gig in west London on Friday of last week that his tour of mass meetings showed a deepening confidence among firefighters that they will win.

A WAVE of support and solidarity greeted firefighters and emergency control room staff from the minute they walked out the door. "The vast majority of our people have never been on strike before," Tam McFarlane, secretary of the south west England region of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), told Socialist Worker. "The support they have got from other trade unionists and the public has been just overwhelming. And we are talking about areas like Somerset, Cornwall and Devon. It's given them confidence to stand up to the press attacks. No one in the fire service wants to be on strike. But the solidarity we are getting convinces us we are right to take this difficult step, and that we will w

THE FIREFIGHTERS' strike dominates the headlines and causes something approaching panic in New Labour leaders and hysteria in the right wing press. Two arguments in particular are launched against the strikers from inside the labour movement. From the right comes the view of New Labour's favourite (and knighted) professor, George Bain.

A STRIKE often brings out the best in working class people. It always brings out the worst from the rich who run the media. The handful of men who control most newspapers and TV stations hate strikes and strikers. They unleash every lie, every bit of filth, to try and demoralise strikers and turn other people against them.