Strike Follow

Around 3,000 Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) workers in the PCS civil servants' union went on strike on Wednesday and Thursday of last week over pay. Picket lines sprang up across England and Wales after management tried to impose a deal workers had rejected by 82 percent in a ballot.

Royal Mail workers should vote no to the 3.2 percent pay deal recommended by the majority of the CWU union's postal executive. After months of negotiations Post Office bosses conceded a further 0.1 percent at the last moment. This was enough for the union's leaders to halt plans for a strike ballot.

Hackney Council Workers in Hackney, east London, will strike next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in a crucial dispute over the ruling group's plans for cuts and privatisation. The Labour-Tory coalition "structural adjustment plans" mean cutting £50 million over the next three years. Hundreds of jobs will go and services will be handed over to private firms.

"We'Vve given up a chance to stop a maverick chief officer trampling all over us." So said a Merseyside firefighter after the Fire Brigades Union accepted a poor deal rather than act on last week's vote for a strike. There will be "talks" over the number of control room staff, and a "review" of cuts in the number of appliances responding to automatic calls. A majority of FBU branches, 19 to six, reluctantly voted for the deal under pressure from FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist, and regional and brigade officials.

The threat of strike action has forced Arriva to offer bus drivers in Wycombe a 7.8 percent pay rise and an hour cut in the working week. The 120 drivers, members of the TGWU union, had voted by 69 percent to strike unless they got a decent rise.

Workers in the French port of Calais have shown exactly how to take on a multinational. Hundreds of workers at the Lu biscuit factory walked out on strike last week after the giant food multinational Danone announced it wanted to shut the plant. The workers were still out on strike this week, and a strike across Danone in France was planned for Thursday. Danone is a multinational company that produces drinks, yoghurt and other dairy products, and biscuits.

The internet is a curious and contradictory thing. A sign of the times in France is a useful website called lesgreves.com (strikes.com), which gives a detailed and long list of strikes taking place each day around the country. The main sponsor on last week's home page was Opel. Opel is the German subsidiary of the giant General Motors car firm. Hopefully the firm will feature in a different way in a round-up of strike reports later this month when workers across Europe join a day of action against GM.

"The strike at Dudley hospitals is one of the longest running disputes in the history of the NHS. It shows the determination of the workers involved, and the support they are winning is extremely exciting." That is how journalist and campaigner George Monbiot described the strike by 600 ancillary workers in Dudley in the West Midlands.

Firefighters and control room staff on Merseyside have voted by two to one for strike action to defend the service from life-threatening cuts. Fire Brigades Union branches were discussing a revised offer from management this week.

Lecturers at Coatbridge College, members of the EIS-CLA (College Lecturers Association), were to strike on Tuesday and Thursday this week over pay. The action follows two one-day strikes before Christmas. Lecturers at the college have not received a pay rise since 1998. Coatbridge is the only college in Scotland not to have settled its lecturers' pay claim for 1999-2000.

Royal Mail workers were poised to begin a national ballot over pay as Socialist Worker went to press. Union negotiators met with management for last-ditch talks on Tuesday. Unless these produced real improvements in the existing offer union leaders had pledged to start a strike vote.

Around 2,700 members of the PCS civil servants' union who work in the Crown Prosecution Service were due to strike across England and Wales on Wednesday and Thursday over pay. Around 700 workers in the service have joined the union over the last few months.