Wales Follow

THERE COULD hardly be a better time for Socialist Worker to be available in universities, and soon many more students will see the paper. Over 40 WH Smith's and Menzies campus shops in England and Wales will be stocking the paper from next week, plus almost all Scottish universities.

CLEANING AND catering workers at Neath hospital in South Wales staged a one-day strike on 22 December.

OVER 430 members of the Amicus union were on strike at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, on Thursday of last week. Some 70 workers picketed the plant.

MEMBERS OF the Amicus union at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, struck for the second time on Wednesday of last week. Around 500 manual workers at the plant, which produces all of Britain's coins, are fighting for a decent pay rise.

Fresh strikes at the Royal Mint WORKERS AT the Royal Mint in South Wales are staging a series of one-day strikes over pay and have started an overtime ban. Last year workers at the Llantrisant plant endured a pay freeze and mass redundancies. They are angry that bosses have only offered a 3 percent rise this year or 9 percent over a three year-period.

FIREFIGHTERS IN Wales are threatening to walk out if Rob Rayner is sacked for supporting a demonstration against the closure of a night-time casualty unit. Rob was on "duty stand down period" when he and other firefighters visited the Prince Philip hospital, Llanelli, to show support for demonstrators.

Those fighting for justice around the world lost one of their most eloquent voices when the Palestinian writer and critic Edward W Said died last week. Said was in many ways an improbable radical. He was born in Jerusalem in 1935. His family were conservative Anglican Arabs who called him after the then Prince of Wales.

TENS OF thousands of lecturers in further education colleges across England and Wales are set to vote in the next two weeks on whether to accept a proposed pay and conditions package.

A WORKER has been killed at a South Wales steel plant after becoming trapped in a piece of machinery. David Price, aged 54, from Newport, was carrying out maintenance work at the Alpha Steel plant on Saturday when he was killed.

AROUND 70 trade unionists, activists and campaigners gathered in Wrexham, north Wales, last Saturday to discuss building a left alternative to Labour. John Marek, the independent member of the Welsh Assembly, was central to organising the meeting.

"What do we want? Shift pay! When do we want it? Now!" These chants echoed round a small North Wales town last Sunday as workers from Ifor Williams Trailers continued their battle for night shift pay and other improvements.

Huw Williams Blackwood, Wales