Wales Follow

DRIVERS ON English Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) struck solidly last Saturday and plan another strike this Saturday. They run freight trains and are members of the Aslef union. EWS drivers are demanding what they have been campaigning for over the last three years-a proper pay rise, a 35- hour week, all of pay to count towards pensions, and a maximum ten-hour day.

TRAIN DRIVERS working for freight company English Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) plan to strike this Saturday and three subsequent Saturdays. We have become increasingly angry at management's refusal to hold proper talks about pay, the implementation of a 35-hour week, and pensions. At present EWS drivers are on the lowest rates for any rail company.

AROUND 2,500 train drivers working for the freight company English Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) are to strike over pay and hours. They include workers who have recently blocked ammunition trains in Scotland. The workers are members of Aslef and voted overwhelmingly for action in a ballot. Strikes have been set for four Saturdays-1,8,15,22 February.

PROBATION OFFICERS in England and Wales are set to take a one-day strike on Wednesday 29 January. This comes after an overwhelming vote for industrial action by members of the Napo union.

SACKED WORKERS from Friction Dynamics have won a victory at an industrial tribunal. The tribunal ruled that the 86 workers were unfairly sacked from the North Wales factory eight weeks after going on strike against a 15 percent wage cut. The workers have maintained 24-hour picket lines for the 18 months since they were sacked.

THERE WAS a highly successful strike of lecturers in the Natfhe and ATL unions, and college workers in the Unison union across England and Wales on Tuesday of last week. Socialist Worker received reports from a number of colleges that we couldn't fit in last week:

WORKERS IN Rhyl in North Wales ended their six-day occupation of their factory on Tuesday of last week. The 35 women workers sat-in at the Fineline Cymru factory after it was placed into receivership. The company announced that all the workers would be sacked, and refused to pay the women wages owed to them.

WORKERS AT a swimwear factory in North Wales began an occupation last week in protest at the company's refusal to pay wages owed to them. The mainly women workers are fighting Fineline Cymru in Rhyl. Elaine Round is one of 30 workers who began the occupation on Thursday of last week.

SOLDIERS ON standby to scab on striking firefighters had to be rescued from a blaze last week by the workers they are supposed to replace. The Princess of Wales Royal Regiment was forced to call its local brigade when a fire started in the barracks.

A TRIBUNAL in Liverpool into the unfair dismissal claim of John Davis is continuing. John is one of the 87 Friction Dynamics TGWU union workers from North Wales who were sacked after taking eight weeks strike action.

Ten years on, the characters from Trainspotting have returned, this time to make a porn movie. Irvine Welsh sets up a series of neatly timed coincidences to bring them back to Edinburgh along with a new character, the beautiful but bulimic student Nikki Fuller-Smith.

STRIKING WORKERS who were sacked by their millionaire boss took their case to an industrial tribunal last week. The 87 workers were employed at the Friction Dynamics car components factory in Caernarfon, North Wales. They went on strike in April 2001 when boss Craig Smith imposed a 15 percent pay cut.