Divers come up for pay rise
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
On the tenth day of their solid strike last month – and quite prepared for lengthy action – divers in the North Sea oil and gas industry have settled their dispute with the seven companies involved. They have achieved a greatly improved offer after a two-stage struggle, the first of which was reported in the November issue of Workers.
...[more]
Yes vote on NHS pensions
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
UNISON members working in the health service have voted to accept proposals for a new pension scheme in the NHS. The new scheme is the result of 3 years negotiation between NHS trade unions and the government, and is endorsed by the unions. Of those who voted, 95 per cent were in favour of the proposals, supporting the recommendations of their negotiators.
...[more]
Revolt in national newspapers
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
BATTLES are erupting all over national newspapers as companies desperate to suck more and more profits from the industry are being met by a resurgent National Union of Journalists. The focus for the fights is the new buzzword, "integration" – the term used for getting print journalists to become multiskilled and write also for the web as well as do video, photography and podcasts.
...[more]
News Analysis - The cost of the 'war on terror'
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
The US and British states are using 60,000 mercenaries in Iraq, described by US senators as the 'largest private army in the world'. They have so far cost more than $1 billion. The Bush and Blair governments protect them from any regulation, encouraging them to commit abuses. There are almost 21,000 British 'private security guards' in Iraq, three times the number of British troops. These 'security' companies are making vast amounts of money from the war. Aegis Defence Services (UK), for example, increased its turnover from £554,000 before the war to £62 million last year.
...[more]
Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
Glenys Kinnock, champion of the Third World poor, is to lead 70 members of the European Parliament and 84 EU officials to a Barbados resort for a conference on deprivation. This assembly meets twice a year, and is famed for its lavish hospitality. The five-day trip will cost taxpayers more than £200,000.
...[more]
Food - jobs go to Thailand
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
In a crazy act of globalisation, hundreds of tonnes of fresh langoustines are to be sent annually on a 12,000-mile round trip from Scotland to Thailand for hand-shelling by cheap labour, resulting in the loss of 120 processing workers' jobs in Annan, in Dumfries and Galloway.
...[more]
Employment - record low for manufacturing
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
Unemployment has reached its highest level since 2000, at 5.6 per cent on the International Labour Office measure. The number of manufacturing jobs fell by 77,000 to just three million, its lowest since records began in 1841.
...[view]
Universities - Strike ballot at Middlesex
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
MIDDLESEX University teachers are making progress in a bitter pay battle.
...[more]
Shipbuilding - EU rules strangle the Clyde
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
The deliberate neglect of shipbuilding strategy in the face of EU-wide compulsory tendering and procurement rules has forced the last remaining independent commercial shipbuilder on the River Clyde into its third year of severe losses and lack of orders. Last year the Scottish Executive colluded in the loss of Ferguson Marine's contracts to a cheaper Polish shipyard in Gdansk (where is Solidarnosc now?).
...[more]
Health - Pay fight moves to Moorfields
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
Following the success at Whipps Cross Hospital against the hospital trust and Initial Hospital Services, Unison health workers in London are now targeting Initial staff at Moorfields Eye Hospital.
...[more]
Science - Fight for physics at Reading
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
As Workers went to press, pressure was building to save the physics department at Reading University. The students at Reading and the lecturers' union UCU have been fighting the proposed closure at a local and national level.
...[more]
Cuba - 50th anniversary of landing
[WORKERS, DEC 2006]
THIS MONTH marks the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Granma, the yacht carrying Cuban revolutionaries from their base in Mexico to the Sierra Maestra mountains in eastern Cuba on 2 December 1956. Just over two years later, they entered Havana.
...[more]
Huge Iraq death toll found
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
The medical journal Lancet has published research by a team from Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, in the US, which shows that far more Iraqis have been killed since the invasion than Bush or Blair acknowledge (Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey, by Professor Gilbert Burnham, Professor Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy and Les Roberts).
...[more]
Victory sealed at Whipps X
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
Successful negotiations by Unison organisers following on the 8 days of strike action over the summer have seen the conclusion of the Whipps Cross Hospital dispute in London. The unified membership has delivered the goal of the dispute – the implementation of the 2003 Agenda for Change local agreement. They have increased Unison membership to more than 98 per cent among the cleaners, porters, catering and switchboard staff.
...[more]
Bomb test sends shock waves
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Central News Agency announced on 9 October that it had successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions. It came, said the announcement, "at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation".
...[more]
News Analysis: White House - torture centre
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
The USA continues to run a global system of secret CIA prisons that have operated, on executive authority, since the start of the war on terror. And it has fought in courts and Congress to preserve executive prerogatives of arbitrary arrest, unrestrained interrogation, and endless incarceration.
...[more]
Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
The constitution they can't forget. Germany wants a road map in place by the end of its EU Presidency next summer, with implementation before the next EU election in 2009. Foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmer said, "...we urgently need it, everyone has to move their position."
...[more]
Economy - Unemployment increasing
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
The Office for National Statistics reports that unemployment is at its highest for seven years, up by 19.3 per cent this year to 1.7 million, 5.5 per cent of the population. The unemployment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds rose to 12.7 per cent
...[more]
Energy - Divers win large rise
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
North Sea divers have won a large pay offer after voting 640 to 2 to reject a 15 per cent offer spread over three years. Strike action by more than 800 divers and support crews was planned to take place from 1 November.
...[more]
Water - Thames Water sold again
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
Thames Water (until October owned by the German company RWE) has been sold again, this time to Australian bankers Macquarie for £8 billion. It's clearly big business, profiting from people's need for clean water.
...[more]
Motor Industry - Ryton closure moved forward
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
Peugeot-Citroen's Ryton car plant in Coventry is to close in January 2007. The closure decision has been brought forward by six months and follows the vote by Ryton workers not to resist job losses and closure.
...[more]
Transport - Threat to canals
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
The government has cut £9.1 million from the budget of British Waterways, the public corporation responsible for Britain's 2200 miles of navigable canals and rivers.
...[more]
Transport - Thames boatmen step up fight
[WORKERS, NOV 2006]
Following on their lobby of the House of Commons in August over threats to safety on the River Thames, Thames boatmen stepped up their campaign on 17 October. A large passenger boat with banners, Thames skippers, crews, health and safety campaigners and trade unionists brought the campaign noisily to the river side of the Commons.
...[more]
No safety in capitalist war
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
The US-led war in Iraq has not made the world any safer. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, "I cannot say the world is safer when you consider the violence around us, when you look around you and see the terrorist attacks around the world and you see what is going on in Iraq."
...[more]
Victory close at Whipps X
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
The ongoing Unison dispute at Whipps Cross Hospital, North East London, now enters a new stage. After eight days of hugely effective strike action, negotiators have achieved almost 99 per cent of the union's demands.
...[more]
Bush raises tension over Iran
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
Bush is ratcheting up the US drive to war against Iran. Responding to a question on Iran, he said on 12 September, "It's very important for the American people to see the president try to solve problems diplomatically before resorting to military force." The word "before" implies that the one follows the other.
...[more]
News Analysis - Israel's attacks on Gaza and Lebanon
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
The brutal Israeli blockade of Gaza's 1.3 million people continues. Since 27 June, Israeli forces have been attacking and re-occupying Gaza. They have killed more than 260 Palestinians, including 64 children and 26 women. 1,200 Palestinians have been injured. One Israeli soldier has been killed and 26 injured.
...[more]
Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
Bulgaria and Romania join the EU next year. There is debate about whether people from those countries should be allowed to work in Britain immediately.
...[more]
Unemployment - Highest since 2000
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
Unemployment rose by 93,000 between May and July to 1.7 million, its highest level since 2000, according to the 13 September report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Yet Blair told the TUC on 12 September: "Tomorrow I think we will probably see – for the first time in some months – a fall again in unemployment, which is very, very welcome indeed."
...[more]
North Sea - Divers reject pay offer
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
By a vote of 640 to 2, North Sea Divers, members of the RMT trade union, have rejected a 15 per cent pay offer spread over three years. The divers, employed in the oil and gas exploration industries, are expected to move to strike action shortly.
...[more]
Privatisation - Portrait of a borough
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
NORTH LONDON borough Enfield is reeling under the effects of privatisation.
...[more]
NHS Logistics battle
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
The provocative decision by the government to privatise NHS Logistics, the hugely successful and income generating NHS in-house agency has, in the face of government refusal to reconsider, resulted in industrial action in September.
...[more]
Energy - Green Reaction
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
The generally tranquil countryside around Selby in Yorkshire was rudely disturbed for a week at the end of August, when hundreds of self styled "climate change activists" assembled and prepared for a day of action aimed at shutting down the mighty Drax power station.
...[more]
Taxation - EU-enabled VAT fraud
[WORKERS, OCT 2006]
BBC PANORAMA says that VAT criminal fraud costs Britain £5 billion a year.
...[more]
Hospital strikes continue
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
SOME 270 Initial Hospital Services staff employed at Whipps Cross NHS Trust, North East London, all Unison members, were set take a further three days strike action during the August Bank Holiday week as Workers went to press. These will follow on from the five strike days already taken since 21 July.
...[more]
Bush, Blair and Israel
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
Since 27 June, when the Israeli government started its brutal attack on Gaza, its forces have killed more than 140 innocent civilians (as Workers went to press). They have destroyed bridges, water and fuel pipes and the territory's only power station, cutting off water, fuel and electricity to the 1.4 million residents. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared, "I want nobody to sleep at night in Gaza." They have arrested a third of the government and 36 members of the Palestinian parliament and forced the rest of the government into hiding. They bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry for proposing negotiations.
...[more]
US firms stream into Serbia
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
Just in case you were in any doubt why back in 1999 a US-led NATO force bombed Yugoslavia (by then only Serbia and Montenegro) into submission, consider that by 2003, the US had become the top investor in Serbia.
...[more]
News Analysis - The ruin of Eastern Europe
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
Why are workers from Eastern Europe choosing to leave home and travel to Britain to find work, where they know little of the language? A recent World Bank report, "Enhancing Job Opportunities in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union", shows that unemployment there is high and rising. It was 9.4% in 1995, 9.4% in 2004 and 9.7% in 2005 – leading to a huge exodus of their young people.
...[more]
Extradition - The NatWest Three
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
The extradition of the three bankers – The NatWest Three – to the United States under the 2003 fast track Extradition Act, legislation not ratified by the US and where the US does not even have to present a prima facie case in a UK court, has raised major questions about civil liberties in Britain.
...[more]
Pay - Snouts in the trough
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
Directors' pay has risen by 20 per cent a year, unrelated to company performance. Meanwhile, City bonuses this year are topping £19 billion. No wonder Britain has 280,000 accountants, more than the rest of Europe put together.
...[alone]
Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced plans to abolish the national veto over criminal justice and policing. In response, the Blair government has not uttered a word against the proposals.
...[more]
European Union - Thames safety in balance
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
Another EU Directive, scheduled to be introduced in January 2007, will halve the qualifications, qualifying period, training required and training available to qualify for a Masters licence to captain craft on the River Thames.
...[more]
Universities - Middlesex invokes 'get out'
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
Although the lecturers union UCU has agreed a settlement in its national dispute over pay, at least one employer, Middlesex University, has announced its intention to use the employers' "get out" clause.
...[more]
National Bargaining - Threat to agreement
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
Gordon Brown's speech at the Mansion House in July called for an end to national bargaining. Now Ineos, Britain's largest privately owned company and the third largest chemical company in the world, has given notice that either the National Agreement for the Engineering and Construction Industries (NAECI) changes or they withdraw.
...[more]
Migration - Poles call for return
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
In 2001, 50,000 British citizens emigrated. Last year the figure was 120,000. Also last year, 340,000 people moved into the country.
...[more]
Countryside - Attack on Yorkshire Dales
[WORKERS, SEPT 2006]
A bill slowly edging its way through Parliament is an EU inspired piece of legislation which will change the face of the Yorkshire Dales forever. The Commons Bill aims to change the use of common grazing land and replace farming with conservation stewardship. Hill farmers will become park keepers and sheep grazing will disappear after a legacy of 1,000 years.
...[more]
Vote seals Ryton's fate
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
The rejection by the Peugeot workers at Ryton in Coventry of a campaign to defend their jobs by 847 votes to 640 votes, in a high return of 72% of the workforce, effectively sees the closure of the Ryton plant in Coventry.
...[more]
NI unions fight school cuts
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
Yet again unions in Northern Ireland have acted to fight cuts in education provision. In the latest action, hundreds of workers joined a mass lobby of the South Eastern Education and Library Board at the start of June as it was meeting to discuss proposed cuts to many services for pupils with special needs.
...[more]
East London NHS battle
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
AROUND 250 cleaning and domestic UNISON members at Whipps Cross NHS Trust, North East London, are balloting for strike action after both the private contractors, Initial Cleaning and the trust reneged on a 2003 agreement over pay and conditions.
...[more]
News Analysis - Defeat for attempted regionalisation of Britain's police forces
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
Government attempts to reduce 43 area police forces into 17 large regions have been put on hold. In the face of hostility from senior police officers, police authorities, councils, and local people in referendums, Home Secretary John Reid had to announce the climbdown after a "confidential" report leaked to the Daily Telegraph exposed the costs of mergers.
...[more]
Eurotrash - The latests from Brussels
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
European Union leaders will try to resurrect the Constitution in the next two years. Blair's spokesman said that the UK government is "perfectly happy" with this: it is also planning to break its promise to hold a referendum on the Constitution.
...[more]
Rolls-Royce - Importing labour into Britain
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
Since May 2004, according to official figures, 392,000 people from the Eastern European member countries of the EU have applied to move to Britain. The numbers are rising: 45,660 applied in the first quarter of this year, up 6% on 2005's first quarter figure. The Bank of England noted approvingly, "[The] rise in labour supply has probably helped to hold down the rate of wage growth and inflation."
...[more]
Food Manufacture - Heinz outsources sauces
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
Over 125 jobs at the Heinz sauce factory in Birmingham are set to be axed as production is shifted to Heinz's Holland factories. The Birmingham factory has been in production for over 100 years. Heinz's latest advertising campaign boasts "every Heinz tomato knows where it comes from". Trade unionists campaigning to save the factory are demanding that every customer knows where every Heinz sauce bottle comes from and if it is not made and bottled in the UK – boycott it.
...[alone]
Transport - DLR wage cut fight
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
SOME 250 Docklands Light Railway RMT members in London are balloting against wage cuts. DLR is planning to reduce junior station staff wages from £28,000 to £25,500.
...[more]
Brewing...or is it now just property
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
Young's has announced the closure of the Wandsworth Brewery, London, to take effect next year.The production of its Bitter, Special Ale and other bottled beers is to be transferred to the Charles Wells Brewery in Bedford and a new company, Wells and Young's, is to be created.
...[more]
Retail - ASDA/Wal-Mart under attack
[WORKERS, JULY 2006]
THE 4300 GMB members employed by ASDA are moving closer to action after a 3 to 1 vote for strikes at depots and distribution centres across Britain as ASDA continues to refuse recognition and negotiating rights. As Workers went to press, the Shop Stewards National Council, meeting in Manchester, set the first strike days for 30 June to 4 July.
...[more]
Ellesmere Port faces GM axe
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
Nine hundred jobs are set to go at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant – a third of the workforce. The sight of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling going cap in hand to General Motors pleading for a future was pathetic. If they had not entrenched themselves in the European Union, had not reinforced and kept in place the Thatcher anti-union legislation and had not overseen the destruction of British manufacturing at an accelerated rate during the past nine years, then they may have had harsher words for General Motors. Instead they whinge and grovel.
...[more]
Crisis stalks mining industry
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
While Blair makes friendly noises towards nuclear generation, the coal industry staggers from crisis to crisis. On the one hand mothballed Hatfield Main is set to be re-opened by Powerfuel, headed up by Richard Budge (formerly of UK Coal) and attracting over £800 million of Russian investment, and employing 350 miners. The target here is 100 million tonnes of coal reserves. In addition to re-opening the pit Budge is planning a clean-coal power station, meeting targets for CO2 global emissions.
...[more]
People's trade deal signed
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba signed a People's Trade Agreement in Havana on 29 April. This followed Bolivia's formal accession to ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative Trade Area (alternative to the US sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas). The agreement covers cooperation and trade in a number of areas and recognises Bolivia's need for economic support due, in part, to the effects of US free trade agreements with Peru and Colombia that have taken markets away from Bolivia. The agreement is based on the principles of mutual cooperation and solidarity rather than free markets.
...[more]
News Analysis - Adding Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
As the scale of the influx of cheap labour following the gobbling up of eight eastern European countries plus Cyprus and Malta becomes clear, the EU Commission is to admit at least another two countries from 1 January 2007. Bulgaria, a byword for corruption and organised crime, will join Romania, slightly less of a basket case, in gaining admittance to the European Union.
...[more]
Eurotrash - the latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that next year's German Presidency of the European Union would focus on reviving the EU Constitution. She said, "I absolutely want this constitutional treaty...the German government wants the Constitution."
...[more]
Pensions - Back to the table
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
After the successful one-day national stoppage on 28 March by members of the Local Government Pension Scheme, involving over a million workers, all has fallen quiet after the promise of further negotiations.
...[more]
Motor Industry - £10 gap enough to close Ryton
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
IT HAS emerged that of the three Peugeot factories making the 207 model, the threatened Ryton plant is the second most productive, turning out 67 vehicles a day compared with 69 from the Spanish plant at Vigo and 54 at Poissy in France.
...[more]
Energy - Power station up for auction
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
A small coal-fired power station, refurbished with gas desulphurisation plant, meeting international emissions standards and with a productive life expectancy of 25 years, is expected to sell for over £120 million at auction.
...[more]
PFI - The robbery continues
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
Private Finance Initiative schemes continue to demonstrate greed and outright daylight robbery by the companies involved. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, reviewing the operation of the PFI consortium managing the Norfolk and Norwich NHS Hospital Trust, choicely referred to how "investors" increased their rate of return from 16% to 60%.
...[more]
Health - Primary care trusts hit
[WORKERS, JUNE 2006]
The NHS faces its 21st reorganisation in as many years. From 1 October 2006 the number of Primary Care Trusts will be reduced from 303 to 152. At the same time, 900 seats on the boards of PCTs are being created (and with them, interesting prospects for patronage).
...[more]
Coventry faces Peugeot axe
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
Coventry has been one of Britain's foremost engineering and manufacturing based cities. In the early 1980s one in eight of the workers in the city had an engineering qualification and most people were involved with making things.
...[more]
Airbus sale threat to industry
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
Soon a brand new Airbus A380 will touch down on its first flight into Heathrow. No doubt there will be celebrations and champagne – after all, the aircraft is worth celebrating. Although constructed through European cooperation, half of the A380 by value is made in Britain. The wings come from Airbus's main UK plant at Broughton, North Wales, and the engines are built by Rolls-Royce at Derby. And every British worker helped to fund its launch through taxation – the government provided a £530 million grant to get it off the ground.
...[more]
Miners challenge over claims
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
The Law Society is facing a challenge from the Legal Services Ombudsman over the handling of miners' compensation claims. The Law Society has been found to have "failed to act in an impartial manner" in dealing with complaints by miners against the solicitors representing them over "inadequate professional service". These cases which are estimated to run into millions of pounds of compensation against the legal firms involved are a direct legacy of the aftermath of the 1984-85 Miners Strike.
...[more]
The King's Cross land grab
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
St Pancras International is due to open in 2007 – the London terminus of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, incorporating the adjoining King's Cross Station. Works at King's Cross will continue until 2015. It offers the opportunity to redevelop the 67-acre site behind the station, the last large open space left for redevelopment in Central London. It is Europe's biggest construction project, and the site of an attempted land grab that will devastate local communities and tenants.
...[more]
Eurotrash - the latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
When Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was in Britain to promote his book, United States of Europe, he said, "Every European poll has shown that a clear majority of Europeans backs further integration." He went on, "I believe that the citizens' doubts and uncertainty, as for example reflected in the two referendums, actually constitute a plea for more Europe, a strong Europe, and not for less Europe."
...[more]
European Union - Lying again
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
The 2005 UK Balance of Payments Pink Book says that our total net contribution to all EU institutions from 2000 to 2004 was £23 billion, i.e. £4.6 billion a year. Ignoring this, government figures only show our net contribution to the EU budget (excluding direct contributions to EU institutions), which was £13.9 billion from 2000 to 2004, i.e. £2.8 billion a year.
...[more]
Health Service - Squeeze on student midwives
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
The Royal College of Midwives has said, in its evidence to the pay review body, that one in five student midwives do not finish their training. One of the major reasons for this is the paltry level of bursaries awarded. The RCM is calling for a new level of £10,000, so training can be completed.
...[more]
Army - Court martial tragedy
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
A court martial panel has sentenced Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith to eight months in jail for refusing to serve in Iraq. The panel said that Kendall-Smith could not "pick and choose" which orders he obeyed.
...[more]
Probation Service - Ministers back off...a little
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
Faced with massive criticism and opposition to privatisation proposals for the Probation Service, the Home Secretary has backed off for the immediate future. Proposals to place the service in the hands of private companies and voluntary organisations have been shelved for 18 months while a "rigorous performance assessment" is carried out across the 42 probation authorities in England and Wales.
...[more]
Terrorism Laws - Arrest 'conspicuously unfair'
[WORKERS, MAY 2006]
The High Court has ruled that the Home Secretary's decision to arrest a British terror suspect and then subject his movement to strict controls was "conspicuously unfair". The Home Secretary had acted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which gives him the power to impose control orders on all terror suspects without charge or trial.
...[more]
Lecturers on the picket line
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
The one-day strike by university lecturers on 7 March was of particular significance in Leeds as members of the AUT and Natfhe picketed their respective universities in the city and then came together for a joint rally. It was the first day of a concerted campaign by both unions to secure a decent pay rate for jobs that are becoming increasingly demanding and stressful.
...[more]
Unemployment shoots up
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
The latest unemployment figures show the sharpest rise in people out of work – however defined – since 1992. In February, an extra 14,400 people were added to the government's restrictive definition of unemployment, those receiving unemployment benefit. That took the total to 919,700. By the government's other measure, the Labour Force Survey, the figure shot up by 37,000 to 1.53 million, or 5% of the workforce. As ever, jobs in manufacturing continue to be destroyed at a rapid rate: 98,000 in the past year.
...[more]
Motor firms march East
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
The transfer of vehicle production from the US, Western Europe and the UK to Eastern Europe and Asia seems set to accelerate. As much as the "free movement of labour" from Eastern Europe into Western Europe and specifically the UK is about driving down wages here, the transfer of production to the East is about exploiting cheap labour, production and raw materials there.
...[more]
Academics fight for pay
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
On 7 March members of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (Natfhe) and the Association of University Teachers (AUT) went on strike as an opening salvo of a national campaign to improve the pay of lecturing staff in higher education. At universities across England and Wales most classes were cancelled as the action took effect and picket lines were put up.
...[more]
Physiotherapy – Trained but no jobs
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
Almost half the physiotherapy graduates of 2004 had not attained jobs by the end of 2005, according to a survey reported in the International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation and carried out by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists. It showed that 25% had jobs by June, and still only 53% had employment by the start of 2006. By June 90% had applied for jobs as junior physiotherapists, and most of the rest intended to apply over the summer months.
...[more]
Education – No thanks to God
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
Northcliffe School in Conisbrough, South Yorkshire has good cause for celebration, having come out of "special measures". Targeted to become one of the new academies in 2004 and destined to fall under the aegis of religious fundamentalists, the school and its community fought to remain a council-maintained school providing a modern, British secular curriculum.
...[more]
Eurotrash – The latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
French president Jacques Chirac wants "to help restore the confidence of the French people in the EU" after they, and the Netherlands, rejected the EU constitution last year by creating an EU President and foreign minister, a European border guard and an EU energy policy. All were in the rejected Constitution!
...[more]
Education – Blair has his bill but...
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
Blair's success in getting his Education Bill through its second reading with the help of Tory votes has at least achieved two positive outcomes.
...[more]
NHS – Another plum for privatisation
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
After sneaking through the privatisation of oxygen supplies to patients at Christmas 2005 (which only became newsworthy when patients started dying in February), the government has now announced its privatisation proposals for NHS Logistics, which supplies the NHS, stocking over 42,000 products and fulfilling over 30 million orders a year.
...[more]
Science – Marching for progress
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
The "Pro Test" demonstration that took place in Oxford last month gave supporters of scientific advance a chance to voice their opinions publicly and defend research into the causes and cures of cancer, heart disease, and other killer diseases. Hundreds of people were involved in the march which was the first of its kind. Banners and placards proclaimed "Animal testing saves lives."
...[more]
Youth Service – Fighting the Liverpool cuts
[WORKERS, APR 2006]
Liverpool youth workers in the Community and Youth Workers Union (CYWU), supported by Unison, the NUT and T&G, livened up the city centre on 11 March with a march led off by a 30 piece Samba band. The march was joined by CYWU members from all over the country and by parents and young people.
...[more]
County councils to be axed?
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
JUST AS THEY did in Dunfermline last month, Labour's hugely unpopular policies on issues such as health, education and Iraq will lead to a disastrous showing in the forthcoming local elections in May, when all council seats in London are up for grabs. Labour currently controls the Association of Local Government by one seat. While Labour propaganda implies this will be converted into a handsome majority (which ignores their plummeting vote in recent Greater London Authority, national and MEP elections), more sinister plans are in train.
...[more]
Northampton fights youth cuts
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
The new Tory County Council in Northamptonshire is driving through huge cuts in services, which could result in over 1,000 jobs going, as well as the whole of the youth service, a respite care home, posts which support children with special needs in schools and residential homes for the elderly. Unions and user groups around the county have been mobilising for a series of protests since Christmas, and have succeeded in saving some services.
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NHS faces PFI debacle
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
The disaster of the Private Finance Initiative in the NHS is epitomised by a series of failed schemes in London and the sinking of a central plank of government dogma. The abandonment of the £1.1 billion rebuilding scheme at Barts and the Royal London Hospital will cost the NHS £100 million in consultancy fees. The government was aware of the soaring costs and impossibility of the NHS meeting the financial returns criteria as early as September 2003 but hid the report. Barts, which has been underfunded for decades, now faces increased uncertainty over its future as the government dithers, and costs rise by £600,000 a day because contractors are still being paid to turn up.
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Guides challenge TUC on freedom of movement
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
The Association of Professional Tourist Guides (APTG), London members of Amicus, will be urging the union to intervene directly in support of their fight for standards, at their Regional Sector Conference in March. They will be calling for legislative change which will effectively protect professional standards and qualifications.
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Army – Three-year missions
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
The government is starting the deployment of 3,300 British troops on three-year missions to Afghanistan. There are 893 already in the country, and the government intends to increase the British forces there to 5,700 troops, at a cost of £1 billion.
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Retail – ASDA fined over union rights
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
ASDA Wal-Mart, the US supermarket conglomerate and rabidly anti-trade union company, has been fined over £850,000 for breaking employment rights legislation. Attempts by ASDA Wal-Mart to bribe and then force 340 GMB members in Washington, County Durham, to sell their trade union membership, backfired dramatically. Compensation of £2,500 was awarded to each worker involved in the case, with the GMB then going on to win a further 5% pay award.
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Eurotrash – the latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
The European Commission is again urging member states to open up their borders to workers from the 'new' EU members as a way to bolster their economies.
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Motors – Job cuts from Ford
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
Ford has announced job cuts of 30,000 and the closure of 14 plants in the USA. This is a 27% reduction in production. Ford posted a profit, but only from subsidiaries and non-manufacturing sources. Chrysler, recently bought by the German firm Daimler, is to cut 6,000 jobs. General Motors posted an $8.6 billion loss.
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Postal Workers – Support for Belfast strike
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
Belfast Trades Council organised a rally in the City Centre on 14 February in support of 800 postal workers on strike for more than two weeks.
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Professions – Keeping control
[WORKERS, MAR 2006]
Last year, professional associations representing nurses, doctors, pharmacists, vets, various therapists, architects, lawyers, tourist guides, and many others, forced the European Commission to "allow" national governments to determine the level of qualifications of what the EU calls "migrant professionals" (incoming professionals crossing into another country to work). This amendment to the main services directive is called the Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive.
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Cross-border anti-EU talks
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
French leaders of the successful anti-EU Constitution campaign in France met recently with the leadership of Trade Unionists Against the European Constitution (TUAEUC) and the Campaign Against Euro Federalism and Centre for a Social Europe in January in order to increase cross-border cooperation in the anti-EU struggle.
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Port liberalisation defeated
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
The European Parliament has rejected the European Commission's controversial plans to liberalise port services, after thousands of dock workers across Europe went on strike on 11 January to protest against the proposals. Some 40,000 people were involved in the strike across 12 countries, including 4,500 port workers in Germany. Hamburg saw the largest strike when between 2,000 and 3,000 workers took part in the 24-hour protest.
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Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
The European Parliament has overwhelmingly rejected the EU budget deal negotiated by Blair and other EU leaders in December. But, characteristically, MEPs said that the current budget deal is "unacceptably low"! Last year, the Parliament proposed a budget of 975 billion euros, much higher than the 862 billion euros agreed in December. A new draft budget is expected by mid-February.
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Teachers fight pay cuts
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
On 19 January NUT members at Plumstead Manor School in South London went on strike for the second time in their fight against changes to the management structure. Like all schools in England they have been forced by government to make changes to the payment of management allowances, changes that for many teachers will mean a pay cut.
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News Analysis - The criminal war in Iraq
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
The US wants to cut its troop numbers in Iraq from 150,000 to fewer than 100,000 by the end of 2006. The Blair government wants to cut its troop numbers from 8,500 to 3,500. But they do not intend to leave Iraq. A paper in the US state-inspired journal Foreign Affairs spelt out US state policy as "at least a decade of commitment and hundreds of millions of dollars and ... longer US casualty rolls". So the war crimes are set to continue
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Further Education - Recruiting staff abroad?
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
A LOOMING crisis in further education could mean that many lecturers may need to be recruited from abroad. This warning was given recently to the House of Commons education select committee by David Hunter, chief executive of Lifelong Learning UK, which is responsible for developing the FE workforce.
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Unemployment - Biggest rise for years
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
The Office for National Statistics reports the biggest quarterly rise in unemployment for 12 years, up by 110,000 over the three months to November, to 1.53 million. It also reports that Britain's trade deficit for the third quarter of 2005 was £10.2 billion, the highest since figures were first recorded in 1955.
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The City - Snouts in the trough
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
The snouts in the trough of London's City Square Mile are about to devour over £7.5 billion in bonuses. This is an increase of £1.1 billion on 2004. 3000 individuals will receive over £1,000,000 each in individual bonuses. City bonuses paid since 2000 have been over £34.2 billion.
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Universities - Ballot on pay action
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
All the university academic unions – Natfhe, AUT and and the Scottish EIS – are currently balloting their membership with a view to joint industrial action on pay. Last year the unions accepted a 3% offer which saw academic salaries falling even further behind pay in other areas of the public sector.
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Education - Rich pickings in City academies
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
If the current White Paper on Education becomes law it will pave the way for even more different interest groups and companies to take over schools and run them. One of the latest is US group Edison, the largest company involved with state schools in the USA.
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Manufacturing - Brays shifts out of Britain
[WORKERS, FEB 2006]
A TOTAL of 100 manufacturing jobs at Brays, the Leeds-based manufacturers of gas burners and heating controls, are to go, as the 150-year-old firm shifts production to Mexico and China.
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Seafarers fight for their jobs
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
Around 80,000 workers marched through the Dublin on Friday 9 December in a day of protest organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in solidarity with Irish Ferries workers, who are threatened with losing their jobs. Protests were held in towns across Ireland. Welsh trade unionists have demonstrated at Pembroke Dock and Holyhead. The TUC sent representatives to the docksides and the Dublin protest.
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US tightens grip on Iraq oil
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
Over a hundred thousand dead, mostly women and children and for what? So that UK and US oil companies can plunder the once nationalised oil reserves of Iraq, the sixth largest in the world. Multinational companies, often directly linked to the Republican Party, profited from the military expenditure against Iraq, then profited from the contracts to rebuild the infrastructure. Now their real prize is in sight: the oil they have coveted since the turn of the last century. As Sir Maurice Hankey, Britain's First Secretary of the War Cabinet in 1918, said: "Control over these oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim."
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Teachers fight pay cuts
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
Teachers in around 150 schools are threatening industrial action over the introduction of new payments for management allowances (TLRs). Most of the teaching unions agreed the new system with the government, but many teachers have only just woken up to the reality of what their unions have signed up to on their behalf. Many will face significant pay cuts (of up to £10,000) in three years' time and reduced pensions in the longer term.
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News Analysis - The imposition of religion
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
The incredibly named Equality Challenge Unit has published its guidance for "Employing People in Higher Education: Religion and Belief". The ECU has consulted every religious body in the UK, be they single cults, multi-faith organisations, religions with single campaign obsessions, flat-earthists or good old-fashioned pagans. The purpose of the ECU document is to continue the elevation of religion in Britain and permit tiny and dwindling religious organisations to foist their cult ideas on youth, via schools, colleges and higher education institutions. Religion is smuggled into the workplace by abuse of the legislative process.
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Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
Gather round, children
The European Commission has published a book to explain the EU, which is being distributed to primary school children across Europe. It tells them that the EU Constitution is simply "on hold". It compares the Constitution to a sports club's rules and claims, "With this new constitution everything will go like clockwork, just like in your club." A Commission official said, "Some people might argue that the Constitution is dead. But it is still on the table. The only thing that has been decided is that there will be a period of reflection."
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Torture - Law lords rule against govt
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
Seven judges in Britain's highest court ruled on 8 December that intelligence extracted by torture is not admissible in any British court.
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Identity Cards - Hidden hand of the EU
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
The government is desperate to play down the EU's drive to introduce ID cards. Britain's minister for e-government, Jim Murphy, repeatedly denies that the EU intends to introduce EU ID cards.
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Food Manufacture - 'What are you made of'
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
Weetabix, which employs 1,700 people in Northamptonshire in Burton Latimer near Kettering, and at Corby, has declared that 112 jobs will go. In November 2003 the company was taken over by the US firm Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst, for £642 million. At the time Sir Richard George, the previous owner and chairman, said there would be no job losses, declaring, "in fact quite the opposite".
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Health - Professions fight govt grab
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has unanimously agreed to oppose the government proposal to take away their right to self-regulation. Currently nurses and midwives accused of misconduct are tried by their peers. A government review of non-medical regulation has recommended the creation of an "independent, unified adjudicatory body" for all health professionals other than doctors. The proposed membership of what would be effectively a private agency is unclear.
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Health - Punished for being poor
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
In November, Primary Care Trusts in Suffolk ruled that obese people would not get operations like hip and knee replacements.
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Firefighters - Strikes in West Midlands
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
Firefighters across the West Midlands held a series of strikes over a period of two weeks in November.
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Higher Education - Tribunal backs lecturers
[WORKERS, JAN 2006]
On 7 December an employment tribunal ruled in favour of members of Natfhe, the university and college lecturers' union, who claimed unfair dismissal from London Metropolitan University (LMU). The claim, brought by 23 lecturers, was that they were unfairly dismissed after LMU imposed a new contract on 387 academic staff in order to "harmonise" terms and conditions after the institution was created via a merger of London Guildhall University and the University of North London.
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