Monthly Archives: December 2005
LOCKED-OUT Gate Gourmet workers are calling on the whole trade union movement to support their conference in London on January 29th. On the picket line in pouring rain yesterday with no shelter, the TGWU members were nevertheless in good spirits, receiving hoots of support from passing cars, lorries and buses. Sukhdev...
THE Editorial Board of the News Line, the daily paper of the Workers Revolutionary Party, sends its revolutionary greetings for the New Year of 2006 to the working class, the youth and the struggling poor of the world. We send our special greetings to the insurgent people of Iraq, who...
LEON TROTSKY wrote ‘If America Should Go Communist’ on August 17, 1934, over a year after President Roosevelt brought in his ‘New Deal’, on June 16th 1933, with the signing of his National Industry Recovery Act, to be administered by the National Recovery Administration. Roosevelt acted to head...
POLICE are to have blanket arrest and covert operations powers of a type that will make tinpot dictatorships throughout the world green with envy, but which will, without a doubt, evoke a most decisive revolutionary response from the British working class. Under the Serious and Organised Crime Act, the police...
‘These powers constitute a serious erosion of civil liberties in this country. They will change the relationship between the police and the individual fundamentally,’ Doug Jewell, human rights group Liberty campaigns coordinator told News Line yesterday. He was referring to new police powers that come into force on January 1st...
TUC leader, Brendan Barber, said yesterday in his gloom and doom-ridden New Year’s message that the Lord Adair Turner pensions report created ‘tough decisions’, adding that trade unions will need to make ‘tough choices’ to deal with the ‘looming crisis’. He did not mention any measures the TUC will take...
Israeli planes yesterday dropped leaflets in northern Gaza to warn Palestinians that they will be shot dead on sight if they enter a newly declared ‘buffer zone’ near the border with Israel. The leaflets, signed by Israeli army command and written in Arabic, said the Israeli-imposed restrictions would come...
LEON TROTSKY wrote ‘If America Should Go Communist’ on August 17, 1934, over a year after President Roosevelt brought in his ‘New Deal’, on June 16th 1933, with the signing of his National Industry Recovery Act, to be administered by the National Recovery Administration. Roosevelt acted to head...
DEFIANT Gate Gourmet locked out workers were standing on the picket line in the freezing cold yesterday determined to win their jobs back and defeat the union sell-out. Mrs Mohinder Virk said: ‘It’s very cold standing here on the picket line, it’s not fair. ‘I’m very angry with the company and...
Greek newspaper Proto Thema has named the MI6 chief at the British embassy in Athens, after he was accused of organising British and Greek intelligence agents to kidnap, beat and torture up to 28 non-British Pakistani immigrants in Athens, in the aftermath of the July 7th bombings. The men were...
UAW US motor workers trade union members have very narrowly ratified the health care agreement that the UAW has made with the Ford Motor Co. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Gerald Bantom, who directs the UAW Ford Department, have announced that UAW members have ratified the tentative...
‘OUR fight is continuing and so is our picket,’ locked out Gate Gourmet worker Parmjit Bains told News Line yesterday. ‘We have rejected the Compromise Agreement and have had a victory because only 200 out of 760 locked out workers have signed it. ‘Everybody knows it was a rotten deal, with...
Ongoing Israeli extra-judicial killing of Palestinians, continuing flagrant US and EU interference and Israeli threats to disrupt or obstruct the Palestinian legislative election, and inter-Palestinian disputes are all factors pressuring President Mahmud Abbas to reconsider as possible postponement of the parliamentary polls, scheduled for January 25. Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)...
PRIME Minister Tony Blair told troops in Basra on Thursday: ‘We want to draw down our forces. We don’t want to keep people here longer than we need to.’ Military commanders suggested that troop numbers could be reduced by the summer of 2006, to which Blair responded saying: ‘The trouble...
Homelessness charity Crisis yesterday called on the government to make public services more accessible to homeless people. Crisis said: ‘Public services are failing homeless people. ‘Public services should offer advice and support in housing, healthcare, education and work. ‘But for many homeless people, getting the support they need is complicated, confusing and...
LOCKED OUT Gate Gourmet workers received their monthly hardship payments of £228.80 from the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) yesterday. ‘We received it today with no time for the cheque to clear before Christmas. Speaking on the picket line at Heathrow yesterday, locked out worker Parmjit Bains told News Line:...
TRANSPORT and General Workers Union full-time officer Oliver Richardson told locked out Gate Gourmet workers yesterday that they would continue to receive hardship payments from the union. The workers had previously been threatened by union officers that the cheques that they are currently expecting would be their last. Kuldip, one of...
At his continuing show trial in Baghdad yesterday, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accused Bush of lying about Iraq’s non-existent stockpiles of chemical weapons as well as Saddam’s insistence that he was tortured in US custody. Speaking at the start of the seventh session of the show trial, Saddam said: ‘Zionists...
THE TWU Local 100, the New York transit union, is on strike and has picked up the gauntlet flung down by Mayor Bloomberg, the billionaire who runs the city, on wages, pensions and healthcare. 34,000 workers are facing a fine of $1 million a day and also the prospect of...
THE MTA (Metropolitan Transport Authority) and the Governor forced this strike: call them to stop it says the TWU transit workers trade union. The TWU local 100, New York transit union is on strike and standing up to the city bosses on wages, pensions and health care. Its latest statement spells...
THIRTY locked-out Gate Gourmet workers gathered at the TGWU union office in Hillingdon yesterday, angry that they were not being given their hardship money for Xmas, which was due. Mrs Saroay told News Line: ‘We are very angry because the union is refusing to give us our hardship payment before...
‘The Court of Appeal yesterday handed down a landmark judgment about the torture and abuse of Iraqi civilians in detention with UK Armed Forces in occupied Iraq’, Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) said. A PIL statement added: ‘One of the test cases dealt with by the court concerned the torture to...
The Palestinian National Authority is being bullied into choosing between democracy or empty coffers, the Palestine Media Center (PMC) says. The PMC said on Tuesday: ‘Failing even to condemn the five-year old Israeli state terrorism against the Palestinian people, Israel’s re-occupation of the West Bank and the ongoing Israeli extra-judicial...
EVERY time Bush and Blair speak, they trumpet their championing of democracy against the corrupt dictatorships that they say exist everywhere outside their countries and the countries of their allies. However the truth is that their love of democracy only extends to where elections are rigged, such as under...
THE Health and Safety Commission (HSC) yesterday announced the official inquiry into the Buncefield oil depot fire. HSC chairman Bill Callaghan told a press conference that prohibition notices had been issued against Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd (Texaco and Total) and British Pipeline Agency Ltd. He told reporters: ‘Our immediate priority is...
Lancashire firefighters are to be balloted over possible strike action in defence jobs. Chief Fire Officer Peter Holland plans to ‘save £1 million’ by cutting fire crews from five to four on six appliances. Lancashire Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said members were furious with the county fire authority’s decision to back...
‘THERE is no obligation on the part of employers to provide pensions’, said the National Association of Pension Funds yesterday. This was its response to the news that Rentokil is simply abolishing its final salary pension scheme and replacing it with a freeze on all staff pensions to a...
‘OUR union leaders are telling everybody our dispute is finished but it is not finished,’ locked out Gate Gourmet worker Parmjit Bains told News Line yesterday. Speaking on the picket line at Heathrow Airport she said: ‘We are not accepting what the company or the union leaders have done to...
A record 127,992 children in England will wake up homeless on Christmas day, according to new government figures highlighted by Shelter. The charity turned on alternative Christmas lights to mark their plight in Trafalgar Square, central London last Friday and is lighting up alternative displays around the country this...
EVO MORALES is the first Indian to become the President of Bolivia ending decades of rule by a white ruling class elite which presided over the imperialist exploitation of the natural resources of the country. He leads a movement that claims to represent the interests of the country’s Indian majority,...
‘THE Compromise Agreement is dead. We have seen it off’ said Nirmal Purewal TGWU shop steward and locked out Gate Gourmet worker. ‘This dispute is not finished. We are still on the hill and the union must continue to provide hardship payments. ‘The next payment is due this week. My...
RESIDENTS whose lives were put at risk, and even the management of devastated businesses near the Buncefield oil storage depot in Hertfordshire have been warning the government not to let the terminal be rebuilt on the present site in Hemel. One manager at close by Fujifilm pointed out that if...
‘WELCOME to all of you. We are very proud of all of you,’ Parmjit Bains told a rally on the hill near the Gate Gourmet factory at Heathrow yesterday. The locked out Gate Gourmet worker was addressing an over 100-strong mass picket of Gate Gourmet workers and supporters. The workers were...
THE locked out Gate Gourmet workers held their mass picket of the TGWU regional office in Hillingdon yesterday, marking the deadline for signing the notorious Compromise Agreement. There were thirty locked out workers who kept a chant all day of: ‘Gate Gourmet Shame Shame’, ‘Compromise deal – No Way’, ‘Tony...
Fifteen hundred construction workers employed by civil engineers Laing O’Rourke on the Heathrow Terminal 5 site, yesterday launched the first of two 24-hour strikes over broken bonus promises. Pickets were out around Heathrow airport from 5.30am to 10am and 2pm to 4.30pm. The next strike is on Monday, 19th December. The...
ISRAEL on Wednesday defied the United States and the Middle East Quartet and decided to delay, reportedly until next week, the start of the bus convoys between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, thus violating the 15 November ‘Agreement on Movement and Access’ with the Palestinian National Authority...
THE Fire Brigades Union said yesterday that it will consider industrial action over government plans to ‘reform’ its members’ pensions by dramatically extending the retirement age from 50 to 60 for new starters, and also cutting the value of their pension, and by increasing the retirement age to 55,...
TONY Woodley, the TGWU general secretary, commenting on the sacking of one of the leading members of the TGWU by BA yesterday, and the disciplinary actions being taken against two other shop stewards at BA, said: ‘The T&G is surprised and disappointed at these decisions. We believe that...
THE UAW National Ford Council yesterday endorsed the union’s tentative agreement with Ford Motor Company on health care. The tentative agreement is subject to ratification by active UAW-Ford members and approval by a federal district court. ‘As we said Saturday, our goal in these discussions with Ford was to...
British Airways (BA) yesterday sacked Mark Fisher, one of the three Transport and General Workers Union shop stewards disciplined for organising an unofficial strike at Heathrow Airport last August 11th and 12th, in support of the Gate Gourmet workers locked out on August 10th. Another shop steward was found guilty...
LABOUR Prime Minister Blair has ruled out changes to his education reform (privatisation) plans despite a challenge by more than 50 Labour MPs, among whom are five ex-ministers including an ex-education secretary. He told MPs yesterday, while taking questions in the House of Commons, that he would not delay...
LOCKED out Gate Gourmet workers got great support yesterday as they campaigned at the TGWU office in Hillingdon to defeat the sell-out Compromise Agreement. Mohammed Arshid TGWU vice-chairman of the Terminal Three Security Branch representing 500 airport workers said: ‘The way you have been treated is disgusting. ‘In this age in...
The ongoing Israeli violations and extra-judicial killings have put the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the anti-occupation groups on opposite sides of the argument over the renewal of the truce with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), says the Palestine Media Centre (PMC). Meanwhile the US Administration and Congress are weighing...
TREATMENT Centres run by the private sector are much more likely to have an adverse effect on their surrounding NHS trusts, finds new research published today by the British Medical Association (BMA). A survey of clinical directors working in orthopaedics, ophthalmology and anaesthetics in NHS trusts in England...