Monthly Archives: July 2009
LONDON Fire Brigade bosses are spending £12million of tax-payers’ money training a blackleg workforce to provide fire cover in the capital in the event that FBU members take industrial action later in the year over attacks to shift patterns and other conditions of service, warned the London Region FBU...
‘Three years have passed since the Israeli enemy launched its devastating war against Lebanon,’ said Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV on Sunday. It continued that this was ‘just after the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon was able to achieve an heroic operation and detain two Israeli soldiers whose fate remained ambiguous until...
Workers at New Fabris, a bankrupt French car parts supplier, are ready to blow up their factory unless carmakers Renault and PSA-Peugeot pay them compensation, a union official said on Sunday. The 366 employees are occupying the plant in central-eastern Chatellerault to demand that the auto giants, who accounted...
‘London Fire Authority are paying £12m over five years for what is in effect a strike-breaking force. ‘We are unequivocally opposed to it, it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money,’ London Fire Brigades Union (FBU) regional official Paul Embury told News Line yesterday. He was responding to the announcement by AssetCo plc...
was kept with other Iraqis under the control of British troops, and with the knowledge of their officers and various intelligence officials. They were systematically beaten and tortured from the moment they were arrested, using all the methods that the Israelis had developed in Palestine for mentally and physically torturing...
‘What is needed is a mass lobby of parliament to demand nationalisation,’ former GM Luton TGWU convenor Arthur Lynn told News Line yesterday. Commenting on the situation at the Luton GM plant, Lynn said: ‘The union convenors are still refusing to call a mass meeting. ‘The unions must be more active...
Young Palestinian chldren are still severely traumatised six months after the Israeli war on the impoverished Gaza Strip, charities warn. Fourteen-year-old Ghasan Matar won’t talk about the explosion that cost him his legs and killed his brother. In fact, six months after the end of the Israeli war on Gaza, he...
THE Fire Brigades Union has called for a public inquiry into the fatal fire in the Camberwell high rise block which claimed six lives. The union called for an inquiry whose proceedings should be open, robust and challenging. FBU General Secretary Matt Wrack said: ‘Our working...
NINE UK soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan in nine days, making 178 UK troops killed since 2001. The official propaganda line is that this is a war that must be fought to the end. In Vietnam, US troops were told that if they did not win the war in...
The Metropolitan Police yesterday were investigating why the police had not told high-profile figures that their mobile phones were being hacked into, and why there were no prosecutions of those involved. This followed allegations that the News of the World paid private investigators to hack into thousands of politicians’ and...
METROPOLITAN Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, has ordered a senior officer to ‘establish the facts’ – concerning the knowledge that the police had – that the News of the World, part of the Murdoch empire, was tapping the mobile phones of over 3000 people, from senior cabinet politicians to...
Striking electricians vowed to keep up their all-out stoppage on its third day, Wednesday, as union leaders re-entered talks with employers regarding a pay row. Talks at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) aimed at ending the dispute adjourned without agreement in the early hours of yesterday. As no agreement has been...
THOUSANDS of postal workers at huge mail centres across the capital are taking action today, the third day of the London postal strike. Union leaders are expecting a solid turn out following yesterday’s strikes at Royal Mail distribution centres and Monday’s strikes at delivery offices, against the imposition of job...
PICKETS were out in force at Stoke Newington N16 Delivery Office in Hackney on Wednesday, day one of the London postal workers three day strike action against Royal Mail and the government. They were in high spirits and even organised a barbecue after the collapse of the Royal Mail...
DAY one of the London CWU’s three-day strike action was a massive success, after the move by the Royal Mail and the government to get a judge to declare the action illegal failed on Tuesday early evening. The strike action is now to continue for two more days and...
THE Royal Mail bid to get the three-day London CWU postal strikes declared illegal failed yesterday late afternoon. The London reps meeting taking place in the afternoon had been thrown into crisis when it was told of the Royal Mail action. The meeting was opened with the Deputy General Secretary...
THE inquest into the death of 25-year-old Godfrey Moyo, whilst on remand at HMP Belmarsh, concluded yesterday with the jury deciding that the medical cause of his death was (a) positional asphyxia with left ventricular failure following restraint and (b) epilepsy. In their damning narrative verdict the jury found...
PRESIDENT Obama has urged a ‘reset’ in relations between the US and Russia. This comes after the defeat that the US and NATO suffered in the recent Georgian-Russian war, and also after the banking crash, which has led to the US requiring Russia to help finance its colossal state debt,...
A MASS meeting of more than 3,000 British Airways cabin crew workers yesterday threw out by a massive majority the airline’s plans to slash costs by sacking thousands of workers, freezing pay, outsourcing work, ending the redeployment agreement for those made redundant, and abolishing the hard fought for ...
Defence Secretary Ainsworth yesterday conceded in High Court proceedings that there must be an investigation into whether UK soldiers murdered a number of Iraqis in a detention facility in SE Iraq on May 14/15 2004, and tortured another nine survivors. On May 14 2004, there was a major firefight...
Unite is seeking an urgent meeting with Health Secretary, Andy Burnham ‘as NHS pharmacy services are threatened by a government decision’. Burnham is being asked to reconsider the decision that has denied NHS pharmacists the fair pay deal which would address the profession’s NHS recruitment crisis. Unite has expressed disbelief after the government...
THE moment of truth is fast approaching for British capitalism. The British capitalist economy is in its death agony with falls in production taking place greater than the 1930s, while the state is heading for a £1.2 trillion deficit. Already, giant monopolies like BT are proposing to sack 15,000 workers and...
TOWER Hamlets College staff and students will demonstrate tomorrow, Tuesday July 7, outside the Board of Governors meeting, demanding: ‘No education cuts!’ The east London college was brought to a standstill on Friday as teachers in the University and College Union (UCU) took strike action in defence of jobs and...
Business Secretary Mandelson has signalled that the government may provide a bridging loan or loan guarantees to help finance the sale of GM Europe, which includes Germany’s Opel and the UK’s Vauxhall brands. GM is seeking about 500m euros (£428m) from the UK in addition to funds from other...
‘Raiding public service pay and pensions is a fundamentally flawed strategy,’ said the NASUWT teachers union yesterday. It was responding to calls for pay freezes and Chancellor Darling’s indication that this is coming within weeks. NASUWT General Secretary Chris Keates condemned ‘the long list of those who use the recession...
BUSINESS Secretary Mandelson declared yesterday morning, before he even reached the Luton GM plant, that there would be no nationalisation of GM Luton – ‘It’s not the government’s job to produce cars’, said Mandelson. His words will bring bellylaughs from workers, since with private business collapsing, the Business Secretary...
BUSINESS Secretary Mandelson emerged from his meeting with union officials and the top General Motors management in Luton yesterday unable to guarantee the jobs of the Luton workers, after earlier stating that nationalisation was not an option. At the plant he told the media ‘there are no guarantees’. He...
ISRAEL’S military just after midnight on Friday admitted their responsibility for the death of a teenage girl in Gaza. The announcement came following its insistence on Thursday that the girl’s death was the result of Palestinian friendly fire. The teenager was killed and her brother injured by Israeli shelling in the...
BEING able to force the Brown-Mandelson government to ‘shelve’ the bill for the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail proves that the working class is stronger than this bankers’ Labour government. The issue now for postal workers is that their union must press forward and carry out their annual conference’s emergency...
Legal charity INQUEST has produced a comprehensive briefing on the death of Ian Tomlinson. News Line is pleased to reproduce the following excerpts:– INQUEST is working with the family and lawyers of 47-year-old Ian Tomlinson who was caught up in the police response to the G20 protests while he walked home...
British Airways has asked ACAS to mediate after failing to get the unions to agree to plans to cut thousands of jobs and freeze pay for two years at the struggling airline. The two sides missed BA’s self-imposed deadline of June 30th to reach an agreement on the restructuring. A BA...
BUSINESS Secretary Peter Mandelson – who did not lift a finger to save the LDV van factory from administration, to which it was consigned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (an old friend of his) costing over 800 workers their jobs – is to visit Luton on Friday. He is coming...
Delegates at the British Medical Association (BMA) Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in Liverpool on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly for Motion 247 on ‘humanitarian crises in conflict areas’. The motion deplored the deliberate targeting of civilians and healthcare professionals, and the use of white phosphorus as a weapon in urban environments. obby the...
WORKERS at Lindsey power station, the Royal Mail and doctors have shown their strength in rejecting and fighting attacks on their jobs, their wages and their basic rights, including the NHS. An uprising of engineers defeated the Total attack on the trade unions for the moment and achieved the return...
Six months after Israel launched its three-week military operation in Gaza on December 27 2008, Gazans still cannot rebuild their lives, a new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross declared on Monday. Most people struggle to make ends meet, said the report. Seriously ill patients face...
DOCTORS at the BMA conference yesterday voted for Motion 269, which stated: ‘That this meeting requests government, in view of new-found enthusiasm for the nationalisation of banks, to nationalise the NHS and bring PFIs into public ownership.’ Mover Dr Paul Flynn said: ‘The government says banks are too...