Monthly Archives: November 2009
The CBI and ‘recruitment experts’ Harvey Nash revealed yesterday that half of all employers are planning to freeze pay altogether, and that only 4% plan to make an inflation-beating rise. The CBI also remarks that ‘fewer employers see the need for some of the more extreme measures required to...
THE DEEPENING world economic imperialist crisis is leading to a much worsening of working class conditions in all parts of the globe. Both capitalist ruling classes and the Stalinist bureaucracy where they hold power are united in their attempts to move all the consequences of the...
THE lawyers acting for Colonel Mousa, Baha Mousa’s father, today responded to the latest evidence given by ex-soldier Donald Payne in the Baha Mousa Inquiry. This evidence is critically important in revealing what lies behind the death of Baha Mousa. Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers called for soldiers that held...
FOR centuries British capitalism has sought to export its surplus populations and its trouble makers to the rest of the world. Rebellious trade unionists such as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and Irish rebels were transported in chains to Van Diemens Land, as well as very petty criminals, people who escaped the...
A jury at an inquest into the death of 15-year-old Liam McManus last Friday returned a damning verdict finding that ‘systemic failings’ in both the prison and the community contributed to his death. These failings meant that an accurate picture of Liam was never established by the prison, resulting in...
THE government appointed watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), will be able to use new powers from 2012 to close GP practices, British Medical Association members magazine, BMA News has warned. The magazine also indicated that a new criterion of what is a ‘good practice’ will be how many patients...
ANGRY students have occupied the London College of Communication (LCC) this week, against a wave of redundancies and course closures. The occupation, which began at the main building in Elephant and Castle on Monday, was broken up on Wednesday, but students then occupied the Rector’s Office in the West End...
THE working class saw the Tories, and the Scottish Tories of the SNP, off in Thursday’s by-election in Glasgow North East. On a miniscule 33 per cent turn out, Labour’s Willie Bain got 12,231 votes, a majority of 8,111 – while the SNP’s David Kerr came second...
OVER 2,000 Greek public sector workers on short-contracts staged a militant demonstration through Athens city centre on Wednesday, calling on the social-democratic government of Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou to fulfil his pre-election promise to employ them on a permanent basis. The mobilisation was part of a 24-hour strike of all...
AFTER an exhausting, genocidal war, hugely costly in lives and resources, and in the face of a working class movement that is now demanding wage rises to keep pace with a cost of living that is galloping out of sight, and millions of young people demanding jobs, the Sri...
‘The GMB is opposed to a John Lewis partnership running the NHS, and so would the 1.4 million staff employed by the service,’ GMB trade union national officer Sharon Holder told News Line yesterday. She was responding to news that Labour is planning such a move for all public services...
Corporal Joe Glenton, the soldier who faces desertion charges for refusing to return to Afghanistan, has been arrested, imprisoned and charged with five further offences for speaking out in opposition to the presence of troops in Afghanistan. These charges allege that he led the anti-war demonstration in London on October...
Youth unemployment continued to rise from July to September, with the number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work up by 15,000 to 943,000, a record rate of 19.8 per cent, government statistics revealed yesterday. The number of 18 to 24-year-olds out of work rose by 24,000 over the three...
THE ruling class’s national DNA data base has on it a sample of the DNA of every person in the UK who is arrested, regardless of whether he or she is charged with any offence, or whether he or she stands trial for an alleged crime and is found...
PALESTINIANS around the world marked the fifth anniversary of the death of President Yasser Arafat yesterday. In the West Bank, where Arafat’s Fatah movement still rules, a mass celebration is planned. Thousands are expected to attend the event, which will take place at the Muqata, the Palestinian Authority headquarters...
GENERAL Motor’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Fritz Henderson, took questions at a Detroit press conference on Thursday, November 5th concerning the Magna deal and its collapse. GM has pledged to make 30 per cent cuts in GM Europe, and its representatives are in London and Berlin this week...
THE price of gold hit a record of 1,111.20 dollars an ounce in trading in London on Monday, as the dollar weakened after a pledge by the G-20 states to continue to try to promote an economic recovery from the capitalist crisis by printing billions of paper notes. The dollar...
CWU members have shown time and time again, their determination to defend their jobs, pay and conditions of service. The recent strikes that have taken place are a continuation of a fight that began in 2007. Postal workers in the best traditions of British trade unionism have fought Royal Mail and...
Nearly 2,500 members working for the East London Bus Group took part in a 24-hour strike from 3am yesterday in a dispute over the company’s imposition of a zero per cent pay deal. The garages affected were: Barking; Bow; Leyton; Romford; Upton Park; and West Ham. Unite has been in discussions...
A REVIEW of university student fees in England has been launched by Business Secretary Mandelson. The object of the review is to increase, perhaps even double, current student fees. Some university chancellors are demanding the right to charge fees of £20,000. The shock news of how much fees are to...
The United Steelworkers’ (USW) global campaign to prevent Brazilian mining giant Vale S.A. from eroding working conditions and denying basic labour rights at its operations worldwide is gaining momentum. It is being assisted by the International Metalworkers’ Federation, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions and LabourStart. Members of...
SIR Jock Stirrup, the British army commander, has admitted that the great majority of the British people are opposed to the imperialist war in Afghanistan, and that 63 per cent of those polled by the BBC urge that the troops be withdrawn at once, while 64 per cent consider...
OVER 150,000 workers around the country, and in the north took to the streets in a series of marches last Friday to protest against proposed Government cuts in pay and services, and British government cuts in the north of Ireland. In the Republic, rallies were held in Dublin, Cork, Dundalk,...
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has condemned the Trinity Mirror publishing group for announcing the closure of its final salary pension scheme – and for telling staff about it by email late on Friday afternoon. The group publishes the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror as well as a large number of...
‘IT WILL NOT PASS!’ Over 5,000 young Greek workers on so-called ‘training’ schemes in the public sector, demonstrated on Thursday in Athens and in other main cities against a government decision to immediately sack them. It is estimated that 30 to 40 thousand workers on the so-called ‘stage’ (from the French...
Postal workers yesterday reacted angrily when details of the ‘interim agreement’ reached between the Communication Workers Union (CWU ) leadership and the Royal Mail bosses was made public. Not only were they angry at the way yesterday’s and Monday’s planned strikes were called off on Thursday evening, but at the...
BRENDAN Barber has won another battle honour from the employers. His first was at Gate Gourmet, which publicly congratulated him on its website for the way that he helped to push through a deal that allowed it to sack over 600 Gate Gourmet workers, and cut the wages and worsened...
‘We’re expecting a big turn out tomorrow for the nationwide demonstrations,’ an Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) spokesman told News Line yesterday. He added: ‘The purpose of the Get Up Stand Up Campaign launched by ourselves with the support of all affiliates on the island of Ireland is to...
THE Bank of England yesterday maintained its interest rate at 0.5 per cent and decided to step up its money printing programme to give a further £25bn to the banks, making for £200 billion handed over thus far. The Bank’s statement said that output had fallen ‘by almost 6 per...
German workers are holding ‘warning strikes’ today over General Motors scrapping the sale of GM Europe, which includes Opel and Vauxhall, to Magna. The GM Board announced after a meeting on Tuesday afternoon it had ‘decided to retain Opel and will initiate a restructuring of its European operations in earnest.’ Workers...
GM, now owned by the US government, has dropped a bombshell by turning down its deal with Magna and the Russian state-owned Sberbank, at the last minute. The GM Board decision is critical and was dictated by the fact that its main interest in Europe is now the Russian market....
Migrant workers in Israel’s agriculture sector are among the most exploited, according to an October 28th report by Kav LaOved, an Israeli NGO campaigning for the rights of disadvantaged workers in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Ninety per cent of such workers work more hours than allowed under...
DEMOCRATIC presidents and prime ministers such as Obama and Brown have rushed into the Afghan breach to rubber-stamp their stooge Karzai as the president of Afghanistan. Their just-appointed president was found guilty by them, only weeks ago, of rigging the first round of the Afghan elections. Senator Kerry spent a week...
Israeli bulldozers demolished two Palestinian houses in the Ath-Thuri neighbourhood of Jerusalem on Monday morning, according to a statement from the Al-Quds Centre for Social and Economic Rights. The Centre’s research and documentation department reported that a third house was damaged during the demolitions, and that some 20 people were...
The Unite union yesterday warned that up to 25,000 banking jobs are at risk with the government’s plan to sell off the profitable parts of the state-aided high street banks, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group (LBG). RBS and Lloyds announced that they are selling nearly...
PALESTINE Authority President Mahmud Abbas has been completely undermined by the latest declaration of US Secretary of State Clinton. In it she supported the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for ‘offering’ to slow down settlement expansion, and urged that peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians commence immediately. Clinton’s declaration was, in...
Israel’s foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that ‘the Palestinians should not be allowed to hold negotiations with Israel on a local level while fighting against it in the international sphere,’ referring to the Palestinian Authority’s step of advancing the Goldstone Report for a further vote. The Palestinian Authority had to...
British Airways will face strike action by cabin crew and flight attendants at Christmas if it does not ‘pull back from the brink’, from imposing job and pay cuts and changes in work patterns, the Unite union warned yesterday. A mass meeting of nearly 3,000 cabin crew and flight attendant...
ONE HUNDRED BECTU and NUJ members demonstrated outside Bush House in Aldwych, Central London last Friday, in support of ten workers sacked from the BBC World Service canteen. BECTU and the NUJ issued a joint statement, saying: ‘The BBC has failed to consult meaningfully with the recognised trade unions over...
AFGHANISTAN’S re-run election will be held on November 7th as scheduled, said the Afghan Electoral Commission yesterday. It is to have just one candidate, President Karzai, whose first-round election victory was declared to be null and void because of massive and widespread rigging. President Hamid Karzai’s only challenger, Abdullah Abdullah,...
Postal workers in delivery and collection offices around the country were out solid again on Saturday in defence of their union, the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), their jobs, conditions and pensions. The CWU said on Friday: ‘The Communication Workers Union is pleased that talks have been agreed for next week. ‘Notice...