Monthly Archives: March 2012
THE Deans of Greek Universities and Technical Colleges are to take the Bank of Greece to court accusing the Bank of investing the universities’ funds into Greek State Bonds, without informing the universities, which were then restructured (‘haircut’) by 54 per cent. The universities say that their funds have...
THE workers and youth of Bradford West have dealt a body blow at the Labour Party reformist leadership by unprecedently throwing out their Labour MP in a by-election, at a time when anti-Tory government feelings are at an all time high, and electing Respect Party candidate George Galloway. He...
THIS IS the message that is coming out of the Bradford West by-election where Respect candidate George Galloway was ‘unexpectedly’, out of the blue, elected by what he called the ‘Bradford Spring’ uprising of young workers and students. This was a shocking result for all of the supporters of capitalism...
Construction giant Balfour Beatty has warned its 12,000 staff in the UK they could lose their jobs as a result of the slump in the building industry. Industry analysts said yesterday that initial estimates suggest about 4,000 jobs are to go. New infrastructure projects are expected to fall sharply after the...
Spain was gripped by a 24-hour general strike by millions of workers yesterday. It was called in protest against a new law making it easier to sack workers and cut wages at a time of soaring unemployment, slump and austerity cuts. It was the first strike against Prime Minister Mariano...
THE row over the Tories so-called ‘pasty tax’ has become a dangerous diversion in the hands of the Labour leadership who are intent on portraying Cameron and Osborne as a pair of upper class twits. This row, over VAT on hot pies and pasties, has degenerated into a farce with...
‘We won’t work till 68!’ chanted striking teachers and lecturers on an 8,000-strong march through central London on Wednesday. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) and University College Union (UCU) were taking joint one-day strike action against the government’s ‘daylight robbery of the Teachers Pension Scheme members. The front banner read:...
THE Greek Assistant Minister for Public Order M Othonas said on Wednesday morning that the first concentration camp for alleged ‘illegal immigrants’ could be ‘ready to function within 30 to 45 days’. Last Monday the Minister for Public Order Michalis Chrysochoides spoke to a meeting of the ten Greek Regions...
OVER 8,000 striking teachers and college lecturers from the NUT and UCU unions in London yesterday marched from University College Union London to the Department of Education in Westminster. Teachers and lecturers were taking part in a one-day strike against government attacks on their pensions. As well as hundreds...
UK economic growth for the last quarter of 2011 has been revised downwards to a 0.3% contraction, another body blow to those who had been predicting revival. There was also a revision downwards of the GDP figure for the three months from April to June 2011. This was revised...
THE Dublin Trades Council has declared that it is not the job of local authority workers to knock on doors in pursuit of the controversial 100 euro Household Charge austerity tax imposed by the Irish coalition government. The Dublin Council of Trade Unions stated yesterday: ‘We do not think it...
Unite has sent a letter to Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change yesterday, pleading with him to intervene in the tanker drivers’ dispute. On Monday, Unite revealed that its 2,000 tanker driver members voted by an overwhelming 69 per cent in favour of strike action to...
THOUSANDS of lecturers and teachers are striking against the government’s vicious onslaught on their pensions at universities, colleges and schools across London today. They are determined to defeat the Tory-LibDem Coalition’s plans to make them pay more and work longer for their pensions and get less in retirement. Next week...
A WORLD leaders summit in Seoul on nuclear security has called for closer co-operation to tackle the threat of nuclear terrorism. President Obama warned there were still ‘too many bad actors’ who were threatening to stockpile and use ‘dangerous’ nuclear material. ‘It would not take much, just a handful or so...
School teachers, further education college and post-92 university lecturers in London are taking part in a one-day strike and demonstration today as the next step in their pensions campaign. The National Union of Teachers said: ‘Strike action on March 28th is for NUT members in the following areas: Barking &...
The complete privatisation of public services has taken a massive step forward with the announcement that a further education college in Luton is to become the first in the country to be run for profit, and paying dividends to its private shareholders. Barnfield Federation is exploiting a provision in the...
‘Armed opposition elements have carried out serious human rights abuses,’ Human Rights Watch said last week in a little-publicised public letter to the Syrian National Council (SNC) and other leading Syrian opposition groups. Abuses include kidnapping, detention and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members...
Tanker drivers delivering fuel to petrol pumps across the UK have voted overwhelmingly for strike action in a dispute over safety and growing instability in the fuel industry, and strike action is expected in April. Members of Unite working for five major fuel distribution firms delivering fuel for petrol stations...
PRIME MINISTER Cameron admitted yesterday that major Tory Party donors have been invited to dinner in Downing Street on four occasions since 2010. He said: ‘In the two years I have been Prime Minister, there have been three occasions on which significant donors have come to a dinner in my...
A JOINT Statement by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and Al-Haq begins with a statement by Hana Shalabi. ‘To all the free and loyal Palestinian people, I direct my words to you – while I and all my brothers and sisters in the occupier’s...
The resignation by the chief Tory fundraiser and party co-treasurer, Peter Cruddas, late on Saturday gave one more glimpse into the corruption that lies in the heart of British bourgeois democracy. Cruddas resigned as a result of a sting carried out by Sunday Times journalists posing as executives from a...
By Simon Parker, End Child Detention Now Co-ordinator End Child Detention Now campaigners have welcomed the launch of the International Detention Coalition’s Global report and campaign to end immigration detention of children. The report and campaign were launched at the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday at the 19th Session...
With shortages of electricity, water, fuel, cooking gas and medicine, a lack of economy and no infrastructure, the masses of Gaza are in a fury with Israel, Egypt, the Arab oil states and the imperialists. The shortages have added to the despair of Gaza’s 1.6 million people, many of...
GAZA is being reduced from a massive prison for the Palestinian people to one in which they are homeless, jobless, and beginning to go hungry, while the network of schools and hospitals is in acute crisis and collapsing as a direct result of the blockade and the deliberate policy...
GEORGE Osborne’s ‘rich man’s’ budget has failed to address the fundamental economic problems blighting Britain, said the Unite trade union. Unite hit out at the Chancellor’s ‘obsession’ with pandering to the rich by cutting the 50p rate of income tax to 45p – and offering not an iota of...
UNISON members at Rochdale Council have voted overwhelmingly for industrial action in defence of their terms and conditions of employment. The ballot was held after the council proceeded to impose swingeing cuts to terms and conditions. These include six days of unpaid leave which equates to a 2.8% pay cut, a...
WEDNESDAY’S budget left no room for doubt about who the coalition government intends should pay to bail out the bankrupt British economy – pensioners, the unemployed, the low paid and the working class as a whole. At the same time, it was a clear statement by Tory chancellor, George Osborne,...
OSBORNE began his budget address yesterday by admitting the calamitous state of British capitalism saying that recovery would be ‘challenging’ since ‘we’ve had the sharpest fall in output since the 1930s, the highest budget deficit in peacetime, and the largest banking crisis in our entire history’. Osborne outlined...
The head of the Palestinian Prisoners Society announced last Monday that thirty Palestinian prisoners have joined the hunger strike of Palestinian heroine Hana Shalabi. Palestinian Authority Minister for Detainee Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said that Shalabi was hospitalised on Monday evening after consuming only water for 33 days. Her lawyers and doctors...
PERU has cancelled a visit by a Royal Navy frigate, HMS Montrose, that had been due this week. Peruvian Foreign Minister Rafael Roncagliolo said: ‘This decision has been taken in the spirit of Latin American solidarity commitments undertaken in the framework of Unasur (Union of South American Nations) with regard...
The Organising Committee of The Key of Return: from Palestine to Berlin and the Aida Youth Centre invited all to join in the ceremony of departure of the Key of Return from Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem. The Key departed for the German capital of Berlin on Monday 12th March 2012...
THE GMB is ‘dismayed’ by the court decision to uphold the government’s switch to CPI indexation from the RPI, cutting public sector pensions by 15%. Unions say it is not right, and the GMB, with other unions, will be considering the grounds for appeal against this decision Brian Strutton, GMB National...
THE just published Unison NHS staff survey reveals the increased levels of stress being heaped on staff by a combination of government cuts, the Health and Social Care Bill and the continuing pay freeze’ said Christina McAnea, Unison Head of Health yesterday. The survey also shows Community Services struggling as...
‘HUNDREDS of people languish in arbitrary, illegal and often incommunicado detention in Sri Lanka, vulnerable to torture and extrajudicial execution, despite the end of the country’s long conflict’ says a new report from Amnesty International. ‘Arbitrary and illegal detention and enforced disappearances remain routine in Sri Lanka, where human rights...
GOVERNMENT plans to ‘asset-strip’ the £28 billion Royal Mail pension scheme and plough the money into cutting the budget deficit were yesterday condemned by a leading postal worker as ‘pension robbery on a massive scale that puts Robert Maxwell in the shade’. However, the leaderships of both the postal workers’...
The leadership of the postal workers union (CWU) delivered a treacherous blow to their members when they hailed the announcement that the government is to take over the Royal Mail pension scheme as a ‘major success’. From next month the Royal Mail pension fund assets and liabilities will be transferred...
‘We are comrades! We have shown we are not just GMB but all of Swindon together!’ GMB shop steward Paulo Fernandes told a cheering crowd in the town on Saturday. He was speaking at the end of a 500-strong march led by striking ancillary workers employed by privateer Carillion on...
A group of 240 doctors are to stand ‘as many candidates as possible’ against coalition MPs in the next general election. They want to show their opposition to the government’s Health and Social Care Bill and their absolute disgust at the Liberal Democrats. The letter was initiated by Dr Clive Peedell,...
UNIONS have reacted angrily to plans to scrap national pay rates for public sector workers. Chancellor George Osborne is expected to say civil servants, such as Jobcentre and DVLA staff, should have pay brought into line with private sector wages in their regions. The Treasury says public sector pay...
OVER a thousand students and dons demonstrated in Cambridge midday yesterday against the banning of Owen Holland from the university until October 2014. Taz Razul, the access officer of the Cambridge Students Union, said: ‘We are demonstrating about the treatment of Owen Holland, a PhD student at Cambridge university. ‘Two days...
On Thursday, NHS trade unions declared they ‘strongly oppose’ local pay. NHS trade unions warned that a move to local pay for NHS staff would lead to damaging competition between Trusts for staff, entrench low pay in certain areas and further erode staff morale. NHS trade unions were invited to submit...
ITALIAN car giant Fiat has shut down five of its plants as the Italian ruling class struggles against a transport workers strike directed against the austerity government of the unelected, appointed Prime Minister, Mario Monti. Lorry drivers are striking over tax rises on petrol and have set up road blocks...
THE GMB is to make a formal complaint that a Bath employment agency is illegally supplying staff to Swindon hospital during Carillion strike days. GMB is asking the government’s enforcement body, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EASI), to conduct an investigation into the alleged strike-breaking as breaches of the regulations...