Monthly Archives: March 2012
MARITIME and transport union RMT confirmed yesterday that its members in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ‘will strike alongside public sector colleagues on the 28th March.’ An RMT statement added: ‘Following the National Day of Strike Action observed by RFA members and many other public sector workers on 30th November 2011,...
IN an extraordinary speech given at his annual press conference, the outgoing Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, warned that China risks a ‘historical tragedy’ along the lines of the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong in the 1960s. The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s attempt to halt the rise of the...
Students on a 1,000-strong march through London on Wednesday called on the trade unions to act to restore free education. Students marched from University of London Union in Malet Street, central London, to the Business, Innovation and Science Department in Victoria, as part of a nationwide day of protest called...
A SCOTLAND YARD review into the 2010 summer riots ‘Four Days in August’ shows very clearly that the capitalist state in the UK is actively preparing for a civil war on the streets, and to be able to attack large numbers of people using water cannon, plastic...
THE GMB has found that the senior Carillion HR manager involved in the Swindon dispute was the same HR manager for Carillion that dealt with the blacklisting organisation that lead to the exclusion of thousands of trade unionist from employment. Dave Smith, a trade unionist who was blacklisted by his...
UNEMPLOYMENT in the UK rose by 28,000 in the last three months, to 2.67 million. Youth joblessness soared by another 16,000, with the number of unemployed 16 to 24-year-olds rising to 1.042 million. Youth unemployment is up another 0.4% in the last quarter to 22.5% and unemployment among 16...
OVER a thousand students marched from University of London Union in Malet Street, central London, to the Business, Innovation and Science Department in Victoria yesterday. The march was part of the nationwide day of protest called by the National Union of Students against £9,000 tuition fees and cuts in...
Care homes are increasingly struggling to provide high quality care for residents with complex medical conditions, amid a backdrop of a severe lack of funding, equipment and staff, the Royal College of Nursing warned yesterday. A new RCN report outlines how nurses working in care homes are facing huge challenges...
THE Egyptian military have brokered a truce between the militant Palestinian factions in Gaza and the Israeli military, which had been bombing Gaza for four days killing 30 people and wounding 80. The Israelis were in fact keen to get a ceasefire and also agreed ‘to stop assassinations’ and ‘to...
TENS of thousands of students are expected to participate in a national walkout today in campuses in every part of the UK against the Tory government’s destruction of free state education. Students are taking part in marches and rallies in towns and cities around the country. The demonstration ...
The Unite union has called for the rejection of the government’s final public sector pensions package. ‘The government is steamrolling through its final offer on public sector pensions, having avoided any meaningful negotiations over the last year,’ Unite said after last Friday’s ‘final offer’. A union statement added: ‘The government’s agenda...
European finance ministers met in Brussels yesterday to rubber-stamp the deal agreed at the last minute last Thursday to bail-out the bankrupt Greek economy with a loan of 130 billion euros. Even the most optimistic bourgeois economists agree that at the very most the Eurozone has bought three months breathing...
PATIENTS faced with the closure of their local Camden Road GP surgery overcame bureaucratic attempts to bar them from attending an invitation-only meeting with the director of NHS Central London last Friday. Before having to battle their way into the meeting, some spoke to News Line. Younus Miah, a restaurant manager,...
THE European Commission has formed an enlarged Task Force of over 100 German and French technocrats to oversee the implementation of the conditions attached to the Greek 130bn euros bailout. They are to be stationed in Athens and are headed by top EU bureaucrat Horst Reichenbach who has been monitoring...
A US SOLDIER in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five men, women and children. Nato said it was investigating the ‘deeply regrettable incident’. However, the Afghan war has been one big incident or atrocity, with a massive slaughter from the air and from the...
THE Coalition has now published a fourth ‘final offer’ on public sector pensions, without any negotiations with the trade unions. Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka commented: ‘Over more than a year, ministers have refused to budge from their entirely unnecessary and politically motivated attempt to force...
IT WAS Frederick Engels who said that the housing problem and capitalism were inseparable, and that to get rid of the former you would have to get rid of the latter. Workers thought that the housing crisis was being solved with the building of millions of council homes after the...
THE news that the death toll of British soldiers in Afghanistan passed the 400 mark this week has been greeted with outpourings of grief from the coalition government and the Labour opposition along with the army high command, who have all collectively come unstuck in the most massive way...
THE RMT yesterday warned that ministers are preparing to wind back the clock to the days of the Hatfield and Potters Bar disasters and bring in private ownership of rail infrastructure for the first time since the collapse of Railtrack. RMT said that the Command Paper, the government’s long-awaited response...
OVER 2,000 consultants, GPs, medical students and their supporters marched from the British Medical Association head office, Tavistock Square to Wednesday evening’s TUC rally in Westminster. The march to demand the scrapping of the Health and Social Care Bill was called by the BMA’s London region and was joined by...
The Pipeline in Egypt that supplies Israel with gas was bombed last Monday for the 13th time since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. The attack was pulled out in the Massaeed area west of the Mediterranean coastal town of Al-Arish, North Sinai. The previous bombings...
BMA Consultants at their Annual Conference yesterday made it clear they were determined to fight for their pensions. The tone was set by the Consultants Committee Chairman Dr Mark Potter, when he said that an ‘obstinate government’ has forced senior doctors into conflict (see page 2). Conference voted unanimously for motion...
THE Health and Social Care Bill is set to become law within weeks. This is after the LibDem ‘revolt’, which the Labour bureaucracy was telling workers would lead to the Bill being dropped, evaporated without trace, leaving the Cameron-led coalition to have its way, winning a series of...
ISRAEL, which has several hundred nuclear bombs, has issued a warning that it will not wait much longer before it strikes Iran, which has no nuclear weapons, but is developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Israeli Premier, Netanyahu made it perfectly clear while addressing a US Zionist rally, and also...
Thousands of health workers, patients, trade unionists and young people will be joining the mass protests to ‘Save Our NHS’ outside Parliament today. ‘Make no mistake, this is our last chance to save the NHS,’ warned Unison head of health, Christina McAnea. The Unite union added: ‘In less...
If anyone needs further proof to Vale’s global social neglect, it comes in a pair of dirty deeds committed by the Brazilian mining company in and after the bitter 2009-10 strike at a major nickel and copper operation in Sudbury, Ontario, says global union federation ICEM. One involves circumstances surrounding...
The disclosure over the weekend that two police authorities, West Midlands and Surrey, have started the process of privatising the police service in their areas marks a further development in the creation of a fully private police force answerable only to the employers. That this was just the start was...
AFTER having pushed to separate oil rich South Sudan from the North, the US is now preparing for military action against the north, accusing it of seeking to undermine South Sudan, in order to overthrow the government of President Bashir. Secretary of State Clinton is accusing Bashir of trying to...
‘Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is deceiving the public about the true adverse impact of his health bill,’ Unite leader Len McCluskey insisted yesterday, as a two-day tribunal opened on whether the ‘risk register’ on the bill’s implications should be made public. The Tory-LibDem coalition is appealing against the Information...
An international conference on Al-Quds, last Sunday, highlighted criminal operations perpetrated by the Zionists, concerning Israel’s annexation policy in Jerusalem. The conference organised under the theme ‘International Conference for the Defence of Occupied Jerusalem’, assembled 350 representatives from 70 different countries. Participants included Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa, Arab...
ALI AL-HAYIK, the head of Gaza’s Federation of Industries and the Palestinian Businessmen Association on the Gaza Strip, warned yesterday that dozens of factories are on the brink of closure due to the imposed Gaza fuel crisis. He urged the Hamas-led government to provide fuel to the factories to...
It has emerged that the police, MI5 and other security services supplied information to a blacklist compiled for and funded by Carillion and other construction companies to prevent the employment of trade unionists. The evidence emerged during an employment tribunal on January 17th that information on an employers’ group...
The Unite union, which represents the bulk of the 2,800 workforce at Vauxhall Ellesmere Port, yesterday responded to news that Business Secretary Vince Cable had flown to New York to plead with GM for the plant to stay open. Unite national officer Roger Maddison told News Line: ‘Ellesmere Port is...
WEST Kensington tenants were angry that a ‘drop-in session’ hosted by Hammersmith and Fulham council on Thursday night was closed down early. The premature closure of the meeting was made despite many residents anxious to hear the latest news in the Earls Court regeneration project. The council has given the giant...
UK Prime Minister David Cameron called for the ‘criminal’ Syrian government to be held to account, and threatened Syria’s people that there would be ‘a day of reckoning for this dreadful regime’ if they did not overthrow it. However, Cameron fools nobody – the real criminals, who do need...
THE governor of the bank of England, Mervyn King, has launched a scathing attack on the major UK banks, accusing them of trying to make huge profits at the expense of the taxpayers. King was up in front of MPs at the treasury select committee where he faced charges of...
THE fight to occupy Chase Farm hospital intensified on day 38 of the daily picket on the gates of Chase Farm as medical students, local residents and hospital staff expressed their determination to save the hospital by all means necessary. Julia Greenford a Middlesex student studying Midwifery told News Line:...
Dr Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the BMA’s GPs Committee, wrote to all GPs in England yesterday setting out why the Committee wants the Health and Social Care Bill withdrawn. Buckman warns GPs that ‘over time, it has become clear that this is the most top-down reorganisation the NHS has seen...
THE Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos was in Brussels yesterday seeking final approval from Germany and France for Greece’s second bailout deal. Greece is continuing with the spending cuts required before it can get the 130bn euros ($174bn; £110bn) of loans it needs to pay the first instalment, by March...
James Murdoch quit as executive chairman of News International yesterday, but said he will remain as deputy chief operating officer of parent group News Corporation. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive at News Corporation, said: ‘We are all grateful for James’ leadership at News International and across Europe and Asia,...
OVER 50 striking Swindon hospital workers travelled by coach yesterday to Wolverhampton to lobby their employer, privateer Carillion, demanding an end to bullying, harassment and discrimination. Carillion has the 30-year PFI contract at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, where it employs the striking workers as kitchen staff and...