Monthly Archives: September 2013
THOUSANDS of state secondary school teachers demonstrated throughout Greece on Tuesday night against the coalition government’s Education Bill for secondary education, schools closures and thousands of teachers sacked. The reactionary Education Bill imposes a 19th century school system of continuous exams and large classes where teachers would have to work...
THE New York Times has just printed a letter from the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, which he described as a direct address to the ‘American people and their political leaders’ pleading for caution on the question of imperialist war against the Syrian people. The immediate question raised by Putin’s letter...
THE Communication Workers Union (CWU) yesterday slammed the government’s announcement that it plans to begin selling off Royal Mail in the next few weeks as ‘a betrayal of the British public’. The CWU pointed out that 70 per cent of the public are against privatisation. Yesterday’s government announcement that...
THE University of London Students Union has slammed a letter sent to them by the University management which threatens to prosecute anyone who demonstrates outside Senate House as an ‘outrageous and draconian response’. In the letter sent to the students union last week, the university management stated that they...
THE IMPERIALIST attempt to overthrow the Assad government in Syria has met a colossal resistance from the Syrian people, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars of Saudi and Qatari money that has been put into organising and equipping tens of thousands of Jihadist and Al-Qaeda veterans to enter...
THE TUC Congress yesterday passed Emergency Motions against the Lobbying Bill, and against the attack on the right to strike of London Underground workers. Mover of Motion 5, James Anthony, of Unison, said the government has turned the scandal of rich lobbyists into an attack on trade unions. ‘We...
DEPUTY Prime Minister and Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Walid al-Moallem, has announced that the Syrian Arab Republic welcomes the proposal of the Russian leadership based on the commitment of the Syrian leadership to ensure the safety of its citizens and the security of its territories and based on confidence...
OBAMA had been facing massive opposition in every State of the Union, with opinion polls saying that he faced defeat in any Congressional vote to support his demand for a strike on Syria. This was until much needed help arrived from the remnants of the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia, led...
DELEGATES at the TUC Congress in Bournemouth, yesterday took up the cudgels against privatisation and cuts in the fire, prison and probation services, Royal Mail and the railways. ‘This motion is about fighting back’, Fire Brigades Union General Secretary Matt Wrack told Congress as he moved Motion 39, ‘Cuts to...
THE TUC Congress opened in Bournemouth on Sunday to clamorous demands for an indefinite General Strike to bring down the government. After last year’s vote in favour of the TUC ‘discussing the practicalities of a general strike’, unions and delegates supported the demand for the actual calling of a general...
HARD on the heels of the revelations last June from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden that American and British spy agencies can access all the private information on the internet, comes new evidence that the spooks have done the same for smart phones. An article published last weekend, the German...
‘WE ARE here to stand up for the hard working people, we are abused and refused, we have been roundly abused numerous times,’ Hared Ali, RMT member and sacked London Underground cleaner, told News Line on a lively picket/ protest outside City Hall yesterday morning. The protest was organised by...
YESTERDAY’S TUC Congress in Bournemouth voted unanimously for coordinated industrial action to smash the coalition government’s public sector pay cap and for the outlawing of zero-hours contracts. Delegates voted unanimously for Composite Motion 7 – Fair pay and standards in the public sector, which commits the TUC to ‘campaign for...
THE President of the Bangladeshi National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF) on Saturday warned eight leading UK retailers that there could be a repeat of this year’s Rana Plaza tragedy if they refuse to sign up to an international accord designed to protect Bangladeshi factory workers. Amirul Haque Amin, who is...
UNITE’S general secretary Len McCluskey has said he is delighted the union has been ‘vindicated’ over the Falkirk ‘vote-rigging’ allegations Labour has decided no individual or organisation broke the party rules, and the police have decided that there was no breach of the law of the land. This exoneration comes...
THE TUC Congress opened in Bournemouth yesterday, to calls from the Young Socialists lobby and delegates for a General Strike, to bring down the Coalition government and its austerity programme. The Young Socialists marched to the Congress centre, chanting ‘TUC Get Off Your Knees, Call a General...
COMMUNICATION Workers Union (CWU) General Secretary, Billy Hayes, told his pre-Congress press conference yesterday that the CWU will be taking strike action in October. He said: ‘The Royal Mail privatisation Bill is now an Act. The government are now talking to potential investors. . . ‘We are looking at the...
THE Speaker of the Syrian People’s Assembly, Jihad Al-Lahham, has written an open letter to John Boehner, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, on behalf of all of members of the Syrian People’s Assembly. He writes: ‘It is important to note that we have sent an explanatory letter...
THE EGYPTIAN Army, mimicking the brutal methods of the Zionist occupiers, have been bulldozing Palestinian homes on the Rafah border with Gaza, destroying smuggling tunnels and intensifying the blockade, stopping the Palestinian people from receiving the essential foods, fuel and medicine they need to survive. In light of the latest...
THE Trade Union Congress is meeting at a very crucial time for the working people of the UK and for the working people of the world. The current capitalist crisis is the greatest in the history of the capitalist system, and it is still deepening. This crisis really does constitute...
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady has said on the eve of the annual TUC Congress, that unions may come together in co-ordinated strike action in the coming months. On Thursday, teacher unions NUT and NASUWT announced two new joint regional strikes and plans for a joint national one-day strike before...
RENT payments aren’t flexible and neither are gas bills or the weekly shopping bill, so flexible wages are not much use to anyone except McDonald’s, says the GMB union. GMB members together with Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, yesterday presented a giant GMB ASBO to the senior...
OVER half of universities and colleges use lecturers on zero-hour contracts and, furthermore, universities and colleges are twice as likely to use zero-hour contracts than other workplaces. This startling revelation was made public yesterday by the University and College Union (UCU). Sixty-one per cent of further education colleges in England,...
A SURVEY conducted this week by BBC Radio 5 Live has revealed that more than one third of people in Britain live in fear of not being able to pay the massive heating bills that have resulted from the huge price increases inflicted by the private energy companies. 25% of...
THE two largest teachers’ unions, the NASUWT and the NUT, representing nine out of ten teachers, yesterday announced two more regional strikes, rallies and plans for a one-day national strike before Christmas. At a press conference at the TUC’s Congress House in central London, the unions’ general secretaries Chris Keates...
SYRIAN leader Bashar al-Assad warned on Monday that Western military strikes risked igniting a ‘regional war’ in the ‘powder keg’ of the Middle East, in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro. He also said France would face ‘repercussions’ if it took part in US-led plans for military action in...
THE GMB Central Executive Council (CEC) has voted to reduce its current levels of affiliation to the Labour Party from 420,000 to 50,000 from 2014. This will reduce the union’s basic affiliation fee to the Labour Party by £1.1m per year. The GMB CEC expressed ‘considerable regret about the apparent lack...
THERE are 4.8 million workers earning below the so-called living wage, according to new research from the Resolution Foundation. The figure, equivalent to 20% of employees, is up from 3.4 million in 2009. The living wage is set at £7.45 outside London and £8.55 in the capital. Although employers are legally required...
AL-AQSA TV on Sunday morning carried the following ‘urgent’ screen caption: ‘Residents on the Egyptian side of Rafah are angry because the Egyptian army intends to evacuate them from their houses to create a buffer zone with the Gaza Strip.’ The privately-owned Qudsnet news website reported on Sunday: ‘The Egyptian...
A LIVELY PCS lobby yesterday of the Royal Courts of Justice took place as the union took the Department for Communications and Local Government (DCLG) to court for ‘breaching workers’ contracts’, after department head Eric Pickles ended the ‘check off’ system by which union subs are paid directly from...
SCHOOL students are being packed like sardines into state schools with a third of councils having to rent extra space in empty offices to accommodate them. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) teachers’ union has criticised the Tory-led government for allowing this crisis to develop, warning that learning...
US SENATOR and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain has warned that a Congressional vote against military action in Syria would be ‘catastrophic’. He also revealed that to get the support of the Republican Party leadership Obama was pledging, in private talks, a much bigger operation than missile shots across...
LONGSHORE workers in Oregon and Washington are continuing their round-the-clock fight for a fair contract at grain terminals owned by some of the world’s largest grain corporations a year after negotiations began last August. ILWU workers have exported a significant portion of the nation’s grain through Northwest ports under...
WHAT kind of future capitalism has in store for the entire working class was forcibly brought home this week – a future where workers have absolutely no employment rights, can be hired and fired at will, and where pay is cut down to a level so far below the...
THE Al-Sweady inquiry into allegations that more than 20 civilians were captured, tortured and unlawfully killed by British soldiers in Iraq in 2004, following the so-called ‘Battle of Danny Boy’, resumed yesterday. The inquiry is named after 19-year-old Hamid al-Sweady, who was allegedly tortured and hanged by British troops. Appearing at...
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has commented on last Thursday’s vote in the British parliament against supporting a US military operation in Syria. Putin said on Saturday he was ‘astonished’ by the move, adding it was made by people ‘motivated by the nation’s interests and common sense.’ He slammed as ‘unimaginable...
OVER 7,000 workers, youth and middle class protesters shouted Hands off Syria! as they marched in central London to a Stop the War rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday. As well as Stop the War Coalition, CND and Green party banners there were University and College Union national, London Region,...
IN A MAJOR abdication of Presidential power, Obama has given the US Congress the task of deciding whether there should be a strike on Syria. This is despite the fact that the President, under the US constitution, has the power to take military action without reference to the Congress, and...
US President Barack Obama announced on Saturday that, despite deciding as ‘Commander-in-Chief’ to take military action against Syria, he will seek congressional support for such intervention. In his speech, Obama said: ‘In a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted. ‘Now, after careful deliberation, I have...