Monthly Archives: March 2014
THE past week has been dominated by the sheer arrogance of the Tory-led coalition as it prepares to implement its plans for the wholesale destruction of the NHS and the mass closure of hospitals, along with its determination to dramatically cut pay levels for public sector workers. At the start...
150 workers began a week-long strike at closure-threatened Ealing Hospital in west London yesterday against the privateer Medirest. The porters, catering and domestic workers, all members of the GMB trade union, won great support from their colleagues and patients. They are currently paid £6.31 per hour and are demanding the Living...
THE allegedly ‘independent’ pay review bodies have recommended a below-inflation 1% pay ‘increase’ for public sector staff, but no increase at all for hundreds of thousands of NHS workers. However, even the insulting 1% offer, a wage cut when inflation is taken into account, is too much for Health Secretary...
COALITION ministers have announced a basic 1% pay rise for the public sector, in reality a wage cut with CPI inflation running at 2%. However, 600,000 nurses and other staff who receive ‘progression-in-job’ increases, as they develop their skills, will get a 0% rise. Hunt, the arrogant Health Secretary, intensified the...
GMB members employed by contractor Compass Medirest at Ealing hospital began a seven-day strike at 7.00am today until 7.00am next Friday, 21 March, for a living wage, sick pay and a decent holiday. This follows four days of strike action on 12th, 13th, 19th and 20th February. The 150 ancillary workers...
THE ousted Libyan PM Ali Zeidan has fled to Germany despite a travel ban slapped on him by Libya’s top prosecutor for his suspected involvement in embezzlement of public funds. Zeidan flew to Germany in defiance of a travel ban after changing planes in Malta, Maltese government sources said yesterday. Zeidan...
ISRAELI forces launched a deadly airstrike that struck southern Gaza on Tuesday, killing three young Palestinians. Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra confirmed that three Palestinian resistance fighters were killed by the airstrike in southeast Khan Younis near the Sufa crossing. Al-Qidra identified the victims as Ismail Abu Judah, 23,...
THE Tory-led coalition will now be able to close all of the hospitals on its hit list, and more as it wishes, to ‘save’ more money to carry on rescuing the banks and bankers. This is the situation after the Health Bill passed its final reading in the House...
GREEK public sector workers went on a 24-hour national strike on Wednesday against the so-called government ‘mobility scheme’ to bring in tens of thousands of sackings. The strike was called by the ADEDY (public sector workers’ confederation) which have also called a two day national strike next week. The government...
THE working class and the poor have no good story to tell about how their lives have been changed for the better, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) president Andrew Chirwa said on Monday. Speaking at the opening of NUMSA’s national bargaining conference in Pretoria, Chirwa said: ‘There...
OVER 100 workers and youth lobbied parliament yesterday afternoon ahead of a vote on the government’s Care Bill which includes the hated ‘Clause 119’ which will give Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt sweeping powers to close hospitals. The lobbyists, who included members from Unite, GMB, a large contingent from the Save...
THE NATO armed intervention that supported the Islamist revolt in Libya succeeded in murdering Colonel Gadaffi and smashed up the most advanced and prosperous country in Africa, placing various Islamist pro-imperialist factions into power. NATO smashed an advanced country and poisoned its population through the use of depleted uranium...
LABOUR has pledged a ‘jobs guarantee’ scheme for young unemployed people, that will last for the whole of next parliament, if it wins the 2015 general election. Under the scheme 18 to 24-year-olds who have been out of work for a year will be offered a job lasting six months...
UNITE is demanding that Clause 119 of the Care Bill, which awards Tory Health Secretary Hunt sweeping powers to close down any hospital he chooses with just 40 days notice, is defeated in Parliament today. Unite is demonstrating outside parliament at 11am this morning, while the Care Bill is being...
EGYPT is gripped by a wave of strikes as the working class continues its revolutonary actions along with the country’s youth that have seen the overthrow of two presidents. Workers of the Transport Authority in Alexandria launched a strike in Sidi Bishr’s public transportation garage on Saturday demanding the application...
THE government faces a revolt over Clause 119 of the Care Bill today. This clause would give health secretary Hunt and appointed officials powers to close hospital A&Es and other services within 40 days. The medical profession, trade unions and campaign groups have warned all MPs that hospitals in their constituencies...
OVER 3,000 solicitors, barristers, probation staff and a number of the many people they represent rallied last Friday in a half-day strike opposite parliament, before marching to the Ministry of Justice condemning savage cuts in the legal aid system. The rally chair, criminal solicitor Greg Foxsmith said of the measures:...
A POWERFUL march of more than 150 local residents, trade unionists, workers, students and youth drew enormous support from the busy Enfield shopping centre on Saturday afternoon, demanding the reopening of Chase Farm Hospital Accident and Emergency Department. As they were assembling, marchers told News Line why the A&E must...
AUSTRALIA’S Transport Workers Union (TWU) National Secretary Tony Sheldon, at talks in Sydney on Thursday afternoon, said he would urge Qantas CEO Alan Joyce to reveal his future plans for the airline, and to back away from the proposed 5,000 sackings. Last Thursday, February 27, Qantas’ Board announced 5,000 job...
NEVILLE LAWRENCE, the father of Stephen Lawrence, the teenager who was murdered by a racist gang in 1993, said yesterday that he was very sceptical about Home Secretary May’s announcement that there would be yet another inquiry into the murder, this time into the activities of the police undercover...
‘THIS is the biggest gathering that I can remember of solicitors, barristers, probation staff and the many people we represent,’ solicitor Paul Harris told a 3,000-strong rally opposite parliament yesterday. The rally, before a march to the Ministry of Justice, took place during a half-day courts strike against cuts to...
SACKED Finance Ministry cleaners demanding re-employment, occupied the Athens district tax office in Kallithea yesterday morning. At the same time, state teachers on the ‘mobility scheme’ occupied the Kallithea technical college and school guards occupied the Kallithea Town Hall against their prospective sackings. The Greek government has put some 14,000 public...
THE CRISIS of the capitalist system has led to huge attacks on working class and middle class youth who are daily being told in words and in deeds that they have no future under capitalism. On December 9th, 2010 the Tory-led coalition lifted the cap on university tuition fees so...
A JUDGE-LED public inquiry will be held into the work of undercover police following a review into the original Stephen Lawrence murder investigation. It found a Metropolitan Police ‘spy’ worked within the ‘Lawrence camp’ while a judicial inquiry into matters arising from Stephen’s death was under way. Home Secretary Theresa May...
THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) National Office issued its outlines on the ‘Progress on the United Front and the Movement for Socialism’ on Sunday. ‘The leadership of the national liberation movement as a whole has failed to lead a consistent radical democratic process to resolve the...
ISRAEL’S Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu put the final nails into the coffin of the two state solution when he urged, on Monday, that Palestine’s President Abbas recognise Israel as a ‘Jewish state’ and ‘abandon the fantasy’ of the right to return and ‘flooding’ Israel with refugees. The latest declaration...
JAMAHIRIYA NEWS has reported on NATO war crimes in Libya including deformities in new born babies due to the use by NATO of depleted uranium bombs. It states: ‘Regarding this depleted uranium report below, we brought in the first sophisticated radiation detectors with us on our fact finding...
ON 15th January a two-year-old child died at North Middlesex Hospital after having been taken to Chase Farm Hospital. The baby’s name was Muhammad Hashir Naveed. The child died there because the A&E had been closed down. When the mother got the child to Chase Farm she discovered that the...
THE European Commission has offered Ukraine 11 billion euros, falling well short of the $35 billion needed to service immediate debt repayments and avoid default and national bankruptcy. Jose Barroso, president of the European Commission, announced that its offer is mainly sourced from the International Monetary Fund and the World...
YESTERDAY President Putin put himself forward not just as the defender of Russian speakers in Ukraine, but as the Guardian of Order in the area. After warning that he would defend Russian speakers who are under attack from Ukrainian fascists, following their EU-US-backed coup in Kiev, he also addressed a...
THERE was a lively mass picket at SOAS University, Central London, yesterday at the start of a two-day strike by cleaners. SOAS Unison Assistant Branch Secretary Ezequiel Kramer told News Line: ‘The cleaners are employed by ISS contractors. We are fighting for equal terms and conditions as for those who...
PRESIDENT Putin said yesterday at a Moscow press conference that an unconstitutional coup and an armed takeover of power had taken place in Kiev. He was puzzled by this since ‘there was no need for it at a time when Viktor Yanukovych had conceded to all opposition demands.’ Putin stressed that...
A STATEMENT by National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) National Office Bearers on Sunday outlined the union’s views ‘on the state of Class Struggles in South Africa and the Crisis in Cosatu’. NUMSA declared: ‘Mankind today is faced with one choice: abandon the capitalist system or perish by...
HUNDREDS of armed riot police were employed last Friday morning in Athens in a series of tear-gas and truncheon attacks against protesting state teachers, school guards and sacked tax offices’ cleaners. Riot police made over 20 arrests, including Grigoris Kalomiris, the Vice President of ADEDY (public sector confederation of trades...
BORIS JOHNSON writes in Monday’s Daily Telegraph, in the wake of the Rigby trial, ‘the most important question now is how we prevent other young men, and women, from succumbing to that awful virus: the contagion of radical Islamic extremism.’ He also gives us an idea of the scope of...
GEORGE Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton is in danger of becoming the second NHS hospital to undergo a private sector takeover The foundation trust hospital has applied to the Department of Health for a license to franchise its management. The development has drawn criticism from South Warwickshire Foundation Trust (FT), which...
OVER 100 teachers from around the UK attended a Professional Unity conference last Saturday, organised by their trade unions. Speakers were Mary Bousted, Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) general secretary by video address, John Vincent, National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), Christine Blower, National Union of Teachers (NUT) general...
ON SATURDAY a National Assembly was held in the Black Sea city of Odessa, and other assemblies were held in all of the main cities of the Crimea and southern and eastern Ukraine. The Odessa Assembly carried a resolution that stated: ‘We, citizens of Odessa and Odessa region, due...
ELDERLY and disabled passengers are losing vital bus services because of cuts in government funding, councils in England are warning. The Local Government Association (LGA) says support for the concessionary fares scheme has been reduced by over a third since 2010. Under the scheme, councils have to provide free off-peak travel...
AROUND 2.3 million children in the UK are in child poverty, with that figure rising by a further 400,000 Labour said. The Tory coalition government unveiled their strategy to deal with the child poverty on Thursday, a strategy which claims to be able to ‘end child poverty by 2020’. It lists...
THE illegal Ukrainian regime, that came to power through a US-EU-backed and financed coup, yesterday accused Russia of carrying out an armed invasion of the Crimea and sending naval forces to occupy Sevastopol airport in the Crimea region. The US, EU and the UK joined in the threats, issuing warnings...
EMPLOYEES across the UK worked a record amount of unpaid overtime last year, with over 5.4 million workers putting in around £640m worth of unpaid hours every week, revealed the TUC yesterday to mark its annual Work Your Proper Hours Day. The TUC’s analysis of official figures shows that the...