Monthly Archives: August 2015
THE deepening worldwide capitalist crisis is driving forward revolution with seven-league boots. The crisis is threatening a new banking and industrial crash at any moment that will make the Greek experience, and worse, the common lot of humanity as a whole. At the same time as world capitalism is on...
TEN years of uneven recovery have exacerbated the economic inequalities that predated Hurricane Katrina, says Louisiana SEIU local 21LA. Without a doubt, the economic progress of the last ten years has not been felt equally and the data shows that poor families, particularly those of colour, continue to lag behind...
AFTER the failure of the major Greek political parties to form a government, Greece’s top Supreme Court judge, Vassiliki Thanou, has been appointed caretaker prime minister ahead of ‘early elections’ which are said to be scheduled to take place next month on September 20th or the 27th, according to...
IN AN an interview given to al-Manar TV, President Bashar Assad said the essence of the crisis in Syria is foreign interference by the US and its allies. He also defended the Lebanese state and stressed the importance and strength of Syria’s alliance with Iran and Russia. President Assad said...
TENANTS and trade unionists mobilised outside Lambeth County Court yesterday to support Marian Okanlowan who is appealing against the Guinness Trust’s intention to repossess her home without offering alternative accommodation. The court decided to adjourn to give Marian more time to present her case at the end of...
CONTROL staff with the Essex fire service, 95% of whom are women, held a one-day strike on Tuesday (25 August 2015) as part of a dispute over unworkable shifts imposed by Essex fire service managers. Control staff who once worked family friendly shift patterns are now being forced to work...
THE trade unions have won round one of the Night Tube war. London Underground announced yesterday that the launch date of London’s Night Tube is to be delayed ‘to allow more time’ for talks with the trade unions. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: ‘RMT welcomes this move which is...
THE Department for Work and Pensions yesterday released shocking mortality figures in response to a number of Freedom of Information requests concerning ‘the number of people who have died within a year of their Work Capability Assessment since May 2010’. Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka said:...
NET migration to the UK is at an all-time high, reaching 330,000 in the year to March 2015, that is 94,000 more than in the year to March 2014 the Office for National Statistics has said. The Net Migration figure – the difference between the number entering the country and...
THE leader of one of the country’s biggest trade unions yesterday hit back at Labour after being told his vote on the party leadership election had been blocked. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, said it was ‘extraordinary’ to be told he did not...
THE National Union of Students (NUS) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) yesterday signed an agreement for joint campaigning for the coming year. The partnership was signed at Congress House in London by TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady and by new NUS National President Megan Dunn. A joint press...
THE leader of one of the UK’s biggest trade unions has had his vote in the Labour leadership election rejected. His voting paper has been returned to him, presumably along with his £3. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, is the leader of a...
MIGRANT workers who work illegally in England and Wales are to face up to six months in prison under especially vindictive anti-migrant proposals to be included in the forthcoming Immigration Bill. The measure will be an Act by the Autumn and will run in parallel with the new Tory anti-union...
STOP the jobs bloodbath in the steel industry, South African trade union leaders are demanding after meetings with the government and business failed on Friday. Some economists calculate that the entire steel industry is almost certain to collapse, should no government intervention be made, with 190,000 jobs on the line...
THE TUC and the NUS signed an agreement yesterday for joint campaigning by the trade union and student movements for the coming year. The partnership was signed at Congress House in London by TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady and by new NUS National President Megan Dunn. A joint press statement said...
CHINA cut its main interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.6% yesterday, for the fifth time since November, as it moved to try and prop up crisis-ridden western capitalism. The People’s Bank of China also cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points. The moves take effect...
CHARITIES expressed concerns yesterday after Tory plans to force a million more sick and disabled people into work were floated by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. In a speech in London, Duncan Smith claimed that Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) needs to be urgently overhauled, because too few...
THE world crisis of capitalism has now erupted once again and has the deformed workers’ state of China in its sights, and no doubt in its gunsights. The Stalinist bureaucracy, since the death of Mao in 1976, has swung far to the right. It embraced the policy that China under...
US Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders called on US trade unions to rise up and join his political revolution to defeat the Koch brothers during a speech in Nevada. At the Nevada State AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, Sen. Sanders said: ‘Today, as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court...
STRIKING unions are to be gagged as well as chained, the TUC’s general secretary Frances O’Grady has said, referring to a consultation document linked to the proposed Trade Union Bill. This suggests unions involved in industrial action should give two weeks notice if they plan to campaign via social...
RMT pickets were out at all key locations yesterday morning as the strike action over the threat to jobs, safety and services was solidly supported across First Great Western with widespread disruption. Mick Cash, RMT general secretary, said yesterday morning: ‘The action is being solidly supported across First Great...
CAIRO witnessed its biggest protests in months this week, when employees from the tax and customs authorities gathered in front of the Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo to protest against the application of the new civil service law. This law, number 18 of 2015, came into effect in July 2015....
SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras announced on Thursday evening that he was resigning as Prime Minister and has called an early Greek election. Tsipras, who was only elected in January, said he had a moral duty to go to the polls now a third bailout had been secured with European creditors....
WITH his resignation as Greek prime minister on Thursday night, the leader of the ‘left’ Syriza government, Alexis Tsipras, has signalled that he and Syriza have done part 1 of the job that was asked of them by the bankers. Nobody else, no other movement, could have brought in the...
TOP Iraqi officials ignored ample warnings of an impending attack on second city Mosul and grossly mismanaged the ensuing crisis that saw it seized by jihadists, an Iraqi parliamentary report says. The Islamic State group (ISIS) took control of the northern city in Nineveh province on June 10 last year,...
THE National Living Wage could result in a ‘catastrophic collapse’ in the number of care homes, according to the five biggest private providers, Four Seasons Health Care, Bupa, HC-One, Care UK and Barchester. The five privateers have sent a begging letter to Chancellor Osborne saying that paying ‘their’ staff ...
BBC Asian Network went on a 24-hour strike yesterday against the axing of one out of two editor posts in Birmingham and moving a third of the region’s output, including the hugely popular Bobby Friction Show, from Birmingham to London. Helen Boaden, head of BBC’s radio division, told a Birmingham...
THE United Steelworkers (USW) union and Pennsylvania AFL-CIO have condemned the decision by specialty metals company Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) to lock out 2,200 workers at 12 plants in six states last Friday, 14 August. ‘It’s outrageous that the company has chosen this destructive path, but it is clear that...
OVER 30 National Gallery strikers and their supporters were in a determined mood on Day 9 of their indefinite strike against privatisation and the victimisation of their PCS rep Candy Udwin. Two strikers, who did not wish to be named for fear of victimisation, spoke to News Line. One said:...
THE Department for Work and Pensions has admitted lying to the public by making up stories from fictional claimants, and passing them off as real, in a desperate attempt to boost Duncan Smith’s policy of cutting welfare by all means possible, using sanctions, starvation and other tools. The lies were...
PARENTS working on the minimum wage are on the brink of a new crisis in family finances that will leave many close to destitution, warns a new report produced by Loughborough University’s Donald Hirsch for Child Poverty Action Group. Families with both parents working full time at the national minimum...
YESTERDAY the main rail unions held a series of protests at rail stations which involved the handing out of postcards to commuters detailing the fact that rail fares have shot up three times faster than wages over the past five years, and demanding that the railways be renationalised. The TUC-backed...
‘I STRONGLY believe that care homes should be taken back under local council control,’ GMB rep Dianne Wragg said yesterday. Wragg is the lead steward for the care workers branch of the GMB for the Yorkshire and North Derbyshire region. She was responding to a damning Care Quality Commission (CQC)...
THE Tory attacks on youth have reached a fever pitch over the past week with the announcement of more measures to be taken by the government to stop benefits and drive unemployed young people into unpaid work and now into ‘boot camps’. Last week, Cameron revealed that in his drive...
HUMAN rights group Amnesty International says President Jacob Zuma must suspend all police officers implicated in the Marikana shooting. Sunday marked exactly three years since 34 miners were gunned down by police during a strike. A commission of inquiry into the tragedy recommended that national police commissioner Riah Phiyega be...
UNEMPLOYED youth are to be conscripted into ‘boot camps’ or face being thrown off benefits and onto the streets, in a ‘vindictive’ new Tory scheme announced yesterday. The scheme exclusively targets youth aged between 18 to 21. Youth within the first three weeks of claiming unemployment benefits will be dragooned...
STUDENTS are up in arms at the soaring cost of their accommodation on top of £9,000 a year tuition fees and government plans to scrap maintenance grants for the half a million students from poorer backgrounds who rely on them. Many are calling for a national rent strike, following rent...
PM Cameron has celebrated his government’s first 100 days by launching an attack on the enemy within, that is the working class and their trade unions, pledging 100% academisation of schools, and the enemy without, migrants who have been forced to flee from the chaos that his government has...
‘IN THE face of proposals from the UK government which amount to imposition in all but name, the UK junior doctors committee has decided not to re-enter contract negotiations,’ British Medical Association (BMA) Council chair Mark Porter announced in a message to members on Friday. He added: ‘The BMA believes...
A FEDERAL Court judge in Australia has granted an injunction preventing 97 workers at ports in Sydney and Brisbane from being sacked. The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) brought the case after Hutchison Ports made the workers redundant by email and text message last week. In a hearing in Sydney...
THE decision by the British Medical Association (BMA) to refuse to re-enter contract negotiations for doctors in training will be welcomed by every trade union member in the NHS and indeed by every worker in the country. By refusing to sit down with the employers to re-negotiate the existing contract...
THE Greek Vouli (parliament) approved on Friday morning by 222 to 64 votes, the new EC-IMF-dictated third austerity bailout accords, proposed by the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government. But the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras could only get a majority with the votes of the Greek conservatives, social-democrats and the right-wing...