Monthly Archives: November 2022
‘Vice chancellors are about to witness another huge show of strength,’ UCU (University and College Union) General Secretary Jo Grady said yesterday, speaking ahead of strike action resuming at 150 UK universities today. A UCU national rally is taking place at King’s Cross Station, London, at 1.00pm today – the...
The Israeli occupation forces shot and killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank yesterday (Tuesday) morning, one in Beit Ummar in the south of the West Bank, and two brothers near Ramallah. Mufeed Mohammad Ikhlil, 44, was shot through the head during clashes between soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in...
With nurses and thousands of NHS workers planning to take national strike action next month over their demands for pay increases to protect them from the massive inflationary cost-of-living crisis, the Tories are preparing to use the Army to act as a state strike-breaking force. On Monday, reports emerged in...
THE agreement between Israeli Prime Minister-Designate Benjamin Netanyahu and extremist Itamar Ben Gvir is ‘a broad call for an escalation in the violence in the conflict’, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said yesterday. It also condemned Israeli government plans to start building 9,000 settlement units on former...
TENS of thousands of Amazon workers staged strikes and a walkout on Black Friday last week demanding a pay rise and calling on the company to reform its climate policies. Employees from more than 30 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and India, took part in the...
TORY prime minister Rishi Sunak, in his first major policy speech last night, pledged to maintain and even increase military aid to Ukraine to prolong the imperialist war on Russia. Sunak grandly announced: ‘We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. We will maintain or increase our...
‘We have been ignored for too long!’ says nurses’ leader Cullen ahead of December strikes ‘WHILE billions of pounds is being spent on temporary measures like agency staff to stick a plaster on the NHS workforce crisis, we are told a pay rise for nursing staff is unaffordable,’ RCN General...
Mark Harper, the latest Tory transport secretary, appeared on the BBC yesterday morning to claim that the government was not responsible for blocking any offers from train operators to the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union last week. Attempting to present himself as the reasonable face of the Tory government,...
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) on Friday condemned the South African Reserve Bank (SARB)’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) hiking of the interest rate by 0.75 per cent. ‘This interest rate hike takes the inter-bank rate rate from 6.25 per cent to 7 per cent, whilst the prime...
THE ROYAL College of Nursing (RCN) confirmed yesterday that nurses will go on strike for two days in the two weeks before Christmas on 15 and 20 December. The announcement of this strike – the first in the RCN’s 106 year history – followed Tory ministers snubbing pleas by RCN...
CANADIAN trade unions allege that workers in Bangladeshi garment factories that supply Canadian Tyre subsidiary Mark’s with clothing sold under brand names like Wind River, Denver Hayes, Dakota and Helly Hansen are paid poverty-level wages. The unions have filed a complaint with a federal corporate watchdog saying Canadian Tyre failed...
NURSES will strike across Britain on Thursday 15th & Tuesday 20th December, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) announced yesterday. ‘Strike action will happen in phases, meaning more strike dates could be announced after initial action in December.’ RCN General Secretary & Chief Executive Pat Cullen said: ‘Ministers have had more...
STRIKING postal workers fighting Royal Mail’s diktat yesterday called for a general strike. On a lively picket line outside Camden Delivery Office, London NW1, Communication Workers Union (CWU) general secretary Dave Ward told News line: ‘This is a fight for jobs and for the future of the service. ‘Royal Mail is...
THE United States’ largest rail union has voted against a tentative contract agreement reached with rail management in September, raising the likelihood of a strike in the upcoming month, which can cause significant damage to the US economy. Train and engine service members of the transportation division of the International...
TORY Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has issued the call for workers to go without heating this winter to support the imperialist war on Russia. Appearing before MPs at a Treasury Committee meeting on Wednesday, Hunt used the opportunity to insist that people must ‘take responsibility’ for their energy bills and consider...
POSTAL workers are warning the public of the ‘end of Royal Mail as we know it’, as 115,000 employees strike today and Black Friday (25th November). Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will walk out, as part of a longstanding dispute that has recently seen workers take a unanimous...
NHS leaders in Scotland have discussed abandoning the founding principles of the health service by having the wealthy pay for treatment, setting up a ‘two-tier’ system. The discussion of a two-tier health service is mentioned in draft minutes of a meeting of Scotland’s NHS leaders in September.
They also raise the...
THE PALESTINIAN people paid a heavy cumulative cost, estimated at $50 billion, between 2000 and 2020 due to the additional restrictions imposed by Israel in the part of Area C of the West Bank available for Palestinian development, says the latest UNCTAD report to the UN General Assembly. The report,...
THE RMT rail union will hold a series of 48-hour strikes in December and January after industry bosses failed to offer any new deals to reach a settlement. Over 40,000 members across Network Rail and 14 Train Operating Companies will take strike action on 13, 14, 16 and 17 December...
THE STRIKE wave sweeping the USA continues to grow, with tens of thousands of nurses and hundreds of Starbucks and Sodexo workers being the latest into action over a whole range of issues, including a nationwide struggle against poverty pay, for safe staffing levels, in defence of jobs and...
THE POSTAL workers union, CWU, is now in a headlong collision with a Royal Mail management openly moving to destroy the union as an independent organisation which fights for its members, and turning it into a company union. As a company union, its only function is to faithfully carry out...
NHS SCOTLAND has secret plans to introduce a two-tier health service in which the wealthy can pay for their treatment and the poor are kicked out of hospital within 24-hours! Unite, the UK’s biggest union, which has 100,000 members working in the NHS who are currently being balloted for strike...
AMERICAN journalist and filmmaker Dan Cohen has argued that there is no difference between the so-called left, centrist and right parties in Israel, as they are all Zionist and believe in colonising Palestine. The director of ‘Killing Gaza’ made the comments in an interview with Press TV aired on Saturday,...
THE BBC yesterday revealed that NHS leaders in Scotland have been discussing setting up a ‘two-tier’ health service. These discussions were recorded in draft minutes of a meeting of NHS Scotland health board chief executives held in September and marked ‘in confidence not for onward sharing’. It’s not surprising that these...
OVER 100 workers, students and youth attended the News Line Anniversary Rally at the Wheatsheaf Community Hall in Vauxhall, south west London on Saturday afternoon. In his opening speech as chairman of the rally, All Trades Unions Alliance Secretary Dave Wiltshire said: ‘Comrades – I would like to welcome you...
THE CWU trade union representing postal workers says Royal Mail’s chief executive Simon Thompson is to blame for a round of strikes in the run-up to Christmas and is in fact actively provoking them. Andy Furey, the national officer at the Communications Workers Union, yesterday insisted workers did want a...
FIRST speaker at the News Line Anniversary Rally on Saturday was Bill Rogers, ASLEF Chingford Branch Chairman, who said: ‘This rally is being held in a revolutionary situation and the way things have moved this year is unbelievable. On the railways we have had RMT and ASLEF ballots of...
THE TUC leaders are unanimous in their condemnation of the latest Tory autumn statement, but yet again refuse to call any action to bring down the Tories. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: ‘The Conservatives crashed the economy – now they are making working people take the hit. This is a...
TRADE union leaders on Thursday gave their response to Chancellor Hunt’s austerity war on workers in his Autumn Statement. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: ‘The Conservatives crashed the economy – now they are making working people take the hit. This is a recession made in 10 Downing Street, which will...
NEW Christmas strikes have been called against the destruction of postal workers’ livelihoods Following further attacks on the terms and conditions of postal workers, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has taken the decision to call further strike action on Friday 9th December, Sunday 11th December, Wednesday 14th December, Thursday 15th...
CHANCELLOR HUNT yesterday announced tens of billions in tax rises and spending cuts in his Autumn Statement. Hunt acknowledged that the UK was in recession but said his plan would help rebuild the economy and reduce debt. He announced a freeze in income tax thresholds, meaning millions of people will pay...
THE Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad resistance movements have slammed the fatal Israeli shooting of two Palestinian men at a military checkpoint south of Nablus, vowing that the resistance of the Palestinian nation will continue until the Israeli regime is defeated and an independent Palestinian state is created. Hamas last...
YESTERDAY, Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his Autumn budget – the second budget from the government in under two months. The first was the disastrous mini-budget of Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss which resulted in Truss being thrown out after only 44 days in the job. This latest budget from Hunt...
FOOD prices are rising at their fastest rate for 45 years, with the cost of basics such as milk, cheese and eggs surging and supermarkets starting to impose rationing. Food price inflation hit 16.2% in the year to October, up from 14.5% in September, latest figures show. Energy and fuel costs...
UNIONS representing more than a million staff working across the NHS met with Health Secretary Steve Barclay on Tuesday to discuss the growing workforce crisis ahead of the autumn statement by Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. At the Westminster meeting, the unions made clear that without urgent government action on wages, experienced health...
AS THE US and the UK continue to fuel and arm the war in the Ukraine, the economic outlook for Europe and the EU continues to worsen as super inflation takes hold and threatens to turn the masses of both the working class and the middle class into paupers. There...
WORKERS in the power industry across India will hold a massive rally in Delhi on November 23 against the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022, which seeks privatisation. Through this Amendment Bill, the central government is going to hand over electricity distribution to private corporations to supply electricity through the existing network...
On the eve of Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn budget tomorrow, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published figures revealing that the number of working days hit by strikes has reached over half a million in the two months of August and September. The ONS places the cause for this...
TWO YEARS-OLD Awaab Ishak died on 21 December 2020 shortly after his second birthday ‘entirely’ as a result of extensive mould in his flat, the coroner at his inquest declared yesterday. Coroner Joanne Kearsley found that Awaab ‘died as a result of a severe respiratory condition due to prolonged exposure...
UNITE launched a strike ballot of its 100,000 NHS members outside St Thomas’s Hospital, opposite Parliament, in central London yesterday morning. Onay Kasab, Lead Officer for the NHS and Regional Organiser for Unite, took the microphone to say: ‘Vote YES in the Ballot, Vote for safe staffing and fair pay. ‘Our...
A TOP official from the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement has slammed the United States for its seditious schemes in Lebanon, warning that Washington is seeking to trigger a ‘social explosion’ as the country’s economic disaster worsens. Vice President of the Executive Council of Hezbollah, Sheikh Ali Damoush, made the remarks...
THE UNITE trade union kicked off a campaign yesterday morning to call on Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt to ‘use this week’s budget to avert the funding crisis engulfing the NHS.’ The campaign consists of a van covered in slogans ‘telling the PM it’s his last...
THE TORY government has revealed that it is set to begin training hundreds of British Army personnel as strike-breakers this month, to be mobilised initially against PCS trade union members employed by the Border Force. Plans signed off by Home Secretary Suella Braverman last Thursday will see up to 500...
The European Union (EU) has warned that the eurozone will slide into recession over the winter with Brussels putting up inflation forecasts for 2022 and 2023 amid soaring energy prices. Europe has been struggling for months with severe economic shockwaves from the Ukraine war that has fuelled a spike in energy prices and hit the...