Monthly Archives: July 2023
THE Tories suffered a setback yesterday in their drive to legalise strike breaking when the High Court ruled that its agency worker regulations are unlawful. These strike breaking regulations were steamrollered through Parliament in June last year by the Tories in the face of massive wave of strike action by...
OVER 30 striking junior doctors picketing UCH Hospital in London’s Euston Road yesterday were joined by local residents and patients, to the continual sound of car and bus drivers sounding their horns in support. On the first day of their 5-day strike for a 35 per cent pay increase to...
JUNIOR doctors in England begin five days of strike action at 7am this morning, until 7am next Tuesday morning. Strike leaders Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said yesterday: ‘Today marks the start of the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS’s history – but this is still...
BORDERing countries must give people fleeing the Sudan conflict immediate access for asylum, says Amnesty International UK. More than 560,000 have fled the ongoing crisis in Sudan. Amnesty said last weekend: ‘Countries bordering Sudan must immediately lift entry restrictions for individuals fleeing the conflict and ensure access to protection and safety...
PM Sunak has said he is yet to make a ‘final decision’ on whether to accept the recommended pay rises for public sector workers. Official pay review bodies are recommending rises of between 6-6.5% for employees including teachers, junior doctors and police. This is well below the current levels of...
ON MONDAY night, 400 leading figures from the world of high finance and corporate business gathered at the Mansion House in London to hear speeches from Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, and Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt outlining their plans to save British capitalism from total collapse. All...
SUPPORT has been pouring in from Canadian and international unions for striking dockers on Canada’s West Coast. About 7,400 members of the ILWU Canada employed at more than 30 B.C. ports have been on strike since July 1st, Canada Day. ‘The ITF and our almost 20 million workers, members of transport...
Over 1,000 NHS workers at Barts Health NHS Trust in the City of London began voting for strike action yesterday in a fight against low pay and understaffing. Tens of thousands of junior doctors begin five days of strike action across the country at 7am tomorrow, while thousands of NHS...
THE RULES conference of Unite, the largest union donor to the Labour Party, yesterday voted to reject a motion calling to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. Speaking in the debate, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham told delegates: ‘This is the moment of maximum leverage for the union where we can...
HUNDREDS of people have taken to the streets in central Paris against continuing police brutality and racial profiling across France, despite a ‘shocking’ ban on the gathering. Nearly two thousand people defied a ban to join a memorial rally in central Paris on Saturday for Adama Traore, a young man...
ASLEF Tube drivers will strike on Wednesday 26 and Friday 28 July, alongside their RMT colleagues, closing down the London Underground (LU) network at the end of this month. Finn Brennan, ASLEF full-time organiser on LU, said yesterday: ‘We take action only when needed. Unfortunately, the last few weeks have...
TEACHERS will march on the Tory Party Conference in Manchester in early October, with all teaching unions on strike together at the time, to ensure they win a fully-funded pay rise at least in line with the pay review body’s recommendation. At the weekend, Tory PM Sunak refused to answer...
THE first UN investigator allowed inside the notorious US prison at Guantanamo Bay said the 30 remaining detainees in the facility are facing ongoing, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment which breaches international law. UN Special Rapporteur, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, issued a report on the facility and told reporters in New...
A GROWING number of Washington’s NATO allies – including Britain, Spain, Canada and Germany – have already declared their refusal to follow the US lead on supplying Ukraine with internationally banned cluster bombs, so that it can carry out war crimes. On Saturday, PM Sunak said he would rather press...
ANY agreements that the Kiev regime makes with other countries to secure military aid will not have an impact on the outcome of the special military operation and the situation on the frontline today confirms this, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday. ‘In principle, all these discussions and...
THE stock markets are crashing as the Tory government’s borrowing costs went soaring yesterday to a 15-year high, amid a global shares sell off triggered by rampant inflation. The prospect of more rises in Bank of England interest rates saw the FTSE 100 down by 2.17%, with stock markets...
‘IF THE government keeps refusing to enter into meaningful discussions, or any discussions, we will be forced to carry on striking because we do deserve a fully funded pay rise that matches the inflation rate’ said teacher’s union rep Stef Easton. This was the message from the NEU picket line...
LABOUR Party leader Starmer ‘should be backing staff, not the bosses’, says the UCU trade union. The union was responding to Labour leader Keir Starmer’s interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Sunday morning. University and College Union (UCU) general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘Today, Keir Starmer was given an...
HUNDREDS of thousands of National Education Union (NEU) members are taking part in a second national teachers’ strike today, having also struck on Wednesday this week. There were mass marches and rallies in London and Sheffield on Wednesday. They are fighting for a fully-funded pay increase for this year and to...
THE general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), Jo Grady, delivered a stinging condemnation of Labour leader Keir Starmer yesterday after he refused to give any support to university staff fighting against the massive Tory underfunding of the education sector. Grady issued a press release stating: ‘Today, Keir...
‘BE READY for action in the autumn term, with head teachers with us on the picket line – get ready for a general strike in education,’ National Education Union (NEU) General Secretary elect Daniel Kebede told a mass rally of striking teachers in Parliament Square yesterday. He stressed: ‘All children...
THE MUA (Maritime Union of Australia) has thrown its support behind striking dockworkers in Canada this week. On Monday the MUA called on one of North America’s largest employer associations, the British Columbia Maritime Employer Association (BCMEA), to return to the bargaining table and act in good faith to finalise...
AS the NHS celebrated its 75th anniversary yesterday former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair launched his latest campaign for complete privatisation of the health service. Blair spent his time as prime minister throwing the NHS open to the privateers when in 2006, he welcomed 11 private healthcare providers into the...
ISRAEL continued its terror operation against the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp yesterday, with drones, airstrikes and missiles killing 10 Palestinians and injuring over 100 more. The Israeli military attacked civilian areas and homes with helicopters, Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council told the BBC. He said they attacked...
RUSSIAN forces have wiped out 16 German-made Leopard tanks, amounting to 100% of the armoury supplied to the Kiev regime by Poland and Portugal, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu told a conference call with military commanders on Monday. ‘In the south Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Donetsk directions alone, where Ukrainian armed...
THE invasion of the West Bank city of Jenin by 2,000 Israeli troops backed up by drone and air strikes has so far killed 10 Palestinians with over 100 wounded, including 20 in a critical condition. Along with the indiscriminate bombings and shootings by Israeli forces in a crowded civilian...
‘WE WILL strike for as long as it takes,’ British Medical Association (BMA) Chair of Council Professor Philip Banfield told the doctors’ union’s cheering Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in Liverpool yesterday, receiving a standing ovation. Professor Banfield said: ‘If you look at our health service today you see hospitals falling...
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched a massive land and air attack on the West Bank city of Jenin yesterday, killing at least eight youths and injuring 25 others, including seven in a critical condition. Israeli warplanes carried out at least 10 air strikes on Jenin, sending smoke billowing from the...
WITH 160,000 performers – from A-listers to extras – voting to take strike action if a deal is not struck in time, the first all-Hollywood actors and writers simultaneous strike since 1960 is set to take place this summer. Along with screenwriters, who have already spent nine weeks on the...
THE DEEP political and economic crisis engulfing British capitalism and the ruling class was forcibly expressed when yesterday’s Daily Telegraph published a comment article with the headline ‘Capitalism as we know it has failed. Not even the Tories can defend it.’ Such a doom-laden headline would have been unthinkable in...
TORY Health Secretary Steve Barclay hit out against the NHS’s junior doctors again yesterday ahead of their five-day strike later this month, and on the eve of this week’s crucial British Medical Association (BMA) Conference in Liverpool. Over 50,000 NHS junior doctors are to strike for five days from Thursday...
THE Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is to make Thursday a public sector general strike against the ANC government to press demands for a variety of issues affecting the welfare of workers. The Federation confirmed that the strike would be held in all nine provinces with various activities...
FRANCE’S President Emmanuel Macron, after his panicky early return to France from an EU summit, has now been forced to postpone a planned state visit to Germany. He remains at home to lead his special state forces to try to crush the resistance of French workers and youth after the...
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron convened a crisis meeting yesterday amid a wave of working class uprisings that engulfed France after a 17-year-old driver was murdered by police. Following the police killing of a 17-year-old driving a Mercedes on June 27, riots broke out in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, which...
Two Ukrainian generals and up to 50 officers along with about 20 foreign mercenaries and military advisers were eliminated in Russia’s strike on the Kiev forces’ deployment site in Kramatorsk, Russian Defence Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Thursday. ‘According to the updated information, a June 27 precision strike...