PAYING FOR NHS OPERATIONS REJECTED! – by BMA and UNISON
‘There should be no question of making patients pay for operations that are considered essential by their doctor or consultant,’ insisted UNISON head of...
Woodley calls off cabin crew strike action
At the last minute yesterday afternoon, the Transport and General Workers Union called off today’s 48-hour strike by British Airways cabin crew. The TGWU...
NHS WORK FOR NOTHING MEMO CONDEMNED! – by BMA and UNISON
‘It’s outrageous – asking workers to work more hours for nothing and hand back a day’s pay,’ Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust UNISON...
Occupy Chase Farm!
HEALTH chiefs on the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Clinical Strategy Board, yesterday denied that the decision has already been taken to shut the A&E...
BA SHUT DOWN! – Walsh rejects T&G goodwill gesture
‘We don’t want macho management or macho trade unionism, we want an honourable compromise,’ said Transport and General Workers Union general secretary Tony Woodley...
Blair Ducks Iraq Debate!
PREMIER Blair boycotted the House of Commons debate on Iraq yesterday in an unprecedented show of contempt for the bourgeois parliament. Before he left the...
TAKE ACTION – to defend the Public Sector
OVER 1,000 trade unionists from all the public services joined a TUC rally at Westminster yesterday, where they demanded that their leaders call action...
Brian Haw Wins Right To Demonstrate
‘We won, as we should have done, because it was wrong and the police were wrong’, anti-war protester Brian Haw declared to cheering supporters...
SPECIAL BRANCH COLLUDED IN 15 MURDERS – paid £79,840 to Loyalist killer
Collusion between Special Branch officers and a loyalist death squad was made possible by support at the ‘highest level’, Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan said...
£23bn PROFIT FROM NHS – being made by PFI companies
Banks and developers will make £23 billion in profits and interest over the next 30 years by building NHS hospitals under the government’s Private...
NO CAP ON GPs PAY – Insist BMA doctors and RCN nurses
Doctors and nurses yesterday hit back at health secretary Patricia Hewitt’s complaint that the government should have capped GP’s pay. Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of...
Sadr Aide Arrest
‘We are angry. This is a kind of revenge’, the spokesman for anti-occupation Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said yesterday after US troops and Iraqi...
PRIVATE TREATMENT CENTRES OUT OF CONTROL – Watchdog slams ‘paucity of data’
The secrecy surrounding Labour’s favoured Independent (private) Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) has been slammed by the government’s own watchdog. Healthcare Commission chief executive Anna Walker...
‘RAPID FIRE JUSTICE’ – Liberty slams ‘super ASBOs
Serious Crime Prevention Orders dubbed ‘ASBOs for suspected criminals’ were unveiled at a press briefing by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker yesterday. The new civil...
STOP NHS CLOSURES – say lobbying NHS hospital groups
HEALTH workers and campaigners descended on Parliament from many parts of the country yesterday, to defend their hospitals. ‘My hospital is under threat. It’s a...
96% VOTE FOR STRIKE ACTION – By British Airways cabin crews
A 96 per cent vote by British Airways cabin crew to strike over management by imposition and the breakdown of respect and industrial relations...
BUILD COUNCILS OF ACTION! – Save Chase Farm Hospital meeting urged
A packed 400-strong Save Chase Farm meeting in Enfield last Saturday heard calls for Councils of Action to organise occupations to stop the closure...
Fight Threat To Chase Farm Hospital
THE Chief Executive of Enfield, Barnet and Haringey Clinical Strategy Project Board, Ms Johnson, has made it clear the Board intends to press ahead...
‘ONE YEAR TO SAVE THE NHS’ – says the BMA
‘WE HAVE one year to save the National Health Service (NHS). An awful lot of Trusts are in a dire financial state.’ This was a...
‘A DAMNING INDICTMENT’ – of Labour’s social care system
‘This is a damning indictment of a social care system that is failing older people’, Age Concern’s Director General, Gordon Lishman said yesterday. He was...
BA Pensions Ballot!
Details emerged yesterday of a deal, yet to be agreed by workers, which means the end of final salary pensions at British Airways. The TGWU...
SACK PRIVATEERS NOT THE CLEANERS! – RMTs Bob Crow demands
OVER 100 angry RMT members staged a lobby outside City Hall, Tower Bridge, yesterday, demanding an emergency meeting with London Mayor Ken Livingstone over...
Stoke-On-Trent NHS Beds Crisis
University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust is urging people to avoid using the Accident and Emergency department at weekends because of the pressure...
BROWN’S ‘NEW POLITICS’ – as Blair goes missing
WITH Prime Minister Blair organising his post premiership job, Chancellor Brown stepped forward yesterday to promote the latest New Labour ‘vision’ of a ‘patriotic...
Saddam Lynching Anger Silences Blair
ONE WEEK after the execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister Blair has again refused to comment on the lynching. He said yesterday, trying...
37,000 NHS Jobs Axe
Trade unions and health professionals yesterday slammed as ‘very alarming’ and ‘staggering’, the government’s leaked draft NHS pay and workforce strategy for 2008...
NO PAY CUTS FOR NURSES! – while BMA insists we need all our consultants
Public sector union, UNISON said yesterday it will ‘strongly resist any attempt to cut nurses’ pay whether by moving to regional pay or by...
MEDICAL EDUCATION IS UNDER ATTACK! – Don’t lift fees cap says BMA
‘Medical education is under attack on several fronts,’ warns Professor Michael Rees, chair of the British Medical Association’s (BMA’s) Medical Academics Committee. In a BMA...
Angry Iraqis March For Saddam
Hundreds of angry supporters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, many of them armed, protested yesterday against his execution and blamed leading Iraqi politicians for...
PROSECUTE KILLER COMPANIES! – demands the GMB
The GMB trade union says companies who kill employees will face private prosecutions if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ‘continues to fail workers’. The High...
2007 – The Year For Revolution!
THE News Line editorial board sends its revolutionary greetings for the New Year of 2007 to the working class and youth of the world,...
Ford Opposed Bush On Iraq
As President George Bush prepared to discuss his next move in Iraq yesterday, he was delivered a posthumous blow from former President Gerald Ford,...
SUDDEN AND CATASTROPHIC – OILC leader Jake Malloy describes Morecambe Bay disaster
‘Last night’s event appears to suggest that something sudden and catastrophic happened,’ offshore workers’ union, OILC leader Jake Malloy told News Line yesterday. Six bodies...
Olmert Resumes Strikes At Palestinians
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ordered a resumption of military strikes against Palestinian militants, and was accused of breaking the truce...
Council Unions Want 5% Rise
More than 1.5 million local government workers are to ask for a five per cent pay rise in the new year. Three trade...
Blair Whitewash –
‘The way things are going they are going to wrap everything up – they are covering up everything,’ the cousin of murdered Brazilian Jean...
Greek Students March Against Privatisation
TENS of thousands of students have been participating in a series of rallies and demonstrations all last week throughout Greece, protesting against the right-wing...
Bush Plans To Expand US Army
PRESIDENT Bush’s decision to expand the US military is a direct attack on the masses of the Middle East and Iran, and on the...
DEVON NHS PCT CRISIS! – all 5,000 employers offered offered voluntary redundancy
All five thousand Devon Primary Care Trust (PCT) employees across the county have been sent a letter offering voluntary redundancy as a cost-cutting measure....
Bush Boosts Troop Levels
US President George Bush yesterday announced a permanent increase in the size of the US Army and US Marines. He made it clear that the...
PATIENT CARE AT RISK! – BMA slams ‘rushed-through reforms’
‘Rushed through reforms’ to doctors’ training will see ‘risks to patient care’, warns the British Medical Association. The BMA said that under the government’s ‘Modernising...
‘CUT THEIR BENEFITS!’ – Hutton threatens the unemployed
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton yesterday declared war on the unemployed, saying Labour will cut off benefits from those who reject...
Pay Cut For Buncefield Firefighters
‘As fire crews and support staff were being honoured at a Buncefield award ceremony, fire authority bosses were busily cutting the pay of the...
Blair Opposes Right To Strike!
The Blair government has intervened in a European Court of Justice (EJC) test case to insist that the right to strike is not a...
Hamas, Fatah Gun Battles In Gaza
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas yesterday accused Palestinian National Authority President Mahmud Abbas of attempting a military coup after Fatah forces sealed off two Hamas-led...