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June 2008

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Terry Fields, Militant MP dies – the workers’ MP on a workers’ wage

Terry was a larger than life figure and a
fine representative of the Liverpool working
class. A ‘salt of the earth’ man who dedicated his efforts to the cause of the
working class. Always smiling and joking, he was always seen wearing his black
leather jacket, even in Parliament, a place he pretty much hated. He served his
time there from 1983, when he was elected along with Dave Nellist and later Pat
Wall as part of the Militant trio, until 1992. This was the culmination of
decades of work by Militant supporters in the Merseyside labour movement. They
had refused to abandon the struggle within the Labour Party.

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Wendy Alexander resigns

Brief as it was woeful, Wendy Alexander’s
leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland has come to an end.
Alexander was forced to resign after being given a one day ban from parliament
for breaking rules regarding donations for her campaign to become Labour Party
leader. Her actions were illegal – no doubt about it. No one is quite sure why
such large sums of cash were needed for what in effect became a coronation,
given the lack of an opposition candidate.

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National Health Service Blues

In the Mental Health Trust
where I work, now a Foundation Trust, the primary anxiety for workers is not
about pay but about the future of their jobs. Of course, rising prices and
a lousy pay deal – coupled with the Trust’s intention to hold an across
the board ‘banding review’ – piles on the pressure, but the fact that
repeated structural changes, resulting in cuts in the management structure,
have saved no real money and, now, all vacant posts have been abolished
(rather than frozen, as has been usual in the past) has drawn attention to
a very pressing threat to jobs.

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Undercover police officer tried to provoke violence at Stop Bush demo

An undercover police officer tried to provoke violence at the ‘Stop
Bush’ demonstration. These are the allegations made by George Galloway
MP. We publish below his letter to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. We
find his evidence compelling and the allegation disturbing. Is the
British state using provocateurs against us? The labour movement will
want an answer.

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Keep Tyne and Wear Metro public, says RMT

THE TYNE and Wear Metro is a public-sector success story and should be
kept that way, delegates at the annual conference of Britain’s biggest rail
union insisted today. As RMT’s AGM called on the government to implement Labour policy on
public ownership, RMT general secretary Bob Crow and Northern TUC secretary
Kevin Rowan issued a joint plea for an end to the threat to fragment and
privatise the northeast’s Metro network.

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Why Socialist Appeal opposes 42 days

The government is trying to push a proposal through Parliament to
increase the length of time a suspect can be detained without charge to 42
days. What argument does the government use as excuse for eliminating rights
and liberties we have defended for hundreds of years? Not much. The authorities
present the ‘war against terror’ as one that demands secrecy on their part.
They hint darkly that lives are at risk if they tell us what they know, but
that the situation is grim. Trust us!

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PCS: Fight to defend terms and conditions in the Rural Payments Agency

PCS union reps in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Efra) Group are currently gearing up for an industrial action ballot in the
Rural Payments Agency (RPA), the civil service body that is responsible for
making subsidy payments to farmers. The RPA is based at several large offices
in Exeter, Reading, Northallerton, Newcastle, Workington and Carlisle.
Members are angry that they are having a flawed reporting system
imposed on them without agreement of their union.

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UNISON Council Workers vote to fight pay cuts

This
Friday, the national UNISON Industrial Action Committee meets to discuss their
response to the 55% vote in favour of strike action in local government over
pay. The vote is a clear rejection of Gordon Brown’s pay restraint and reflects
the impact that the economic crisis is having on thousands of UNISON members.
Yet the outcome of this ballot wasn’t a racing certainty by any means. In fact
the initial position of the Local Government Service Group Executive was
particularly muted.

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Labour and the BNP: Damned if you do and damned if you don’t!

In the recent local elections the BNP won 2 council seats in Nuneaton and Bedworth. Despite the work in some of the wards with leafletting against the BNP, wards that the BNP did not win, the LP deputy leader Harriet Harman saw fit to castigate local LP members for not working hard enough to prevent the BNP winning seats. So the blame is put on the members – not government policies. Secondly, prior to the local elections, the local LP MP Mike O’Brien, advised the LP members not to campaign against the BNP as such action would raise their profile! […]

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