With repeated cries of “Royal Mail, Not for
Sale” and echoes of the 1980s with “Mandy, Mandy, Mandy, Out, Out, Out!” more
than 1,000 CWU members and their supporters settled down in a meeting hall in
Bilston near Wolverhampton on Saturday afternoon March 14th to
listen to a range of speakers opposing the threat to privatise up to 49% of the
postal services.
• D Simpson: 60,048
• Jerry Hicks: 39,307
• K Coyne: 30,603
• P Reuter: 28,283
Thank you all those who nominated, those who campaigned and
those who voted for me in the election for General Secretary of Unite / Amicus.It was due to your efforts and generosity that our campaign
was able to reach out and touch and win the hearts and minds of tens thousands
of our members who returned this magnificent vote.Our message was clearly and proudly taken into workplaces
and homes, across every industry and in every part of the country and inspired,
motivated and gave hope to the many thousands who heard it and responded to it.
The result is a clear vindication of the relevance of the election and appeal
of our policies.
The 36-year struggle for justice by the famous Shrewsbury pickets brought about 50 supporters, construction workers and trade unionists outside Westminster to protest against convictions brought against the pickets in 1973 for their role in the historic national construction workers’ strike.
As we know there are indeed 40 shades of green in Ireland, but as the comrades of Labour Youth and the Connolly Youth Movement have explained in their open letter to the Green Party there is another one. The shade of green, that is, which justifies the Green Party’s ongoing support for the Fianna Fáil – which allows the latter to continue to hold a majority in the Dáil.
In a sign of the increasing anger at job losses, workers at BMW’s Mini factory in Cowley, Oxford threw fruit at union officials when they heard they were to be sacked with one hour’s notice on Monday 16 February. Management at the Mini factory had minutes earlier told the weekend shift of 850 workers that they were being made redundant.
“The threat of privatisation is the biggest issue that members are talking about in the canteen- bigger than the April pay award – bigger than Man United win in Europe.” It is with this background that Brendon Allen CWU Branch Secretary Worcester told of how postal workers in Worcester are preparing to go the National CWU Demo in Wolverhampton.
On February 21 some 200,000 workers and their families took to the streets in Dublin, to demonstrate their opposition to the government’s decision to impose a pension levy (€ 2 billion) on 300,000 Public sector workers. The huge success of the march however, resulted from various factors such as the deepening economic crisis, rising unemployment, the ditching of the social contract by the employers and the government and savage government budget cuts. But what most concerns the majority of workers is that the situation is likely to worsen.
2009 has seen the largest wave of student activism in the UK for a generation. This activism has taken the form of student occupations in 25 universities (and counting) across the country, including Oxford, Sussex, London School of Economics, Kings College London, Manchester, Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow.
Thirty years ago the overthrow of 2500 years of monarchy brought Iran to the attention of the world. However, what many experts, journalists and academics concentrate on is that the Shah left the country forever on January 16 1979, and that on February 1 Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and was greeted by over three million people. This has helped to create the big myth that this was an ‘Islamic revolution’ and a rejection of modernity.
As socialists we absolutely support the movement of the workers of the Prisme Packaging Plant in fighting for their right to work and pay.
Maureen a worker of the factory for 13 years spoke of the optimistic
mood amongst the workers in the factory “We have decided to continue
our fight to put this company to shame. We have to fight for our
rights. The support we have had has been tremendous, totally amazing."
This shows only in a small part the growing radicalisation of the
working class of not only Scotland but also of the United Kingdom as a
whole.
It has been said by rank and file trade unionists for many years that a blacklist has been used by employers in the construction industry. Now after intense lobbying by the rank and file forcing their unions to raise the issue in Parliament, it has been proved that there is a blacklist of 3,200 construction workers.
The present economic crisis, through its sheer scale and reach, is bringing about a wholesale change in the consciousness of working people the world over. It is the poor, the oppressed, and the workers who shoulder this weight in order to hold up the privileges of the rich. There is no portion of the working class that has so greatly and extensively borne this affliction than working women.