NUJ members at the BBC have voted by 70% to reject the latest offer
from the management on pension changes and are intending to take action
by striking for 48 hours on 5 and 6 November and again on 15 and 16
November with further dates to be named in the coming days. Here is the
text of an appeal now being circulated.
PRESS RELEASE FROM THE JERRY HICKS CAMPAIGN. Up and down the country, hundreds of workplaces
have already been leafleted, but the next two weeks are
crucial even though we will be doing stuff until the final
day of balloting [19th November] Unite
member or not, everyone will be affected by the result and
who becomes the General Secretary of Unite.
On Friday, October 22, finally the
French government managed to get the pensions reform passed through the
Senate. The increasingly unpopular government of Sarkozy, faced with an
unprecedented movement of strikes, demonstrations, road blockades, mass
pickets and general assemblies, hoped that this, together with the
beginning of the All Saints school holidays, would bring the mass
movement to a halt. This does not seem to be happening, however.
Although everyone has claimed that they have learned the lessons of the
1930s, the ruling classes are again engaging in the same policies that
proved so calamitous 80 years ago. Deep tensions inside the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) have recently emerged over currency
manipulation as countries take action to defend their own national
interests against their rivals
Since the days of the Thatcher government, public sector workers have
had to live with the repeatedly stated ‘fact’ that the private sector is
supposed to be better, more efficient and cheaper at providing services
than the public one. This was the stated logic behind decades of
privatisation and outsourcing.
Given the cuts already announced to Higher Education (HE), a leading
group of professors was asked by The Guardian (19th October) what HE
would look like in 10 years given the Browne report. The comments were
startling but not surprising.
October 12th was a dark day in the history of British education. Lord
Browne’s review, set up to find ways to off load the burden of higher
education from the state’s balance sheets, went significantly further
than had been expected. In announcing that there should be a complete
free market in higher education, with universities able to charge
whatever they like, Browne signalled that the crisis of capitalism has
forced the government to go much quicker and deeper in their plans to
remould higher education than they had expected.
On Saturday 20,000 people marched through
the streets of Edinburgh to show their opposition to cuts in public services.
The march was called by the Scottish Trade Union Congress to launch their
“There is a Better Way” campaign, which they have described as the beginning of
the fight against Tory cuts north of the border.
LAND AND FREEDOM: Come this Thursday 27th Oct at 6.30pm and see this acclaimed film
about the Spanish Civil War, the heroicism and the betrayal. Then hear
KEN LOACH, the famous left-wing director of the film, answer questions
and give his views about it.
NORTHERN IRELAND: The cuts
announced by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer represent around
6.9% in headline public spending cuts in the North over the next four
years. This amounts to some £4 billion in revenue spending, but there is
also a 40% reduction to come in capital spending on roads, hospitals
and other public project.
Saturday 23rd October saw the largest demonstration in Cambridge for
many years with over 500 trade unionists, students and community
activists marching through the city centre in opposition to the cuts
announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review. The march, organised by
SERTUC and Cambs and District Trades Council, drew in trade unionists
from across the region, with workers from other trades councils in
the region, Cambridge Labour Party members, pensioners’ groups and
students.
After October 12th, the movement against
the attack on pensions has reached a critical threshold. The great days
of action are no longer the centre of gravity, although they are still
massive and increasingly militant, as shown by October 19th. Now, the
central axis of the struggle has shifted onto open-ended strikes and
pickets blockading different sectors of the economy.