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Blunkett – another one on the take



David
Blunkett has been rapped over the knuckles by the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards. Apparently the former Minister ‘forgot’ to register a trip to
South Africa paid for by a private training company.

Blunkett,
as a former Minister in charge of the Department for Work and pensions, was a
big fan of opening up the administration of the welfare service to the private
sector. No wonder. Sheffield-based firm A4e is bidding for a whole raft of
multi-million pound contracts under New Labour’s misnamed welfare reform
programme. And they find Blunkett’s services well worth purchasing.

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Lindsey Total oil refinery – Militancy pays

Socialist Appeal interviewed Keith Gibson, spokesperson for the Lindsey
strike committee:



“I believe the result in Lindsey was an
excellent victory for the workers. It truly inspired me. The solidarity of the
lads around the country in particular was tremendous. It was spontaneous. The
lads were looking for a lead, especially as they were fed up at seeing
employers with their own workforce for years coming in and under-cutting the
national agreements."

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Lindsey Total oil refinery – Employers’ lies exposed

Socialist Appeal interviews John
McKewan, victimised worker from Lindsey Total Oil Refinery:

"The workers
were prepared to break the law. The national trade union bureaucracy don’t want
a fight on their hands. They are more afraid of losing their salaries and cars.
They do not understand the anger of workers fearful for their jobs and
livelihoods. I asked the coppers what they were doing here. “Shouldn’t you be
in London
arresting bankers and city speculators?” They seemed to agree. We told them to
move the BNP. If not, then we would move them ourselves, so they obliged."

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French students in militant protest



French students are out of the classroom and back on
the street. On Thursday, 29th January, students and teaching staff
joined in the national strike that had an estimated 2.5 million French workers
marching in the major cities to prove to President Sarkozy that his provocative
remark in the summer of 2007- ‘These days, when there’s a strike in France,
nobody notices,’ was as wrong as it was rash.

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Construction workers determined, defiant and committed

Socialist Appeal interviewed Phil Willis, an unemployed steel erector and Unite activist involved in the battles at Lindsey refinery and all over the country. He tells us, "

The action at Lindsey
was a complete success and it achieved many other very important objectives.
Firstly it created 102 new jobs for UK workers. It highlighted the plight of
the UK engineering construction industry and brought the issues forward into the
public consciousness and in doing so secures huge public sympathy and support.
It displayed a massive show of strength, volatility and unity from workers,
which both the government and unscrupulous employers believed had long since
ceased to exist."

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Italian worker’s message of solidarity with British workers



Socialist
Appeal interviewed Antonio Recano, an engineering shop
steward, who works
in the
construction and maintenance of industrial plants, and works for one of the
companies operating within the Syracuse oil refinery. He sends a message. "

To the British workers
who, not because of any xenophobic or protectionist logic, continue their
battle in the whole country for wages and jobs, I wish to express my full
solidarity and explain that I agree with the aims that flow from our common condition.
I salute them, bringing greetings from all the Italian workers who are
presently struggling like them for jobs and wages."

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Vultures are circling



In these recessionary times the fear of a
future with no income amongst redundant workers is persuading some to part with
all their cash in return for future wealth and riches – only to find themselves
bankrupt and maybe homeless.  This is a legal form of
ripping you off, with the rise of the some of the worst kind of leeches to prey
on the real victims of the economic downturn.  This cost me and by wife £50,000, and hundreds
of other hard working people have lost tens of thousands of pounds to this form
of legalised extortion.

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Construction workers demonstrate for the right to work

Yesterday, some 80 or so construction
workers, many of them unemployed, gathered outside the head office of the TGWU
(Unite) in central London,
demanding action from the union. Many had been refused work at a
Nottinghamshire power station. The crowd was later addressed by Tony Woodley,
the joint general secretary of Unite, who recognised the just cause of those
demonstrating. “Casualisation is the curse of the construction industry as it
has been on the docks and elsewhere”, he said.

 

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Unite-Amicus elections: Jerry Hicks for general Secretary!



Nominations have closed for the
Unite-Amicus General Secretary election and the four candidates are Derek
Simpson, Jerry Hicks, Kevin Coyne and Paul Reuter. The fifth candidate who was
nominated, Laurence Faircloth, has withdrawn from the contest and is now
recommending support for Derek Simpson! Faircloth was selected last November at
a meeting of the Amicus Unity Gazette to be the official Broad Left candidate.

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Keep Tyne and Wear Metro Public



Campaigners to keep Tyne and Wear
Metro, Britain’s best-performing railway, in the public sector, have condemned
the publication of a list of ‘approved bidders’ that brings the network’s
operations a step closer to privatisation. Around 250 RMT members employed by the
Tyne and Wear passenger transport executive Nexus are to be balloted for strike action over the threat
to jobs and conditions posed by moves to privatise the network’s operations.

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