Last Wednesday August 20th,
150,000 Scottish public sector workers from UNISON, UNITE and the GMB took
unified action against a below-inflation pay offer of 2.5%. They were joined by
PCS workers employed by the Scottish Parliament, who the SNP have also been
trying to fob off with a real pay cut. Bins remained uncollected, council
offices stayed closed, Caledonian MacBrayne ferries did not run. A thousand
schools were closed across Scotland and, in some cases, teachers refused to
cross picket lines.

A
Review of ‘There Will Be Blood’, the film written and directed by Paul Thomas
Anderson And ‘Oil
!’, the novel by Upton Sinclair

The poster for
this film says that it is based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel. Socialists, and
lovers of American literature, should be grateful to Anderson for being
responsible for Sinclair’s novel being back in print and in the shops. But not
for much else.  Indeed, I would advise
anyone who has read and enjoyed ‘Oil!’ to steer well clear of the much lauded
film.

RMT Station
Staff working at eleven Tube stations between Plaistow and Upminster on London
Underground’s District Line and at Elephant and Castle, Charing Cross and
Lambeth North on the Bakerloo are to strike for 24 hours from 04:30 tomorrow,
Friday August 22 in two separate disputes.

More than 90
staff on the East Ham group voted by a margin of more than 20 to one to take
action over a breakdown of industrial relations sparked by local management
ignoring procedures, the victimisation and harassment of staff and union reps
and the sacking of station assistant Sarah Hutchins who had taken time off for
pregnancy-related illnesses and after being assaulted at work.

In Part Five we examine how and why the Independents around Fairfax and Cromwell, previously the more left-leaning elements of the bourgeoisie, carried out a balancing act, trying to develop their own interests while manoeuvring between the Presbyterians on their right and the Levellers to their left. Eventually they felt compelled to try to eradicate the Levellers altogether.

Colonel Rainborough: “The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he; and I think it is clear that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his consent to put himself under that government.”

The outcome of the military struggle was largely decided by the result of the Battle of Naseby in June 1645 but the war and the embryonic revolution continued. In Part Four we examine how a radical wing developed to the left of the Independents – who consisted of the more ‘moderate’ protestant elements on the Parliamentary side.
The most prominent radical democratic grouping was the Levellers. In simple terms the twin demands of the Levellers were freedom of conscience in religious matters and the inalienable right for citizens to choose the government they wanted. Such a government therefore owed its power to the people’s consent. With unprecedented boldness the Levellers advanced the idea that the people must be sovereign. 

Tube Lines boss
Terry Morgan should stop throwing petty insults around and get around the table
to negotiate a solution to the current pay and conditions dispute, London
Underground’s biggest union says today.

Some 1,000
RMT members are set to down tools from noon on Wednesday in the first of two
72-hour strikes called after the company tabled a pay and conditions offer
substantially below that agreed by Metronet for people doing identical work.

MORE THAN 120 RMT cleaners working for OCS on its Eurostar contract will
strike for 24 hours from 06:00 on Bank Holiday Monday, August 25, in their
campaign to end poverty pay and win decent working conditions.

The cleaners, whose hourly pay is more than £1 an hour below the London
Living Wage, returned a 100 per cent vote for action and will not book on for
shifts that commence between 06:00 on Monday August 25 and 05:59 on Tuesday
August 26.

For centuries the Scottish education system has fiercely
maintained itself as an independent entity at all levels and has been seen by
many as superior to that of England and Wales. After devolution the Scottish
Parliament was granted responsibility for Scottish education and with this for administering
the associated fees and benefits. The Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition scrapped
tuition fees in favour of a one off graduate endowment payment, it was £2,289
when scrapped, and paid at the end of a course once a student was earning over
£15,000 per year.

On Wednesday 20th August up
to 150,000 public sector workers in Scotland will be taking unified
action on pay. GMB, UNISON and Unite members will all be on strike because local
government workers have been offered a measly 2.5% a year deal over three
years. This after the Cost and Price Index published last week shows the cost
of living going up by 4.4%. This sudden jump has called the government’s bluff.
Everybody knows the CPI doesn’t reflect the real increase in prices we face.

We appeal to all our readers to keep us posted with reports and pictures of the action in Scotland.

NEARLY 500
guards, drivers and customer service hosts on Southeastern Trains are to be
balloted for industrial action by Britain’s biggest rail union after the
company declared war on the safety role of the guard and insisted on an
extension of driver-only operation.

The RMT
ballot, which will open on August 21 and close on September 11, has been
sparked by the company’s intention to transfer control of power-operated doors
to drivers and scrap guards on its new Hitachi ‘Javelin’ 395 rolling stock.

After
avoiding meeting union reps for many months the company finally revealed that
it intends to remove all control of power-operated doors on 395s from guards,
along with the guard’s entire safety role other than train evacuation – in
breach of existing agreements.

The two previous parts of this article analysed the processes of change in England in the period from the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century and tried to explain why King and Parliament found themselves on a collision course which culminated in a bloody civil war.

 In this part we attempt to show how one major effect of the struggle against the King and other forces of reaction was to open up an unprecedented ferment of hopes and aspirations among the supporters of Parliament. As the war proceeded, these aspirations became increasingly polarized, reflecting the constantly changing balance of class interests and class forces within the ranks of the Parliamentarians.