Uncategorised articles from The Communist archives.
Following the break down of negotiations aimed at resolving the long
running dispute over shift changes and threatened job loss by the South
Yorkshire Fire Authority hundreds of firefighters are set for another
round of industrial action.
When New Labour came to power in 1997, Tony Blair stated that his top
three priorities were “education, education, education”. 13 years
later, and figures from a recent poll
show that over two-thirds of people in England believe that the
government has failed to deliver the improvement in education that it
promised.
The bankers are celebrating their orgies. Wall Street banks are set to
shell out $65bn in bonuses to the speculators who fouled up so
spectacularly and brought the credit crunch down on our heads. Some of
this largesse will drop into the laps of dealers in the City of London
and Canary Wharf. Goldman Sachs alone will lash out $20bn and JP
Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America will stump up
another $65bn
The University of Leeds has proposed cutting up to 700 jobs, according
to the University and College Union. This is part of the university’s
attempt to cut its annual budget by £35 million. The Vice Chancellor,
Michael Arthur, has engineered these cuts, and the student union
refuses to oppose them. Leeds University is just one of dozens of
higher education institutes that will be crippled by a reduction in
funding. These attacks on jobs and education are the most severe since
the Thatcher years and must be resisted.
Socialist Appeal recently published an appeal from IT workers at
Japanese-based multinational Futitsu, who have been taking strike
action up and down the country in Britain’s first ever national strike
of IT workers. The workers and their union, Unite, are incensed that
the highly-profitable IT services provider is attempting to scrap the
pension scheme and putting thousands of staff at risk of redundancy.
The
trade union campaign against the wage cuts announced in Lenihan’s
December budget will begin to escalate over the next few weeks as
different groups of workers across the public sector take action in
what is being portrayed as an ongoing campaign of selective action.
Today 20th January, the air traffic controllers are coming out, which will have a dramatic and very public effect on air travel. It’s
likely that the workers concerned in the various selective actions will
receive strike fund support in many cases and as such the campaign
could continue for a considerable time. But what is the underlying
situation and what are the issues for the movement?
Mick Brooks reviews a new play by David Hare which deals with the events surrounding the start of the great financial crisis.
The deepest and longest economic recession in the advanced capitalist economies since the 1930s is more or less over. But it won’t be long before capitalism plunges into another. That won’t happen in 2010, but there will be another economic slump before the new decade is out.
The international police organisation INTERPOL has posted wanted alerts on a number of Iranian political dissidents. This revelation follows in the wake of the December 26-27th protests in Iran which drew millions onto the streets nationwide. Clashes with police led to military units being ordered to fire on demonstrators, an order which is alleged to have been disobeyed.
Unite members at the Fujitsu plant in Manchester are taking action in defence of jobs, pay and pensions. An appeal to the labour and trade union movement to give support has been sent out from Manchester Trades Council. Click on the heading to find out more.
Members of the Rail union TSSA came out on strike this week. Darrall Cozens, a former TSSA member himself, explains the background to this dispute and why your ticket matters!