•    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. 

“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.