The two month strike by staff across Glasgow day care centres
ended on December 6th with a slim majority vote of 11 in favour of a return to
work. Unison leaders are being heavily criticised by the strikers, many
of whom feel they were ‘bounced’ into accepting the union’s advice to call off
the action.
At the same time they claim union leaders did not tell them of developments.

Seventy-seven workers were killed in the year 2006-7, with thousands more injured, some seriously. The ragged trousered philanthropist is alive and well in 2007. If you are a building worker and have not read this book by Robert Tressell, then you must. You will find the story is re-lived on many of today’s UK building sites.

Three electricians in Manchester were picked out, victimised and sacked
by the use of the blacklist on May 12th 2006 from the eight year
project at Bovis’ Manchester Royal Infirmary site. They are still
bravely fighting on to try to get their jobs back and for the right to
work. They are also fighting for what should be a basic human right to
join a trade union.

John McDonnell reports on a rally held on Tuesday night in the House of Commons for Unison members who are being victimised for campaigning against privatisation.

On Wednesday 21st November we heard the news that Michael Gavan, Chair
of Newham Unison, had been sacked by the Council.
The grounds for Michael’s dismissal are as bizarre as those for Karen
Reissmann. Michael was told he was
representing the views of Unison members, not those of the Council. But
that is what he was elected as Chair of the Branch to do!

Over 150 years ago Ireland lost a staggering 13% of
its population to death by disease and starvation. How could it be that Britain, which
was still the richest and most powerful country in the world, could not prevent
this horrific death toll? The answer is simple ‑ the British ruling-classes did
not want to minimize the death toll, on the contrary, they welcomed it!

At the University of East Anglia recently Rob Sewell of the Socialist Appeal gave a talk on the Miners strike in Britain 1984-5. The strike was a culmination of the inevitable build up of tension between the ruling and working class. In the post-war period the decline of British imperialism had occured. The Tories of the 1980s were a rabid reaction to that phenomenon, determined to destroy the organised labour movement by taking on its most militant section, the National Union of Miners.

For the past sixty years, Remploy has offered skilled work to
disabled workers who otherwise would, frankly, have been dumped in a
corner and forgotten about by capitalist employers. Now the
government plans to close half the 83 factories that offer their unique
contribution from Aberdare to York. Remploy currently employs about
5,000 in its factories.

Management in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are imposing a
three year pay deal on staff in their November pay-cheque. This is
because they believe that staff want money for Christmas, which is
true, but we must not be fooled into thinking short-term. The pay deal
is being hailed as a great offer by management who, in an unprecedented
move, have been putting pressure on local managers to promote the deal
and sell it to staff.