Solidarity 098, 7 September 2006

Strike ballot over sacking

Tube drivers on the Jubilee Line are to be balloted for industrial action because of the unbelievably unfair sacking of a colleague. Raj Nathvani is a RMT member with driving experience of over eight and a half years and an exemplary safety record. Despite this he was sacked after he reported he had overrun a signal — and did not follow procedures exactly. This overlooks the fact there are other drivers who made similar mistakes, learnt from them and are still driving today. London Underground breached their own procedures by refusing him a union rep until his actual disciplinary hearing and...

NHS news round-up

A pensioner in Langwith, Derbyshire, has won a victory for public accountability in the NHS. At an appeal against the award of a local GP contract to United Heath Care, the local Primary Care Trust was found to have been guilty of not consulting local people. UHE, the largest private healthcare corporation in the US, was thought to have put in the bid as a loss-leader to give the multinationl a toe-hold in the ongoing privatisation of the NHS. KONHSP has called the decision ‘a complete and total victory’ which provides a ‘model for other communities’ in their fight against privatisation. More...

Whipps Cross workers threaten to up action

The first week of September saw an escalation in the long-running dispute between cleaners, porters and switchboard workers and their private employers Rentokil Initial at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, East London. The workers are trying to win pay and conditions equal to those employed directly by the NHS. Over 200 workers were involved in the strike, with a healthy turn out of about forty on the picket line. The strike went ahead despite a last minute offer from management, who have agreed to “Agenda for Change” pay rates, but dragging their feet over most of the £1,400 in backdated...

Admin Staff take action

Secretaries at the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham staged a protest last week against proposed job cuts. As part of a plan to merge the cities two hospitals 1,184 staff will be made redundant, including 120 administrators. It’s understood that agency-based typing pools would be used as replacements. The QMC and Nottingham City Hospital have said that £60 million must be saved to balance the books after merger. Initially nervous protestors staged a noisy protest and received support from passing motorists. They were joined by medical staff throughout the day. This action comes in the run-up...

£3,000 top-up fees are only the beginning - Time to fight back!

By Sofie Buckland, NUS National Executive Committee and Education Not for Sale Most academic staff believe that university top-up fees will be £5,000 within three years, according to recent research by the University of Southampton. This is not an unreasonable prediction — unless students fight back. Many if not most university vice-chancellors are now pushing for the Government to life the current “cap” on top-up fees of £3,000, and the Southampton research reveals widespread “certainty” that ministers will do so after the next general election. Recent history would tend to support that view...

Lebanon, past and present

For centuries Lebanon, like all the Arab world, was part of the Ottoman empire, governed from Constantinople. But like another mountainous area of that empire, Kurdistan, it kept itself a bit apart. The Kurds were converted to Islam but not Arabised; the Maronite Christians of Lebanon’s mountains, originally Aramaic-speaking, were Arabised but not Islamised. From 1638, France, noting the strategic position of Lebanon’s port cities on the Mediterranean, proclaimed itself the protector of the Maronites. When France and Britain carved up the Arab territories of the collapsed Ottoman empire after...

Hamas-Fatah unity?

By Dan Katz Palestinian Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh says a deal to form a Palestinian national government is close. That government will be led by Hamas, which has a parliamentary majority, with the nationalist Fatah organisation as a junior partner. Haniyeh says the government will be based on the “Prisoners’ Document” which calls for a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, and which would restrict action against the Israeli occupation to those areas. The cocument was drawn up by leaders of Hamas and Fatah who are currently in Israeli jails. The document presents a political...

A memoir of Auschwitz and Birkenau

Why is there any need to publish a memoir of the Holocaust? Who but a few on the fringes of society deny the genocide happened? The reason to publish is because a significant section of the left has twisted its solidarity with the oppressed into de facto support for organisations who deny that the Holocaust happened. In England the Socialist Workers Party, which once prided itself on the slogan “Never Again!”, has uncritically endorsed Hamas in Palestine and Hizbollah in Lebanon. Both deny the Holocaust! Holocaust denial is an anti-semitic conspiracy theory, often stating that the Holocaust is...

Defend gay Iraqis!

By Peter Tatchell, OUTRAGE! Parts of Iraq, including some Baghdad neighbourhoods, are now under the de facto control of Taliban-style fundamentalist militias. They enforce a savage interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for ‘crimes’ like listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative. Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Blair-backed Iraqi...

Don’t deport Iraqi refugees!

On 5 September the Campaign to Stop Deportations to Iraq held a successful lobby of the Home Office Headquarters in Marsham Street, London. The lobby was held to highlight how the government is stepping up it’s forcible removal of Iraqi refugees — so far all or most who have been deported are Iraqi Kurds. This the start of an EU wide deportation campaign. And at a time when Iraq, even the Kurdistan part of Iraq, is becoming less safe. The lobby presented a petition and letter to a Home Office representative. • More campaign details and information: www.csdiraq.com.

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.