Solidarity 156, 30 July 2009

Solidarity with Iranian political prisoners and workers! Oppose Iranian state lies and censorship!

During recent protests against the blatantly rigged Iranian Presidential election result, the Islamist regime detained thousands of demonstrators. Amnesty International suggests that at least four protesters have died while in custody. According to opposition groups protesters have been kept in underground cells and have been doused with water before being beaten with cables. Many people — perhaps as many as 100, and certainly more than the recently revised official figure of 30 — were killed during the protests. Some students and other young people have disappeared. Their families do not know...

Fight the BNP with working-class politics

The fascist British National Party continues to grow, expand its influence and extend its ambitions. In June BNP leader Nick Griffin was elected to the European parliament. Griffin is a racist and anti-semite. He believes “non-Whites have no place here at all and [we] will not rest until every last one has left our land”, and has described the Holocaust as “the hoax of the 20th century”. Fellow BNPer Andrew Brons was also elected polling 120,139 votes in Yorkshire and Humberside. Across the country the BNP took 6.2%, as Labour’s vote slumped. In June the BNP won their first County Council...

Tower Hamlets schools: St Paul’s Way battle lost, but more ahead

Despite a 100% vote for strike action with a very high turnout of NUT members at St Pauls Way (STPW) school last term, the union failed to pull the teachers out in a bid to fight against compulsory redundancies. Instead, the union negotiators persuaded the school management and the Local Education Authority (LEA) to agree to push back the date by which compulsory redundancies would have to happen until after January next year. Teachers at the school felt that this was just delaying the inevitable and saw the threat of the redundancies as an attack on the union rather than just a restructure...

Manufacturing: Teesside march to save Corus steel

On Saturday 18 July around 3,000 people marched through Redcar under the banner “Save our Steel”. Earlier this year the steel maker Corus announced plans to shut its Teesside plant with the loss of 2,000 jobs and hundreds more in companies who supply or rely on Corus. The unions Community and Unite called the protest and the formal call “Save our Steel” was somewhat limited, with no clear proposals from unions or campaign of how to achieve this or strategies for the fight, other than a broad coalition of unions, local politicians, media and businesses. Although hand made banners on the march...

CWU: Royal Mail dispute

Postal workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are taking selective action in a dispute with Royal Mail over the company’s “modernisation” plans. The company says it has to respond to reduced demand for letter post. The union says Royal Mail are introducing the plans without consulting the workforce, reneging on a modernisation agreement made previously between the union and the company. The company wants to forge ahead with job cuts and reducing services. The union had offered the company and government a three-month no-strike deal in return for serious talks on how modernisation...

The Tube: waiting game

The RMT on London Underground is playing a waiting game at the moment. Following the disruptive strike action in June, drawn-out negotiations have produced an extra 0.5% on pay, minor commitments to end abuses to the sickness procedure but, crucially, no guarantees on job security. Reps met to decide to give London Underground a deadline of 29 July to talk to the union again and come up with more. Reps will meet again on 30 July to decide whether to go ahead and name more strike dates. Since the first strikes, reps in well-organised areas have been arguing to go ahead straight away, in case we...

Pensions battle

When sacked Visteon workers accepted the deal offered to them in May — a lot more redundancy pay — they continued campaigning. Their union Unite promised to campaign on the workers’ reduced pensions, an issue left out of the deal. It is not clear that the union has done enough on that front, but the Visteon ex-workers themselves, now organised as Visteon pensioners, have picketed Ford car showrooms and the Dunton research facility, and lobbied meetings of the pension trustees. When Visteon UK went bust in March , workers’ pensions were transfered to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), entailing...

Refuse collectors in Edinburgh are on an unofficial work-to-rule, and Unite are balloting for strike action

Refuse collectors in Edinburgh are on an unofficial work-to-rule, and Unite are balloting for strike action. As the rubbish piles up and the Festival looms, the council have employed private contractors to clean up certain tourist-attracting streets, whilst refusing to take their proposals off the table and negotiate meaningfully. The dispute is over the “modernisation” of the wage structure, which, in real terms, would equate to a loss of up to £6000pa for some workers, on top of a pay freeze announced previously. The justification for these changes is to equalise pay along gender lines...

First Group: put drivers first!

On Friday 10 July drivers for First South Yorkshire (part of the multinational First Group) struck for the first time on a ballot over pay. Nationally First Group has offered all workers a 0% pay increase, yet the union has demanded a 10% increase to £10 an hour (outside of London). Although the ballot had a low turnout, 77% were in favour of strike action, and the strike appeared solid with very few buses leaving, and no drivers crossing the picket. Workers’ Liberty activists visited the picket line in Sheffield to show our solidarity and find out more. In an interview with Unite branch...

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