Archive for August 2004

7 August 2004

South Yorkshire First Bus Drivers On The Road To Victory

THE INDEFINITE strike by 1,500 South Yorkshire First bus drivers, members of the transport union TGWU, is now into its third week. In a postal ballot, drivers rejected the last company offer by 723-502 votes...

7 August 2004

New Labour Wrecks Firefighters' Pay Deal

FIRE BRIGADES union members are balloting again for industrial action after negotiations on the brink of settlement were wrecked by the direct intervention of the government...

7 August 2004

Respect Wins First Councillor

OLI RAHMAN, Respect's GLA candidate in the June elections, won the St. Dunstan's & Stepney council by-election on 29 July in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets...

7 August 2004

Throw Out Agenda For Change Now!

THE PAY and job evaluation package for health workers, Agenda for Change (AFC) is proving a problem for management and the national trade union leaders...

7 August 2004

Genocidal Horror In Sudan

TENS OF thousands of people have been killed and millions forced from their homes in Darfur, Sudan. Hundreds of thousands are in refugee camps and makeshift settlements in Chad...

7 August 2004

Teamster Rebellion

1934 Minneapolis: SEVENTY YEARS ago, a general strike movement led by a small Trotskyist group in the US city of Minneapolis resulted in a victory for the Teamsters general union and marked a decisive phase in the struggle of US labour...

7 August 2004

Building A Party Of World Socialism

CWI European school 2004: THE CRISIS in the world economy, the imperialist war and occupation of Iraq, the political upheavals in Latin America, the bosses' neo-liberal offensive against workers jobs and conditions.....

7 August 2004

WTO - The Enemy Of The Poor

LAST WEEK the World Trade Organisation (WTO), one of the pillars of the world capitalist 'order', met in Geneva. World trade is dominated by a few hundred greedy multinationals who also control the WTO...

7 August 2004

Civil Servants On Strike

*Stop the job cuts, defend the public sector.
*For a one-day strike across the civil service.
*Build support for a one-day public-sector general strike

On 29 and 30 July, thousands of civil servants working in the Department for Work and Pensions were on strike, fighting against low pay.

7 August 2004

'We Need Workers' Rights'

THE COMPANY that I work for is, by all accounts, a reputable place to work. The job is in retail but pays a decent wage (for shop work), offers a reasonable discount rate and in the main it is a pleasant environment to work in, (other than when...

7 August 2004

Wealth Gap Widens Under Blair

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) latest report, 'The State of the Nation' confirms what we know only too well - Britain is deeply divided...

21 August 2004

Yorkshire bus drivers: Determination pays off

AFTER THREE weeks of indefinite strike action, South Yorkshire First bus drivers have won a significant victory in their pay dispute. This was one of the longest continuous strike actions in the UK bus industry for 30 years...

21 August 2004

Swansea staff fight outsourcing

OVER 100 Swansea Council ICT (computer) staff have started indefinite strike action in order to prevent the council outsourcing their jobs to a private company. This is a threat to their terms, conditions and pensions...

21 August 2004

Building for a socialist world

A SOCIALIST World is Possible is a new book by Peter Taaffe (Socialist Party general secretary), to mark 30 years since the founding of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI)...

21 August 2004

Boston: Hundreds pack Ralph Nader meeting

WHILE THE last preparations were being put in place for the corporate-sponsored, stage-managed Democratic Party Convention in the USA, independent radical presidential candidate Ralph Nader spoke in Boston about why he's determined to challenge the two-party status quo...

21 August 2004

Venezuela referendum - corrupt elite lose again

ACROSS VENEZUELA hundreds of thousands have celebrated the defeat of the attempt to 'recall' the radical President Hugo Chávez...

21 August 2004

Armed intervention in Sudan must be opposed

THE CRISIS gripping Darfur, in western Sudan, has been prominently in the news for weeks now. Media reports claim that up to a million people have been displaced and up to 50,000 killed as a result of reported attacks by the Janjaweed...

21 August 2004

Oil prices set to rock world economy

WORLD LEADERS are showing considerable worry about the continued rise in oil prices. On 10 August, US light crude broke the $45 a barrel mark, the highest price ever in New York. Oil prices have risen 30% this year alone...

21 August 2004

Resistance in Iraq

THE HANDOVER of 'sovereignty' to the interim government of Allawi in Iraq (28 June) was meant to be a step towards 'democracy' and accelerated reconstruction...

21 August 2004

Europride Manchester: Stop bullying and discrimination

TENS OF thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people from across Britain and internationally will come to Europride in Manchester...

21 August 2004

Know your rights

MILLIONS OF young people are working in low-paid jobs, often with bullying bosses and unsafe working conditions. Young workers are often denied their basic rights in work and many are scared of losing their jobs if they try to argue...

21 August 2004

The fighting spirit that saved a pit

Tower colliery: Mariam Kamish, long-standing Socialist Party Wales member, has just been elected to the Lodge committee of Tower Colliery National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)...

21 August 2004

New Labour at war with firefighters

OUR MEMBERS are furious at the way our agreed deal has been sabotaged by local government minister Nick Raynsford and his New Labour government. They want to wreck our pay settlement and smash our union...

21 August 2004

Action needed across the public sector

DESPITE TONY Blair taking it easy in the holiday homes of his rich friends in Italy and the Bahamas, there's been no let up in the government's assault on the public sector...

21 August 2004

Warning: Public Sector Under Attack

THE NEW Labour government has declared war on the public sector. Tens of thousands of jobs are in jeopardy in the civil service...