The Socialist 1 June 2011

Strike - to defend jobs and pensions

Rage against bankers

Fifa scandal

Glencore - Profiting from global hunger

New attacks on women's sexual and reproductive rights

Disabled protester - "inadvertently struck with a police baton"

Shoesmith sacking - social work under growing pressure

Gil Scott-Heron

News in brief

Egypt and Tunisia: Revolutions at the crossroads

Greece: unite the struggles and bring down the government

Strike - to defend jobs and pensions

Government plans for the NHS: Privatisation and world class profits!

"Frontline first" a dangerous tactic - unity is the key

Cardiff NHS protest against Topshop tax dodger

Demonstration against closure of day centre in Llandeilo

Southampton - council workers' strike spreads

Saltend construction workers' struggle ends

TUC disability conference

Lewisham teachers - Action threat spells victory

Newcastle East Coast rail call centre - Save jobs!

Workplace news in brief

18 years since Stephen Lawrence murder

Coventry action against academies grows

Yorkshire meetings make Jarrow plans

Lib Dems - a party rooted in capitalism

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Saltend construction workers' struggle ends

The heroic struggle by engineering construction workers locked out from work on the bioethanol plant at BP Saltend near Hull has ended after nearly three months.

The fight by 400 workers to win back their jobs, after their contractor Redhalls was thrown off the job by the BP owned client Vivergo, has not been successful.

The decision of the NECC national shop stewards forum, under pressure from the trade union bureaucracy, to not call industry-wide industrial action was a crucial turning point in this dispute.

However, the refusal of the workers to accept a financial settlement with onerous conditions, and continued protests by a hard-core of protesters, have forced Vivergo, who initially refused any responsibility for the locked-out workers, to increase the money and drop most of the strings.

Whilst most workers have now understandably taken the money, a few, including Socialist Party and lock-out committee member Keith Gibson have refused to take any pay-off from Redhalls or Vivergo and will pursue legal claims against these companies.

These will be important test cases because the worry is that what BP/Vivergo have done at Saltend will set a dangerous precedent for mass sackings by employers in the industry as a means of breaking the national NAECI agreement and undermining TUPE rights.

A fuller article next week will look at the lessons of this dispute and its implications for the industry and trade union struggles.

Alistair Tice, Yorkshire Socialist Party

This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 29 May 2011 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.

In this issue

Socialist Party news and analysis

Rage against bankers