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By Alan Keays (Site Worker)
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Thursday, 19 January 2012 |
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80
construction workers met in Birmingham on 14th January to discuss the
ongoing JIB dispute. Gail Cartmail (Unite Asst. General Secretary)
spoke on the dispute and the pending ballot of Balfour Beatty workers.
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By John Peterson (USA)
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Thursday, 19 January 2012 |
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By Blacklist Support Group
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Thursday, 19 January 2012 |
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A Labour MP is calling on the government to launch a full Public
Inquiry after shocking revelations emerged today in court about security
services and police collusion in illegal covert blacklisting of trade
union members in the construction industry.
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By Unite Press Office
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Monday, 16 January 2012 |
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By Joe Boustead, Newcastle University Marxists
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Wednesday, 11 January 2012 |
This is an overview of the documentary Inside Job that was recently
shown on the BBC. As one interviewee commented regarding the path
Iceland had taken from 2000 onwards, “Nothing comes without
consequence.”
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By Darrall Cozens
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Wednesday, 11 January 2012 |
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The Great Unrest is the term used by historians to describe
the period a 100 years ago when
Britain saw many industrial conflicts such as the Cambrian Combine Strike, the
Tonypandy Riots and many other struggles.
In Wales there was also a major dispute in the Cynon Valley and riots in
Llanelli during the Railwaymen's strike. Strikes occurred in Clydeside, London,
Liverpool, Hull and many other towns and cities throughout the land. Important ideas were developed
and discussed during this period which had a profound affect on the Labour and
trade union movement.
Darrall Cozens, a member of the UCU and Coventry NW Labour
Party, considers what we need to learn from these events.
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By Daniel Morley
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Tuesday, 10 January 2012 |
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Ed
Miliband’s leadership of the Labour Party is turning into an elaborate
parody of the emptiness of reformism. With capitalism unable to afford
any reforms, he is like the school pupil who works extremely hard to
avoid working whilst giving the impression of being studious. He is
trying very very hard, tossing and turning, to give the impression that
reformism can work without any actual reforms. Unfortunately for Ed, in
this case the illusion does not work.
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By Socialist Appeal
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Tuesday, 10 January 2012 |
The government has been hard at it coming up with new ideas to punish those who are unemployed and on benefit. The latest such idea involves forcing people to work for nothing or starve . This is now being legally challenged as it breaks laws against bonded labour i.e. slavery!
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By Alan Woods
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Monday, 09 January 2012 |
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The present period is the most stormy and convulsive period in history. Globalization now manifests itself as a global crisis of capitalism.
Given the depth of the crisis and the worsening conditions, things are
developing very quickly. The stage is set for a general revival of the
class struggle, and in fact, this process has already begun.
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By Jason Phillips, Queen Mary's Marxists
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Monday, 09 January 2012 |
This is the year universities in
England are allowed to charge their UK based students £9000 for studying
for just one year. With most undergraduate courses lasting 3 years this
will mean that students may have to pay £27000 for tuition fees. This
doesn’t include the cost of living away from home. We probably will see a
major increase in students either living from home and going to more
local universities, or people will sadly sacrifice university education
altogether.
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By Steve Jones
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Monday, 09 January 2012 |
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When Tony Blair left office (and then parliament itself) he set about
doing what all ex-PMs tend to do - earn a little bit of extra cash.
Well, as it happens in Tony's case, quite a lot of extra cash.
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By Socialist Appeal
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Monday, 09 January 2012 |
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Just 10 years ago, 88 of the top 100 companies in the UK offered final
salary pensions. Today Shell is the last company in the FTSE 100 to
offer such a pension to its new employees.
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By Ray McHale – Assistant Branch Secretary, West Cheshire UNISON (personal capacity)
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Monday, 09 January 2012 |
Report from a meeting of UNISON Branch delegates in the North West
Region, representing members who are in the Local Government Pension
Scheme. (This included around 100 delegates from several service groups; mainly
Local Government, but also Police and Justice, Environment, Community
[voluntary sector] and Transport.)
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By Tony Healy (Fightback Ireland)
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Sunday, 08 January 2012 |
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There are many ways to judge the health of a society. The speculators
in the European Bond Markets judge the health of nations by the state
of their public finances; socialists and trade unionists point to the
way that old people and children are treated and especially the position
of women in society. Economists look at the volume of imports and
exports and at the rate of economic growth. One measure looks at the
scale of inequality within society.
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