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Here are some pictures from the refuse workers' picket line in Leeds.
On Monday 7
September UNISON Branch Secretary, Jim Board was suspended by Doncaster
council for allegedly “failing to follow a reasonable management instruction”
relating to an e mail to all employees not to speak to the media about the
Edlington trial. 
Last Saturday’s special meeting of the United Left – the
broad left grouping in the two-million strong UNITE union – ended in a split
after supporters of left-winger Jerry Hicks were excluded on spurious grounds.
The reason for the meeting was to choose the left’s candidate to run for
General Secretary in 2010.
Refuse workers in Leeds are taking action in response to an
appalling attack on their wages and conditions - the sort of thing we
may well see more of as public sector workers are forced to pay for the
bank bail-outs. Socialist Appeal supporters in the region have produced
a leaflet in support of the workers, the text of which we are reproducing on this site.
Postal
workers are
under attack. A national strike ballot of CWU members has been called
with the result due on the 23
Four members of Unison were recently banned from
holding office after two years of investigations and hearings. They had been
accused of giving “racist offence to members” after using a cartoon of the
Three Wise Monkeys in a leaflet distributed at 2007 Unison conference which
criticised the “ruling out of order” of resolutions relating to pay and
accountability of full-time union officials and financing the Labour Party.
On the 20th July, around 25
workers at the Vestas wind-turbine blades plant in Newport,
Isle of Wight moved to occupy offices in
protest at the planned closure of the site and the possible loss of 625 jobs. 18
days later, on 7th August, the Vestas workers ended the factory
occupation after a court order authorised bailiffs to remove the occupiers.
From this week action
short of a strike has begun with the object of achieving equal pay for Council
women workers in Edingburgh, but not by cutting the men’s wages. The Council see this as an
opportunity to start to make their employees pay for the recession by reducing
jobs and pay, but also adding extra duties onto those still employed. The Refuse Collection workers are the first
to be under attack.
In 1987
the Government and civil service unions agreed a compensation scheme
which set out the exit terms provided to civil servants whose contracts
are terminated by their Department. But, over 20 years on, the Prime
Minister announced in March this year his intention to fundamentally
‘reform’ these severance schemes to reduce the cost to the tax payer.The new proposals are an outrageous attempt to cut people’s jobs on the cheap when many are worried about job security.
As the economic
crisis deepens more and more workers are facing the prospect of unemployment as
factories continue to be closed by bosses attempting to hang onto some their
precious profit and of course their own obscenely massive wage packets. 700 Workers
at the Diageo whisky bottling plant in Kilmarnock
(200 other jobs will be cut elsewhere, including 140 jobs out of 220 at Port
Dundas distillery) are, at this very moment, facing this plight
Tam Burke reports on the struggle of the Edinburgh cleansing workers who are fighting attempts by the Liberal-SNP run council to cuts jobs.
Cleansing workers in Edinbugh are locked in a bitter dispute over modernisation proposals to remove
bonuses, a move that would cost them thousands of pounds a year in
lost earnings. Socialist Appeal recieved this article and a letter from a cleansing worker.
At 7.45pm on the 20th July around 25 workers at the Vestas wind-turbine
blades plant in Newport, Isle of Wight moved to occupy offices in
protest at the planned closure of the site and the loss of 625 jobs -
525 on the Island and 100 in Southampton. Since the occupation began
Vestas workers, trade unionists, climate campaigners and the general
public have been outside the site to show their solidarity with the
occupying workers and demonstrate against the closure.
Workers are
digging their heels in and continuing to occupy the Vestas site based in the
normally sedate Isle of Wight.
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