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The newly formed Islington
Trades Union Council held its AGM last week at the Town Hall,
which was an eye-opening historical tour into the fighting
past of the borough. A host of interesting speakers were present including Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, who
reminded us that Islington was once the home of Karl Marx, and Vic Turner, one of the Pentonville Five who recounted the significance of the 1972 Dockers' strike.
Paul Mason takes nine examples from labour history over the past 190 years and
compares them to struggles that are taking place today. This is a book that every young activist, trade unionist or socialist
will want to read. Julian Shapre reviews ‘Live working or die
fighting: how the working class went global’.
Today the House of Commons will hear the second reading of Andrew Miller’s private
members bill on equal treatment for temporary and agency workers. Support the
bill and demand that your local Labour MP supports the bill.
As
if shift workers needed a new reason to despise their
jobs, the World
Health Organization has recently declared night work a “probable
carcinogen.” Research shows
“higher rates of breast and prostate cancer among women and men whose
work day starts after dark.” This is due to the fact that melatonin,
which is integral to the body’s functioning, is usually produced at
night, while the body rests. Melatonin production is inhibited by the
artificial lighting, putting night-shift workers at risk.
Over 300 from across London came to St. John’s Church in
Stratford, Newham, on Monday night to show their solidarity with Michael Gavan,
the UNISON chair sacked by Newham council last November as part of their
campaign to stop trade unions effectively organising against privatisation. 
In November trade unionists marched through Manchester in support of
Karen Reissman, but national UNISON speakers
and national publicity were conspicuous by their absence. Is Karen being hung
out to dry by the UNISON bureaucracy? This is becoming a common tale up and down the country. All UNISON members need to ask some hard
questions of the full-time apparatus. If management can get rid of militants
with the tacit support of the Union, where does that leave me? Whose side is
the union on?
The big
corporations in North America, Western Europe and Japan are moving more
of their factories abroad in search of lower wages. But in the process
they are tying the interests of the international working class closer together. In North America Ford workers prepare to weather a new round
of closures and layoffs, while their bosses have unveiled
plans for new plants in China, a country with the world’s fastest
growing car market along with rock-bottom wages. Meanwhile, Russian
Ford workers have won an important victory not only against the company
but against the new, repressive Russian Labor Code.
The construction industry consists of roughly 1.2 million workers at
present, a massive boost for the capitalists and the UK economy. Just
think how much can be made once all the new office blocks and
'affordable' housing, and not forgetting the Olympic Games, are built.
Any chance of the workers who build these new structures getting a
slice of the cake? You are more likely to be sacked or even killed on a
building site in Britain today.
"The London police on strike. After that,
anything can happen", said Sylvia Pankhurst in 1918. The ground is certainly shifting in Britain. There has
been a continual build up of public anger at the government's attempt to impose
a 2% limit on public sector pay. The Police are getting a paltry 1.9% rise, in effect a pay cut.
They were furious and making all kinds of threats against the Home Secretary
Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown.
Gordon Brown and Chancellor Darling are trying to cut public sector pay and impose three year pay deals, despite the price of basic goods rising. In effect the deals the are trying to impose are pay cuts. Why? 
Once again
New Labour are aping the Tories. Jack Straw has rushed through rules making strike action
by the Prison Officers illegal, reintroducing rules brought in by the Conservative government in 1994. We need to defend the
rights of the POA and the principles of free trade unionism
Last year’s conference of the
National Union of Teacher’s voted to ballot members of the union to vote in
favour of setting up a political fund. This successful vote was a significant
advance for the largest and traditionally more militant of the teacher trade
unions.
