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Archive for February 2004

7 February 2004

spot Venezuela: Workers Struggle Against Reaction

ON A recent Miami television programme, a group of Venezuelan ex-military officers openly called for a US invasion to overthrow the twice-elected radical, nationalist government of President Hugo Chávez...

7 February 2004

spot Brazil - Movement For A New Workers' Party Is Launched

ONLY ONE year after the Presidential election victory of "Lula" (Luiz Inacio da Silva) of the Workers' Party (PT) a new movement has been launched by former PT activists, trade unionists and socialists...

7 February 2004

spot Stop These Council Cuts

Southampton: "I USE the centre because it's convenient for me and my family and friends. We're not rich, we can't afford to join posh health clubs where the fees are very high. Soon there'll be nowhere to go and the young will be back on the streets getting...

7 February 2004

spot Leicester Lecturers On Indefinite Strike

LECTURERS AT Leicester College are out on indefinite strike. The FE College is imposing new contracts that cut holidays, push through Saturday working and worsen conditions of service...

7 February 2004

spot Strike threat forces negotiations in civil service pay battle

OVER 5,000 members have been recruited to civil service union PCS since our pay campaign started. It has inspired a new layer of members and activists. Members see their willingness to take action has forced management to make concessions, writes Rob Williams, PCS National Executive (NEC), personal capacity...

7 February 2004

spot Civil Service Strike: Around the Picket Lines

High Court, London: DEPARTMENT FOR Constitutional Affairs (DCA) staff outside the Royal Courts of Justice, picketed all the main entrances...

7 February 2004

spot Trade Union Left Convention

THE ISSUES being debated by the RMT are likely to surface at the Convention of the Trade Union Left, which takes place the day after the RMT special conference...

7 February 2004

spot The Trade Unions And The Labour Party

TRADE UNION links with the Labour Party will be under intense scrutiny this week...

7 February 2004

spot BBC Workers Angry At Hutton Attacks

IT TAKES a perverse talent to achieve what Hutton, Blair and Campbell et al did within the BBC last week. At a stroke they united tens of thousands of BBC workers in support of their multimillionaire former bosses who were initially seen as 'Tony's...

7 February 2004

spot We demand a real investigation

Extract From a Socialist Party Leaflet:

We want an inquiry that actually looks at the real reasons why more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been slaughtered; why more than £5 billion of our money has been spent on a bloody war and occupation rather than the services we need...

7 February 2004

spot War Crimes and Whitewashes

AS ANY inept DIY bodger could tell you, whitewash, applied carefully and thinly will last years. Too thick and it will flake off in no time." (Letter to the Guardian, 29 January)...

7 February 2004

spot No More Lies

ONCE AGAIN lapdog Tony is following behind his master Bush. Having said last week that there was no need for an inquiry into weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Tony Blair is now setting one up...

14 February 2004

spot Pakistan's Nuclear Secrets Scandal

HAVING PREVIOUSLY arrested Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan - Pakistan's "father of the Islamic bomb" - for selling nuclear secrets abroad, president Pervez Musharraf has now pardoned him...

14 February 2004

spot Socialist Alliance Trade Union Convention: No way forward

ON 7 February around 700 activists attended a trade union convention on the political funds, organised by the Socialist Alliance...

14 February 2004

spot RMT Makes Historic Break With New Labour

LAST WEEK a special conference of the railworkers' union, RMT, voted by 42 votes to eight to reject Labour Party intimidation and reaffirmed its decision to support other political organisations, including affiliation to the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP)...

14 February 2004

spot Fighting Low Pay

Civil service strike: JOBCENTRE AND benefit office staff will be on strike against low pay on 16 and 17 February, whilst Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) management's plans to cut 18,000 jobs have been exposed...

14 February 2004

spot "Pinocchio" Blair's Lies Unravel

BUSH AND Blair's charade that their imperialist war on Iraq was provoked by Saddam Hussein's possession and threatened use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) has exploded in their faces...

14 February 2004

spot "Victims Of Cowboy Capitalism"

THE HORRIFYING tragedy that took place on Morecambe Bay, resulting in the deaths of 19 Chinese migrant workers, exposed the exploitation of capitalism at its worse...

14 February 2004

spot RMT Expulsion Signals Time For A New Workers' Party

BLAIR HAS never been more unpopular. 51% in an opinion poll in The Independent said it's time for him to go. This was just a matter of days after the Hutton report was supposed to have cleared him of any wrong doing. In reality, nobody...

21 February 2004

spot Socialist Party conference 2004: Socialism On The March

Exactly one year after 2 million people took to the streets of London to oppose the Iraq war the Socialist Party held its national conference. After a year of intense activity some 250 delegates and visitors came together to assess the Socialist Party's...

21 February 2004

spot Privatisation Kills

Cumbria rail disaster: ONCE AGAIN, Britain's privatised, split and profit-obsessed rail system has led to deaths on the track. On 14 February, four rail repair workers were killed by a runaway wagon on a mountainous stretch of line in Cumbria...

21 February 2004

spot Unions Mobilise Against BNP

AROUND 250 members of many different trade unions gathered in a demonstration to defend the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) headquarters on 16 February...

21 February 2004

spot Belfast Airport Workers Win Trade Union Inquiry

THREE SHOP stewards from Aldergrove Airport, Belfast, who were sacked for daring to strike in support of a pay rise, have won an important part of their battle for justice...

21 February 2004

spot "Jack is walking!"... but the system is failing

ONLY AT the age of nine was Jack seen to be walking for the first time. It was with the aid of the water in the school baths but his achievement inspired the whole school and all his family...

21 February 2004

spot Fighting to change the NUT

SOCIALIST PARTY member Martin Powell-Davies is campaigning to stand as general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT)...

21 February 2004

spot Strike action is not truancy

PAULA MITCHELL wrote the following letter to the east London Walthamstow Guardian after comments in an article on 29 January: "Political groups are leading pupils astray, girls' teacher warned"...

21 February 2004

spot Socialist Party Councillors Say No To Top-Up Fees

RECENTLY SOCIALIST Party councillors Chris Flood and Ian Page put forward a motion calling on Lewisham council and the three local Labour MPs to oppose top-up tuition fees. Here is part of Chris's speech...

21 February 2004

spot United To Defend Education

NUS and AUT: I WILL be on strike in support of the union's stand against the university employers. This is not a dispute just about a pay rise...

21 February 2004

spot Striking for a decent wage

"We'll keep up the pressure": TENS OF thousands of PCS members in the DWP (JobCentres and benefit offices) and the Driving Standards Agency went on strike on 16 and 17 February against low pay. Strikers spoke to the socialist about their action...

21 February 2004

spot Low paid say: "Enough is enough"

UP TO 100,000 low-paid civil servants in job centres and benefit offices (DWP) and the Driving Standards Agency went on strike on 16 and 17 February for better pay...

28 February 2004

spot Pakistan: Workers Fight Musharraf's Regime

WHILE GENERAL Musharraf has received praise from Western governments for his participation in the US-led 'war on terrorism', there has been no criticism of his vicious anti-working class policies. ...

28 February 2004

spot Netherlands: Government Scapegoats Asylum Seekers

THE DUTCH parliament's lower house voted on 17 February to expel up to 26,000 "failed asylum seekers" over the next three years. This cruel and inhumane policy has shocked and angered Dutch working people and also many people across Europe.

28 February 2004

spot World Currencies - Turbulent Times Ahead?

ECONOMISTS WORLDWIDE are grasping at any sign of a revival in the US and world capitalist economies...

28 February 2004

spot Gershon's "Cunning Plan" For The Public Sector

SIR PETER Gershon, the head honcho of 'government commerce' and Britain's most highly paid civil servant, has come up with a cunning plan. He wants to sack tens of thousands of public-sector workers, particularly civil servants...

28 February 2004

spot When Workers Beat The Heath Government

Working class history: THIRTY YEARS ago, Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath called a snap general election on the issue of "Who runs the country - the government or the trade unions?" Heath lost! ...

28 February 2004

spot Fighting The Bosses And The BNP

Manchester electricians: FOR NEARLY 40 weeks, electricians (members of EPIU-TGWU) in Manchester, illegally sacked by cowboy construction company DAF Electrical, have been on strike demanding reinstatement...

28 February 2004

spot Back To The Future

Education proposals: : MANY COMMENTATORS have welcomed the Tomlinson proposals to review the curriculum for 14-19 year olds. These will lead to a final report later in the year. Tomlinson advocates replacing GCSE and 'A' levels with a system of four diplomas - entry, foundation,...

28 February 2004

spot University strike: Why Cardiff closed down

ASSOCIATION OF University Teachers (AUT) members went on strike in Wales on 23 February as part of the rolling programme of strike action against the university employers' pay offer...

28 February 2004

spot Workers Must Fight Attacks On Democratic Rights

End The Occupation Of Iraq - Troops Out Now!

Liar Blair Must Go!

Let The Iraqi People Decide Their Own Future
Bring The Oil And Energy Industry Under Democratic Public Ownership
For A Socialist World Free Of War And Terror

Demonstrate

March 20th, Assemble at 12 Noon Hyde Park, Central London

National Demonstration Called By Stop The War Coalition

28 February 2004

spot EU Enlargement Brings Benefits For The Bosses

THE NEW Labour government says it will be 'regulating' the number of migrant workers who are allowed to come to Britain from the ten countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, which will be joining the European Union on 1 May...

28 February 2004

spot "We'll protect our homes"

Lewisham: COUNCIL LEASEHOLDERS (home owners) on the Sector J area of Honor Oak estate in Lewisham feel angry and conned by the Labour-controlled council...

28 February 2004

spot Global Warning

A NEW secret report warns that climate change could kill millions of people worldwide through violent storms, searing heat, flooding, famine and drought....