Workers' Liberty

Dear Brother Woodley,

A fortnight after the Grangemouth oil refinery was shut down by strike action, talks continue between refinery owners (INEOS) and UNITE.

The strike by the 1,200 union members was in defence of the refinery’s final salary pension scheme, inherited by INEOS from the refinery’s previous owners (BP).

Workers in the housing charity Shelter are on strike again on 24-25 April against enforced cuts in pay and conditions. Previous strikes on 5 and 10 March forced Shelter bosses, who at first insisted that they would never negotiate, to put the cuts on hold and talk at ACAS. But their ACAS offer was only a one-off “compensation” payment.

Birmingham City Council workers will strike again on 23 and 24 April over the council’s plans to use “single status” negotiations to cut pay and jobs.

A call for Shelter workers to vote on in the ballot on the Shelter bosses' offer of a (small) lump-sum payment in return for substantial cuts in pay and increases in hours.

TGWU-Unite reps in the housing organisation Shelter are recommending rejection in a ballot of workers, due to start on Wednesday 26 March, of the offer made in ACAS talks by Shelter bosses on a pay-and-hours dispute.

After two days of strike action, bosses at Shelter, an organisation providing services to the homeless, have agreed to put "on hold" their plans to cut workers' pay and conditions.

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On Wednesday 5 March 450 members of Unite union who work at Shelter struck for the first time in the housing charity’s 41 year history. A Shelter worker explains the background.

In an effort unusual for British unions, the rail union RMT and the TGWU mobilised members on Thursday 6 March to leaflet at several rail stations in support of the jailed Iranian trade unionists Mansour Ossanloo and Mahmoud Salehi.

[Activists in the Amicus bit of Unite may wish to omit the reference to the TGWU Biennial Delegate Conference]

We note the statement from the General Executive Committee put to the Biennial Delegate Conference of the TGWU section of Unite in July 2007.

On Thursday 21 February, we will find out if some 450 members of the TGWU/Unite have voted in favour of national strike action, an event which would be a first in Shelter's 41-year history.

Hundreds of Rolls-Royce workers and their supporters marched through Liverpool on 8 February to protest against the company’s plans to close its plant in Bootle and transfer the work to the US, with

On Thursday the 21st of February, we will find out if some 450 members of the TGWU/Unite have voted in favour of national strike action, an event which would be a first in Shelter's 41-year history.

The Remploy factories in Aintree and Birkenhead (CCU) are taking strike action on 6th and 7th February.

TGWU/Unite members in the homelessness charity Shelter have voted by an overwhelming 87% to reject a raft of proposed cuts to pay and conditions, in favour of a strike ballot.

London Underground cleaners in the RMT continue to organise. About three weeks ago, cleaning staff at Morden Underground depot succeeded in fighting their management's imposition of a new 7-day a week roster, which would have allowed them no days off!

The front page of the new issue of the TGWU paper Record looks like an improbably heavy-handed attempt to satirise the new relationship between the unions and the Labour Party leadership after Bournemouth.

By John Bloxam

On 18 July Mick Cashman died, aged just 48.

For over a decade until the early 1990s, he was a member of the AWL’s predecessor organisations and supporter of Workers’ Action and Socialist Organiser.

Solidarity wins against Sodexho

Catering staff at Haggerston School in Hackney, with the support of NUT and UNISON members, have forced a pay increase from their multi-national bosses Sodexho, taking their below minimum wage £4.51 per hour to £9. On their first day of strike action 35 teachers and two technicians refused to cross their picket line, forcing the school to send students home; in fact, many students joined the picket. Sodexho backed down with a second strike day planned.

By a conference delegate

Members of the TGWU gathered in Brighton at the beginning of July for the last ever T&G Biennial Delegates’ Conference.

The first day of the conference started with an opening address from newly elected chair Brenda Sanders. This is the first time in the history of the T&G that there has been a woman chair.

London Bus Workers DEMO unite

join bus workers in a major demo to demand
PROPER TOILET FACILITIES

Thurday 23 August 2007

Assemble at Victoria Coach Station 11.30 am.

This is start of the union organised (by activists) London bus campian. Drivers are fed up with bad conditions, long hours and crap pay, this is the start to arganise the 28,000 london bus drivers for victory

35 teachers at Haggerston School in Hackney face disciplinary action for refusing to cross a Unite!/T&G picket line of striking school meals workers. You can read all about it on Hackney TUC's website. Below is an email I have just sent to the head teacher.

The Biennial Delegate Conference of the TGWU section of Unite voted on Wednesday 4 July to support a "boycott of Israeli products and goods".

A statement from the General Executive Committee to be put to the Biennial Delegate Conference of the TGWU section of Unite on Thursday 5 July calls for "an end to the manipulation of [Labour Party] conference by the party leadership and the ignoring of conference decisions by ministers". It also says that "the right of party conference to make party policy needs to be upheld and respected."

On 27 June refuse workers in Salford mounted a 24-hour strike action in protest at the council's exploitation of agency staff.