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An industrial bulletin for Tube workers, by Tube workers, featuring stories on the Tories' plan to ban strikes and the "Justice for the 33" campaign to win reinstatement for sacked agency workers.
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The National Garment Workers' Federation (NGWF) in Bangladesh has launched a petition. It asks UK high street chains Primark, Mango, and Matalan to commit to forcing their Bangladeshi suppliers to comply with the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement.
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Following a 62% vote for strikes, members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) in the Sheffield DWP Contact Centre will strike on 7 May.
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Local government employers have made a "final offer" of a 1% pay increase to trade unions representing council workers.
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At this year's Communication Workers Union (CWU) conference (21-25 April), the union voted to reaffirm previous policy on calling a general strike, and numerous motions that supported those affected b
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The aspiration that the organised labour movement should defend all those in the working class who are under attack from this brutal government by calling a "general strike" is a good thing.
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Over a thousand people marched from Southall, past Ealing Hospital, to Ealing Common on Saturday 27 April to demand that the Accident and Emergency departments be kept open at Ealing Hospital and three others threatened in west London.
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A workplace bulletin for Lewisham Hospital workers, by Lewisham Hospital workers.
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An AWL conference bulletin from Unison Health Conference, April 2013.
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Seventy years ago, in April 1943, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose up against the Nazis.
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A workplace bulletin for workers at Lewisham Hospital, by workers at Lewisham Hospital.
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Company directors' pay increased 5.3% in 2012: average pay rates are rising by just 1.2%, way below 2.8% price inflation. Chief executives' earnings rose by nearly 16 per cent, according to an annual salary survey by the Chartered Management Institute.
The 25 highest paid hedge fund managers actually did less well in 2012, collecting "only" $14 billion (an average of $560 million each) in pay and paper profits, which was less than in 2011. However, they are supposed to be paid for choosing investments for wealthy people more adroitly than those plutocrats could do for themselves. However, the average hedge fund made a 6.4% profit for its investors in 2012, a lot less than the 11.1% they could get from a default formula of investing 60 per cent in US stocks and 40 per cent in bonds. The hedge fund bosses got paid for a performance worse than doing nothing.
The top 20 trading houses - middle-men who make their money from buying oil, metals, or crops a bit cheaper and selling them a bit dearer - have made almost £250 billion in profit over the past decade, more than the world's top five carmakers combined.
Vitol, Glencore, Cargill, Louis Dreyus, and others, are much less-known than Exxon or Toyota. Many of them are privately-owned, and most base their offices in low-tax jurisdictions such as Switzerland or Singapore.
The Financial Times survey into the trading houses (16 April) concludes that conditions may now get tougher for the trading houses. Some of them may run into trouble and collapse.
Would that cause problems for the whole economic system? The FT quotes an academic expert who thinks not: with the collapse of Enron in 2001, he says, "an entire commodity trading sector - the merchant energy sector in the US - imploded without disrupting the financial system, or the trade in physical power and gas".
In other words, the trading houses make their billions by skimming off the top, not by contributing anything vital, even for capitalism.
All from the Financial Times, 13 to 16 April 2013.
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Excerpts from a discussion among Solidarity readers about the using the phrase "The Witch Is Dead" about Thatcher's death.
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The "Defend the Right to Protest" campaign has put out this statement about the police preparations for Margaret Thatcher's funeral on 17 April 2013.
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Members of BECTU and NUJ at the BBC struck on 28 March in a dispute over job cuts, workload, and management bullying.
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Up to 4,000 Crown Post Office staff will strike on 19 April in an ongoing battle over closures, job cuts, and pay.
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Bulletins produced by Workers' Liberty education workers for the National Union of Teachers conference 2013.
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If we believed in a hell, we would have no doubt Margaret Thatcher would now be in it.
