Privatisation

Industrial news in brief

On 8 November, the Dockworkers’ Union started industrial action, including a ban on overtime, at the Gothenburg terminal which handles 60% of Sweden’s container trade. It has also called for a blockade on traffic redirected from Gothenburg. Problems in Gothenburg have increased over the last five years since APM, the container-terminal offshoot of the giant Maersk group, took over, and especially since, according to the union, about a year and a half ago, the company adopted “an anti-union stance”, presumably in response to the continued stagnation and sharper competition in global container...

Cutting the NHS to the bone

The NHS Bill 16/17 (formerly the NHS reinstatement bill) was due to have its second reading in Parliament on Friday 4 November. NHS campaigners gathered outside Parliament to support the bill. The bill did not get discussed on that date and the second reading has now been rescheduled to 24 February 2017. The bill was presented to Parliament on 13 July by Labour MPs Rachel Maskell and Margaret Greenwood. The bill would restore the NHS as an accountable public service by reversing 25 years of privatisation and marketisation. The bill would: abolish the purchaser-provider split; reinstate the...

Industrial news in brief

Station staff on London Underground are balloting for strikes, and industrial action short of strikes, against job cuts. The ballot begins on 1 November and closes a fortnight later. Both the RMT and TSSA unions are balloting their members. London Underground’s “Fit for the Future” restructure programme on stations has seen nearly 1,000 jobs axed and thousands of workers forcibly regraded and displaced. Workers say that new rosters are unworkable, and recent incidents at North Greenwich and Canning Town stations have highlighted the risks of de-staffing. Unions are demanding a reversal of the...

Industrial news in brief

Teaching assistants in Derby and Durham have been fighting attacks on their terms and conditions. As previously reported in Solidarity , teaching assistants in Derby will have their pay slashed by 25% to bring them onto term-time only pay. Durham teaching assistants face a similar cut in pay, and the council is planning on sacking all the teaching assistants and reemploying them on the new contract to force through the changes, Durham council′s ″solution″ would mean some workers only losing 10% of their pay — but working more hours for the privilege! Teaching assistants in Derby struck on...

Industrial news in brief

Workers at the Ritzy Picturehouse cinema in Brixton struck on Friday 7 October, and will strike again on Saturday 15 October. The Ritzy cinema was completely shut down by the strike, and films due to be shown as part of the London Film Festival moved to other venues. Workers picketed the Ritzy after they walked out at 1pm, they then protested outside the BFI South Bank cinema (the BFI gives large grants to Picturehouse cinemas and Picturehouses in London are part of the London Film Festival going on at the moment), before proceeding to Leicester Square to protest outside a London Film Festival...

Industrial news in brief

Hundreds of Derby teaching assistants and their supporters protested outside Parliament on Wednesday 14 September. The lobby of Parliament was part of a strike by teaching assistants in their fight to against the council changing their working week, resulting in a 25% loss of pay. Strikes in August finally brought the council to the negotiating table, but their offers since have been so miserly that workers have rejected them by large majorities. The council has also attempted to make divisive offers that would benefit only a section of the workforce. Teaching assistants were further angered...

Industrial news in brief

Unison is organising a strike ballot among its members in the Higher Education (HE) sector to oppose this year’s pay offer. The offer of just 1.1% for the majority of staff, with some additional payments at the lower end of the scale, is not adequate to meet rises in the cost of living and compensate for rises in taxation.The union is recommending rejection of the offer and demanding a 5% rise, and the independent living wage for those on the lowest pay. Although there is a financial squeeze on the HE sector, those at the top are trying to make those at the bottom suffer all of the pain. In...

Millions out against Modi

Millions of workers across India have struck against Prime Minister Modi′s plans for public sector privatisation and an inadequate minimum wage increase. The general strike on Friday 2 September reportedly involved 150 million workers. The main trade union organisations are fighting for 12 demands, which as well as higher wages also include universal social security, efforts to contain price rises, no increase in the maximum overtime hours, and an extension of labour protections to more workers in India. The strike was the fourth one-day general strike in India since 2009. Ahead of the strike...

Renationalise the NHS!

As we goes to press we await the announcement of further industrial action by junior doctors. Throughout the last year they have at the forefront of exposing the Government’s desire to asset strip the NHS. Now leaked documents from the Department of Health have vindicated their fight; these documents show how disastrous the government’s plans for the NHS really are. During a year long campaign and eight days of industrial action junior doctors shouted loudly that the plan for a seven-day NHS was not safe or even unachiveable. These Department of Health documents say there has been lack of...

Industrial news in brief

Catering staff at the University of Manchester have won a deal for no compulsory redundancies, no loss of hours, and no pay cuts. Their employer, UMC, a subsidiary company wholly owned by University of Manchester, had said in March that it would sack 46 of its 280-odd catering workers and move the rest to term-time only contracts — meaning a pay cut of about one third. Hannah McCarthy, the student union Campaigns and Citizenship Officer and vice-chair of Manchester Momentum, spoke to Solidarity . This is far from a complete victory. There will still be restructuring. But there will be no...

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