Workers' Liberty

An open letter to John Monks from Billy Carruthers, Station Commander and FBU member, Euston fire station, London


John,

I welcome your recent statement where you said, and rightly so, that this is a "seminal" dispute. You, like most trade unionists, are absolutely appalled by the Government's attitude.

Many other groups of public sector workers are in a similar position to the fire fighters. They have suffered years of very low pay increases. Their unions are beginning to fight for pay increases and pay deals which will enable them to "catch up". Solidarity will look at different areas of the public sector in each issue to analyse the potential contours of a public sector fight back on pay. Bringing forward the disputes on pay will help maximise solidarity with the fire fighters. This issue: the health service.

• Unequal pay in the NHS
• Action in the ambulance service
• Glasgow hospital workers still defiant

Thousands of teachers were joined by council workers who are members of Unison - both fighting for a flat rate of £4,000 for London Weighting - on a march in central London. Fire fighters also joined the demo. While police officers get over £6,000 in London Weighting, teachers get only £3,105 in inner London and £2,043 in the outer boroughs.

By a postal worker

Royal Mail has been forced to back off from its attempt to sell off the Post Office's Cash Handling and Distribution (CHD) section to Securicor, after the workers under threat delivered a resounding 95% "yes" vote for industrial action.

Hundreds of Government scientists are to stage a 24-hour strike in a dispute over pay parity with other workers. Staff at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science will walk out next Wednesday. They believe their pay has fallen behind other staff at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by 10% since the department was established last year.

• Sent home without pay for standing up for safety
  By a Tube worker

• Tube: bring forward the PPP dispute!
• Solidarity around the country
• Socialist Alliance day of action
• London Labour backs firefighters

Student Campaign Forum

By Faz Velmi
For years the leadership of the National Union of Students argued that free education was an impossible, or even undesirable, goal. Now they oppose tuition fees and call for the restoration of student grants (albeit means-tested ones - oh, and three years too late).

On the night of 7 July 2001 the Manningham area of Bradford experienced what has been described as the worst rioting in the city for 20 years. The riots were stoked up by the activities of the National Front and the BNP - an organisation which continues to win large votes in council elections, and recently won a council by-election in Blackburn. Tim Hales looks at the aftermath of the Bradford riot and argues that very little has been learnt

Debate

Peter Burton is going to have to be a lot more accurate about the Socialist Alliance than he was in "Two roads to Nowhere" if he hopes to get beyond sectarian griping (Solidarity 16).

When the TUC betrayed Dublin workers

In last week's issue of Solidarity, we printed articles by the Irish socialist James Connolly about the struggle of workers in Dublin to unionise and fight for better pay in the years before the First World War. Led by Jim Larkin, they built the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, using the solidarity strike as their weapon.

According to a recent report, Medact, a British organisation affiliated to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the total number of deaths on all sides during a war on Iraq and the following three months could be between 48,000 and 261,000. War in Iraq even of short duration would initially kill three times the number of people who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

By Nicole Ashford

An estimated 200 people have died and tens of thousands have been left homeless in the riots sparked by the Miss World contest in Nigeria.

There is a long history of conflict between Muslims in northern Nigeria and the mainly Christian south. Islamist influence has been growing in the Muslim areas of the country, and an increasing number of states are adopting sharia law - bringing them into conflict with the national government.

Trade unions must defend civil liberties
By Lucy Clement

By Gerry Bates
"If the Government proceeds with its threat to break the strike by outlawing industrial action or breaking picket lines, the Government will be escalating the dispute, and must expect calls for other unions to come to the aid of the FBU with sympathy action."
John MacDonnell MP

• We've been modernising for years

• MPs: because we're worth it
• Hey big spenders
• Public sector pay: going up!
• Some big pay deals
• Education: What modernisation meant for us
• Jobs must go
• March for the firefighters

The editorial from Solidarity 3/18, 29 November 2002, calls for a TUC one-day general strike to back the FBU and other union pay claims and to protest against anti-union laws. It urges the unions to insist on a special Labour Party conference and map out a course towards restoring working-class political representation and winning a workers' government radically different from New Labour's government for the rich.