Solidarity 300, 16 October 2013

On 30 October the Privy Council — an appointed committee of medieval origins — is due to announce a decision on press regulation. The big political parties have agreed a scheme between them but are reworking it to try to make it acceptable to the press lords. The Privy Council has already rejected a full-scale alternative drafted by the newspaper bosses. The differences between the newspaper bosses’ scheme and the government’s are relatively slight. Both would established a souped-up version of the present Press Complaints Commission, and a panel to check up on how the souped-up commission is...

On 12 October members of the Nepali community in London and British labour movement and migrants' rights activists protested outside the Qatari embassy to protest against the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar. More than 700, mainly Nepali, workers have died in the last year, the majority as a result of heart failures or industrial accidents, as the Gulf dictatorship goes into a building overdrive in preparation for the 2022 World Cup. Protest organiser Shreya Paudel is on the right You can read more here . The protest was initiated by Shreya Paudel, a socialist student movement activist...

Unite members at the Ineos oil refinery and petrochemical plant in Grangemouth will be staging a 48-hour strike on 20-21 October in defence of site convenor Stevie Deans. A work-to-rule and a ban on overtime have already been underway since the beginning of October, following an 81% vote for strike action and a 91% vote for action short of strike action in a ballot with an 86% turnout. The strike action is the latest stage in the workforce’s defence of Stevie, who has faced a sustained campaign of harassment by senior Ineos management since the summer of this year. Stevie, who is also chair of...

Australian trade unionist and Workers' Liberty activist Bob Carnegie is likely to be hauled into court again on 21 October, for a 20-day hearing of a civil-law claim for damages over the QCH dispute against the unions on the QCH site – CFMEU, the CEPU, and the BLF. A mediation hearing between union and company lawyers produced no result. Abigroup is pursuing the case aggressively, claiming many millions of dollars in damages. It is possible that a legal move by the CEPU may result in the hearing being postponed, and in that case the postponement will be for some months. As of now, though, we...