Solidarity 107, 22 February 2007

Andres Aullet, a lawyer involved in a Committee of Relatives of Political Prisoners of Oaxaca recently toured the UK speaking about the situation in Mexico. The tour was organised by No Sweat. Paul Hampton interviewed him. PH. Many socialists have been impressed by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). How is it organised? AA: APPO is a broad organisation of struggle, composed of many tendencies, with representatives from unions - including Section 22 of the SNTE teachers’ union, peasants and civil society organisations. It is composed of over 200 delegates from these...

Blood Service Members of Amicus working in the National Blood Service used Valentine’s day as a platform to draw attention to the threatened closure of local centres. There is a plan to move all blood processing and testing to three large centres in London, Bristol and Manchester. Centralising production raises the risk of deaths if there were to be any delays in its delivery. Before Christmas a ballot by Amicus produced an 81% vote in favour of industrial action. Staff are hesitant to take such action because of the potential effects on patients. But there is also a reluctance from the union...

Central trains Guards on Central Trains are due to strike on Saturday 24 February in their continuing campaign against the imposition of a computerised rostering system called Crewplan. The next stage of the campaign was supposed to have been a ban on collecting revenue. However management threatened a 50% reduction in wages for anybody not collecting fares. They declared that there would be no rest day working or overtime for guards. This forced the guards to re-think their strategy. The guards’ next step was decided when they received a gloating letter from the Banaghan gang, telling them...

By a civil servant More than 150,000 PCS members took strike action on 31 January, more than the last national dispute on 5 November 2005. This was a solid start has been made to the campaign against cuts in the service. The union is demanding: no compulsory guarantee; a better pay system; and union agreement on outsourcing/privatisations. The need for a national pay system (which is our definition of a fairer pay system) has been brought home sharply by events in the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA). DCA have imposed a below inflation pay offer on the 24,000 staff in that department...

Tube cleaning company and multinational ISS has said it will get rid of 200 cleaners on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly Lines because TubeLines, the “Infraco” in charge of the lines, has slashed the budget for cleaning. The RMT has organised protests outside TubeLines’ and the Mayor’s posh offices, submitted an Early Day Motion backed by RMT’s MPs and handed official letters to ISS, TubeLines and the Mayor, demanding meetings. Livingstone has guaranteed ISS’s contract until 2012 - a contract allowing only for cheap, sub-standard cleaning, as he fights to keep costs down to pour maximum...

By a tube worker RMT’s ballot for strike action over pay on London Underground has come back with a huge mandate for action. On a turn out of about 50%, 2,271 (76%) voted for strike action and 705 (24%) voted against. Tube workers are prepared for the strikes we need to force management to pay us our 4% from last year and improve their offer. Unfortunately, the union’s press release suggests that the leadership may be preparing to back down rather than fight. It rightly notes that LUL dropped its insistence on linking pay with later running after the RMT began balloting - an example of how...

Around 250 people attended a “Faith, Homophobia and Human Rights” conference in London on Saturday 17 February 2007. Ali Hili from Iraqi LGBT and OutRage! spoke at the conference. Here is part of his speech. Iraqi LGBT is an underground network of LGBT activists that we have established inside Iraq. Our members - and all Iraqi LGBTs - are at daily risk of execution by the Shia death squads of the Badr and Sadr militias. Members of these militias have infiltrated the Iraqi police and are abusing their police authority to pursue a plan to eliminate all homosexuals in Iraq. This is happening with...