TGWU

Hundreds of Rolls-Royce workers and their supporters marched through Liverpool on 8 February to protest against the company’s plans to close its plant in Bootle and transfer the work to the US, with the loss of 200 jobs. The Bootle workers were joined by solidarity delegations from other Rolls Royce plants including Bristol and Derby. The plans for the closure come shortly after Rolls Royce announced £800 million in profits, up by 13% from £705 million in 2007, and promised its shareholders a 35% increase in pay outs. The protest in Liverpool was addressed by Tony Woodley - whose record of...

On Thursday the 21st of February, we will find out if some 450 members of the TGWU/Unite have voted in favour of national strike action, an event which would be a first in Shelter's 41-year history. They are faced with a package of cuts which will result in all 800+ staff working two and a half extra hours per week (unpaid) and without the current incremental pay scale which they are currently entitled to (worth £2k-£3k on top of starting salaries). On top of this, scores of frontline advice and support staff are to be made redundant and "redeployed" into lower-paid jobs in a "new operating...

The Remploy factories in Aintree and Birkenhead (CCU) are taking strike action on 6th and 7th February. According to Unite, which together with the GMB organises Remploy workers: The Remploy Consortium of Trade Unions (Unite, GMB and Community) has vowed to fight the closure of 28 Remploy factories, including Aintree and Birkenhead and the jobs of its’ employees. Remploy is the UK’s biggest employer of disabled people and employs over 5,000 disabled workers in 82 factories nationally... 73% of workers taking part in the ballot at Aintree voted in favour of strike action and 100% of workers...

TGWU/Unite members in the homelessness charity Shelter have voted by an overwhelming 87% to reject a raft of proposed cuts to pay and conditions, in favour of a strike ballot. To summarise the worst of what the organisation's management are proposing: Immediate downgrading of one third of frontline advice posts by £3k Removal of pay increments currently worth around £2.5k over three years Extenstion of the working week from 35 hours to 37.5 hours Introduction of new, disastrous, working practices which would effectively create a two or three-tier workforce of housing advisers doing the same...

The front page of the new issue of the TGWU paper Record looks like an improbably heavy-handed attempt to satirise the new relationship between the unions and the Labour Party leadership after Bournemouth. It shows TGWU general secretary Tony Woodley whispering in the ear of Gordon Brown. Brown is listening politely - preparatory, of course, to replying: "No chance, Tony! This is the new Labour Party, 'the natural party of business'! Workers' rights, indeed!" The headline reads: "Make Labour Listen!" Presumably Woodley thinks the strain on Brown's eardrums will be reduced if he doesn't have to...

By John Bloxam On 18 July Mick Cashman died, aged just 48. For over a decade until the early 1990s, he was a member of the AWL’s predecessor organisations and supporter of Workers’ Action and Socialist Organiser. During the same period he was a prominent activist in the Wallasey Labour Party (both the Labour Party Young Socialists and the constituency party), and played a leading role in transforming the organisations into bodies fighting for working class socialism. The high point of this struggle took place 20 years ago, when Wallasey CLP selected Lol Duffy as its candidate for the 1987...