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UK Workers' Movements Newswire Archive

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Construction Worker Killed in Liverpool City Centre

16-01-2007 01:08

This image speaks for itself
It had only been a matter of time before Liverpool City Centre saw a construction worker die on the job. Yesterday, the inevitable happened, and a 120 foot crane collapsed, killing one man and seriously injuring another at Duke Terrace, near Seel Street.

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BERLIN: 80 000 remember to Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht

15-01-2007 22:08

80.000 visited the "Cemetary of the Socialists"
Berlin. 80 000 people came to visit the "Cemetary of the Socialists" to remember to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the founders of the German Communist Party. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered by "Freikorps" Soldiers after World War I.

Pics from the protest march through Berlin.

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France: Virgin, give Amandine back her job!

15-01-2007 07:13

We demand the immediate re-instatement of Amandine as well as an end to Virgin's anti-union policy, and we will accordingly be joining the solidarity actions.

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Venezuela: Chavez announces radical measures against capitalism

12-01-2007 22:11

Hugo Chavez after his amazing victory
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela during the swearing in ceremony of his new cabinet gave a fiery speech in which he announced a series of radical measures. If carried out they would be a serious blow against the power of the oligarchy and imperialism in Venezuela. The proposals he made reflect the sharp turn to the left in the country as a whole. They reflect the real mood of the masses and their desire for radical change and an end to capitalism in the country.

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Millions Struggling to Survive On Low Wages

10-01-2007 04:40

The 110th Congress is now in session and congressional leaders are expected to move on raising the U.S. minimum wage. Congress is expected to move quickly to raise the federal minimum wage from the present rate of $5.15 to $7.25 per hour by 2009; it will be the first such increase since 1997.

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Advertising Cancer Infects NHS

09-01-2007 18:46

Yes, you read it right. Now that we have 'choice' in what hospitals we consume (sorry, 'use'), Merseyside NHS hospitals are going to start flaunting their wares in public spaces, in a bid to make you choose Southport General over the Royal Liverpool or whatever. Of course, as with any business, the money spent on advertising will not be available for wages or the actual services. And in hospitals, the services are quite important.

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Conspiracy Their Arses! Ricky Tomlinson (and Non-Celebrities) Fight Injustice

09-01-2007 16:16

Of course you know Ricky Tomlinson from his roles in the Royle Family and Brookside. But you may not know he was one of the Shrewsbury pickets imprisoned in the 1970s for 'conspiracy to intimidate' during a building workers dispute. Well now Ricky has donated £1,000 to a campaign for a public inquiry into the blatantly dodgy arrests, trial, and imprisonments. He will also be presenting a TV documentary later this year in a bid to raise awareness.

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Keep Our NHS Public - meeting

07-01-2007 18:05

Keep Our NHS Public
Public Meeting, Thursday 8th Feb, 7.30pm
Nottingham Mechanics Institute
North Sherwood Street

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American Defeat: An anti-state communist perspective on the Iraq War, 2003

06-01-2007 22:28

An analysis of the US-UK war on Iraq which was written just before the start of the war in 2003. Some of the predictions made subsequently proved to be mistaken but the overall picture has proved to be accurate.

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Construction Safety Slammed In Liverpool

05-01-2007 23:03

Outside McDonald’s on Lord Street, the Amicus union launched a campaign against poor safety standards in the construction industry this afternoon. As if to prove their point, Morgan Utilities Ltd were fined £11,000 for a 2005 incident just down the road.

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How do we get a radical, campaigning student movement?

05-01-2007 14:38

A day of political discussion, training and planning for student activists organised by Education Not for Sale, No Sweat and Students Against Sweatshops. Come and join other student activists to discuss how can we argue for, organise for and campaign for radical ideas in the student movement.

11.30-3.30pm, TGWU Transport House, Theobalds Road, Holborn, London

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"Work camps" for Poles in England?

04-01-2007 18:30

A Pole apparently held in a work camp in the UK smuggled out a letter which was forwarded to Polish police. Polish police are now investigating claims of Poles being held in work camps in both UK and Italy.

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Iraqi asylum seekers in the UK, claims in progress or have been refused asylum

03-01-2007 14:25

UNHCR is specifically advising refugee receiving countries to give due consideration to granting refugee status to Iraqi's from Central and Southern Iraq and that there should be no forced returns to Central and Southern Iraq further that there should be no forced returns to third countries.

They are more cautious on returns to the three Northern Governorates (Sulaymaniyah, Erbil and Dohuk), though they do say "the security situation, even if calm, remains tense and unpredictable" and that careful consideration must be given before any returns are carried out.

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Solange Nlandu Therese Nsingu

03-01-2007 06:39

Solange has been detained in Yarl's Wood IRC since early October and is due to be removed from the UK back to DR Congo, on Wednesday 3rd January 2007 @ 19.00hrs.

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Kalyx & Colnbrook IRCs - Close them down Now!

03-01-2007 06:36

Demonstration @ Kalyx/Colnbrook December 2006
With hunger-strikes, acts of self-harm and protest people are fighting their invisibility. The recent resistance inside these detention centres joins with the thousands of other people worldwide who demonstrate, riot, light fires and destroy compounds in protest against and in defiance of their incarceration. It shows that people, regardless of their desperation, will always struggle for their human dignity.

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Against the repression in Oaxaca, Anti-capitalist class struggle!

02-01-2007 18:11

For several months the town of Oaxaca, capital of the Mexican State of the same name, has been the center of important struggles which have or suffered repeated attacks by the forces of repression (police, army and paramilitary) with many victims: at the end of November the toll was 22 dead and 34 disappeared.

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Zanon (Argentina): The factory rocks

02-01-2007 16:38

Es el rock de la linea del frente.

The workers in the self-organised tile factory Zanon have something to celebrate: The temporary legal status of the factory, granted in 2001, was extended for three years this October. In what is fast becoming a tradition, they ended the year with a huge rock concert with 6000 guests.

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Against the repression in Oaxaca, Anti-capitalist class struggle!

30-12-2006 12:08


For several months the town of Oaxaca, capital of the Mexican State of the same name, has been the center (of a movement) of important struggles which have undergone (or suffered) repeated attacks by the forces of repression (police, army and paramilitary) with many victims: at the end of November the toll was 22 dead and 34 disappeared.

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Proposals on party funding aimed at breaking Labour-Trade Union link

24-12-2006 20:34

Labour Party activists have reacted in anger after the latest draft version of the report of the Hayden Phillips inquiry into political party funding was leaked last week. The original rumoured cap on donations of £250,000 has been dropped in favour of a new £50,000 figure. However the main target of this cap seems to be not big business but the trade unions.

Incredibly, under the terms of these draft proposals, any unions who have political funds and donate to the Labour Party will be required to register the names of all their individual members and then contact them each year to ask if they wish to continue to have that percentage of their union dues marked down as a political levy payment paid over to the party. With over three million workers potentially involved this would represent a major operation each and every year. Also, however big or small the union is, the total amount they can give will not be able to exceed £50,000. This is clearly aimed at breaking the power of the four big unions. Similar restrictions would exist with regards to affiliation payments to local parties.

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Chavez gets more radical

20-12-2006 17:56

“For this new era we need a political instrument at the service of the Revolution and socialism”

In an event called on Friday 15, at the Teresa Carreño Theatre in Caracas, to celebrate the election victory and congratulate those who had made it possible, Chavez made a very important speech about the new phase the Bolivarian Revolution has reached. The whole speech was one blow after another against the right wing of the Bolivarian movement, which has spent the last two weeks since the elections calling for conciliation with the opposition, and was enthusiastically received by the thousands of revolutionary activists present at the Theatre and the hundreds of thousands who watch the speech on national TV.