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UK Workers' Movements Newswire Archive

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Workers Memorial Day in Birmingham

28-04-2008 16:48

About 50 people gathered today in Birmingham's Pigeon Park (St Phillips Cathedral) to "remember the dead [workers] and fight for the living". The International Workers Memorial Day (IWMD) event was organised by UNISON and supported by Birmingham Trades Council. Speeches remembered those who lost their life at or as a result of work, explained the reasons and demanded better health and safety procedures in the workplace.

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Lambeth UNISON Public Meeting - Privatisation of council services: the true cost

28-04-2008 16:06

*6.30pm to 8.30pm
*Thursday 8th May
*Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton


Speakers include:

John McDonnell MP – Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group
Ted Knight – ex-Leader of Lambeth Council
Derek Wall – Male Principal Speaker of the Green Party
Sarah Tomlinson – Branch Secretary of Lambeth NUT
Jean Kerrigan – ex-Chair of Tenants’ Council

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Scottish refinery workers strike

28-04-2008 12:48

Some 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery near Edinburgh, Scotland began a two-day strike yesterday against plans by chemical giant Ineos’ to slash payments to the company pension plan, bar new starts from the scheme and to make final pension payments dependent on the stock market.

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Grangemouth Workers Strike

27-04-2008 21:50

Unite members at a Grangemouth meeting
Today sees the start of a 48 hour strike by workers at the Ineos oil refinery in Grangemouth, Central Scotland. Members of the Unite Union have staged the walk out in response to the companies discontinuation of their pension scheme, leaving workers with an uncertain future. Grangemouth produces %10 of the UK’s petrol and diesel. The strike will also cause the shutting of the Forties pipe-line, which supplies much of the UK’s fossil-fuels, including the fifth of Britain’s gas.

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Grangemouth UK oil strike & bosses tactical AGM in USA details

27-04-2008 12:40

they will be discussing tactics about grange mouth & most will be pressing Brown to crackdown www.trilateral.org
We must all support workers at Grangemouth leading fight for better pensions &safety, it is making people think about conserving fuel.
Renationalise, cooperativise& start drilling geothermal shafts rather than oil boreholes. Most rich corporations & billionaires pay little or no tax, in fact they are often subsidised, whilst most tax dosh comes from people & cooperatives.
Fuel should be rationed at pumps & at terminals by worker cooperatives for those that need it & not gas guzzlers.
This is uncopyrighted at the moment, to those in the BBC & ITV do a good job with this information & you will get our support too.

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Brave MEND Activists Attack Another Shell (Colonial) Pipeline

27-04-2008 10:06

Fri Apr, 25 2008
Nigerian main rebel group, The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), today said it blew up another oil pipeline belonging to Shell in it renewed attack against oil infrastructures in the region.

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South Africa: UnFreedom Day

27-04-2008 09:56

Poverty and Repression do not equal Freedom
On Sunday it will be Freedom Day again. Once again we will be asked to go into stadiums to be told that we are free. Once again we will not be going to the stadiums. We will, for the third time, be mourning UnFreedom Day. Since the last UnFreedom Day we have been beaten, shot at and arrested on false charges by the police; evicted by the land invasions unit; disconnected from electricity by Municipal Security; forcibly removed to rural human dumping grounds by the Municipalities; banned from marching by the eThekwini City Manager; slandered by all those who want followers not comrades; intimidated by all kinds of people who demand the silence of the poor; threatened by new anti-poor laws; burnt in the fires; sick in the dirt and raped in the dark nights looking for a safe place to go the toilet.

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Workers Memorial Day 28th April Gateshead

27-04-2008 08:53

This is a great event concerning the growing social movement against diseases caused by capitalism. Asbestos is going to cause a growing number of deaths for years to come and it is important to be aware that it is in schools, workplaces and hospitals near you.

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Size of teachers’ strike exceeds predictions

26-04-2008 21:29

Two hundred thousand teachers organised in the National Union of Teachers came out on strike on Thursday in opposition to the Labour government’s wage-cutting pay deal. NUT members had balloted 3-1 to reject the three-year pay award of 2.45 percent this year, followed by 2.3 percent over the next two years.

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GREECE: Workers on the strawberry crops violently repressed by the land-owners

25-04-2008 17:02

Immigrant workers in Manolada, Ilia, Greece
One of the first immigrants' strike in Greece, against the humiliating salaries and the bad living conditions. Police and authorities backing the land-owners

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May Day Party In Liverpool

25-04-2008 12:38

Liverpool Social Centre invites all workers & strugglers to our May Day '08 party on Thurs 1st May

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London BPP Fash get slapped!

25-04-2008 09:46

Militant Anti-fascists turned over the BPP Victoria meeting. According to the BPP report on Stormfront, 'a couple of people got a good kicking, but the most serious injuries were a broken ankle and a comrade who was taken to hospital after being kicked unconcious'. The message is clear: No Platform, No Pasaran!

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Workers Memorial Day Pre event

25-04-2008 08:57

IWW members attended the pre-event outside the library last Saturday. We joined the event organised by local Unison activists. We produced our own flyer which we'd like to share with you as well as alert you to the remembrance service conducted by Rev Neil Richards, guest speakers from UNISON and other unions, and details about the forthcoming IWMD event at St. Phillips Church, in Birmingham on 28 April. are with you.

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Strikes in Wrexham today… and zero carbon transportation

24-04-2008 20:20

Six striking workers and a dog
Report on a picket at the Department of Work and Pensions, the NUT strike, and an attempt to reclaim the streets with a shopping trolley.

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Pictures of Birmingham's Strike Rally

24-04-2008 19:37

Around two thousand people gathered in Victoria square today to support striking teachers and council workers. The rally was jointly called by five unions as a national teachers strike coincided with a two-day industrial action by thousands of Birmingham council workers over a new pay and grading structure imposed by the council on April 1st, which could see some workers lose up to half their pay. For the second day in a row, picket lines at council premises across the city were mounted and services disrupted, while more than half of Birmingham's schools were closed due to the NUT industrial strike.

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Photos of April 24 Strike in Nottingham

24-04-2008 15:00

On April 24 teachers, further education lecturers and civil servants took part in national strike action against the public sector pay freeze.

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What does the hunger strike by Belfast shop stewards say about the trade unions?

24-04-2008 07:30

After six years and repeated hunger strikes by two former shop stewards, a group of workers sacked from Belfast’s International Airport have finally extracted compensation from the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU) for the legal fees expended in pursuance of their claims of wrongful dismissal. Still contested is the workers’ other demand for the ATGWU to mount an inquiry into its own role in setting up the workers to be sacked in the first place.

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Birmingham Council workers strike against the imposition of a new contract

23-04-2008 21:40

Newtown Neighbourhood Office Picket
Council workers in Birmingham today protested against the imposition of a new contract, and a new pay and grading structure by Birmingham City Council. UNISON has branded the new pay structure as discriminatory although it was designed to end wage inequalities, some workers will lose up to half their pay.

Around 4,000 people protested in Victoria Square Birmingham during the previous strike and given the potential size of the dispute tomorrow, with teachers and civil servants joining the strike, there could be around 10,000 people protesting against Birmingham City Council. This is set to be the biggest public service dispute in the last 20 years.

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Oxford May Day

23-04-2008 21:36

This years May Day march in Oxford.