Solidarity 159, 24 September 2009

The explosion of spontaneous protests by temporary teachers that swept across Italy at the beginning of September has continued following the opening of the school term on the 14th. Now the extent of the drastic cuts in teachers, technical and admin staff etc. has become clear to those still fortunate to find themselves in a job. This year 65,000 jobs were scheduled to be cut. There are more cuts to come in 2010. Those affected are part of the 300,000-strong temporary workforce in education. All types of public sector schools find themselves with a signicant increase in class sizes and reduced...

Dozens of French riot police have invaded and destroyed the “jungle” migrant camps in Calais, using bulldozers and flame throwers, evicting thousands and arresting hundreds of people. Nearly half of the 278 arrested are children and youth. Most of the ex-camp inmates are refugees from Afghanistan, with substantial groups from countries including Iraq and Somalia. They have been stuck in bureaucratic limbo and forced to live in appalling, insanitary, dangerous conditions. They were in the “jungle” because in 2002 the French government closed the Red Cross camp at Sangatte, under pressure from...

Another migrant worker-militant has been forced out of their job at a cleaning company. This time it is Juan Carlos Piedra, a Unite member who worked for O&G, the company which has the contract for cleaning at University College London. Aside from workplace activism, he is a leading organiser in the Movement of Ecuadorians in the UK. Juan Carlos had actually been transferred to UCL after a disciplinary at another O&G site. Before working for the company, he had been victimised by Mitie, another contractor, as part of the Willis dispute last year. He was told that his work was no problem; the...

The Washington Post reported in January this year that unemployment is the highest now since the CCP took power in 1949. Government figures of urban joblessness stand at 18 million, and that is without counting joblessness among the 160 million urban-based migrant workers. The figures are most likely double this in the countryside. “Mass incidents” (defined as a strike, demonstration, blockade, or another public unrest involving over one hundred people) were estimated at 127,467 in 2008 (a substantial increase on the last officially released figure of 87,000 in 2005). If the trend from the...

At a Congress fringe meeting on job losses in the Vauxhall factories at Luton and Ellesmere Port, the speakers included Unite joint general secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley and Labour MPs Lindsay Hoyle and Andrew Millar. Derek Simpson made the best speech. A world in which different governments compete to see which can give the largest amount of money to an international company to keep factories open is crazy and wrong. We need an international union to confront these businesses. John Cooper, the deputy convenor of Ellesmere Port, said that concessions have been made to secure the...

In his opening address on Monday 14 September, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber’s theme was that workers and trade unions had had a “mixed year”. We had lived under a Labour government which “we sometimes applauded and sometimes led us to distraction”. He made lots of very easy attacks on greedy city traders and socially irresponsible capitalists, apparently oblivious to the fact that for the last 12 years in power New Labour have slavishly created the conditions for these people to thrive. They have even insisted that only these pirates know how best to run public services such as health...

The Unite and RMT unions led a go-slow of over 1000 black cabs in London on 10th September in protest at a “schizophrenic killer” being granted permission to sit “The Knowledge” exam and qualify for a black cab license. The 38 year-old man strangled his wife in 2000 and was convicted of manslaughter. He was diagnosed with “paranoid schizophrenia” and served just over two years in a secure psychiatric unit before being released from section in 2005. Since this time he has been working for a minicab firm. Clearly nobody wants to be killed in the back of a taxi, but what is the correct working...

As teachers at Tower Hamlets College enter their fifth week of indefinite strike against cuts, their action remains strong. A mass meeting on Wednesday 16 September (day 16) saw the biggest turnout of the dispute: 166 members vote to continue the strike action, with 14 abstentions and no members voting against. Management have been forced to concede some key concessions, but the offer was flatly rejected. Negotiations with the principal continue and ACAS are getting involved. A fighting spirit remains amongst those on strike, with picket lines lively and well-attended and a whole host of...

UNITE and PCS are about to start a statutory ballot on jobs, pay and pensions. The anti-union laws make organising a ballot really difficult, especially when members are scattered across so many sites, but in the meantime, many more staff have joined the unions. The company cancelled the pay rises due in April this year, then went on to announce it had made record profits – just a couple of weeks before the pay rises should have taken effect. In May, the company announced that it intended to dismiss the 4000 staff in the main “final salary” (defined benefit) pension scheme, and re-employ them...

The threat of strike action by engineering construction workers in GMB and Unite unions has won an improved offer on pay and conditions from employers. Workers had been balloted at seven major sites. The new offer is for a two-year pay deal of 2% in 2010 and an inflation-linked rise in 2011 with a minimum of 1%. It also offers better auditing of employers’ compliance, a process to develop a skills register and database of construction workers. Initially the employers had said no pay rise was possible in the current economic climate. A meeting of GMB and Unite shop stewards decided on 17...