Solidarity 202, 4 May 2011

At Easter (22-26 April) the National Union of Teachers conference voted to ballot union members for a series of strikes against the coalition government's increases in pension contributions, cuts in pension provision, and raising of the pension age. The first strike will be 30 June. Other big public service union conferences are coming up soon. The civil service union PCS meets in Brighton on 16-20 May. Its Executive has already decided to ballot members on strike action, soon enough for them to join NUT on 30 June. The lecturers' union UCU, which meets in Harrogate on 28-30 May, is also...

The Leeds Trade Council May Day march this year was much bigger and a lot livelier than it had been for many years. Young UK Uncut activists, and fresher trade unionists, outnumbered the ageing Stalinist stalwarts. Glasgow also had an improved turnout. Even so, the numbers, 400 in Leeds and 3000 in Glasgow, were modest. Generally, across the country, turnouts remained around the poor levels of recent years, showing that the revitalisation of Trades Councils necessary for vigorous rank-and-file-level coordination between different unions against the coalition government cuts has not yet got...

The General Federation of Iraqi Workers has called for support from the international labour movement against a crackdown by the Maliki government. According to the GFIW a ministerial committee has "dismiss[ed] the Executive Bureau of the GFIW [and] authoris[ed] the Ministerial Preparatory Committee (MPC)... to renew and issue memberships to trade unionists". These measures "pave the way for rigging [the] elections" for union committees now due to be held by ministerial decree. The GFIW "call[s] upon... Iraqi civil society organisations... the International Confederation of Trade Unions, the...

12.50pm, Friday 29 April : This morning about ten anti-monarchy protesters, students and young workers who are mostly socialists and anarchists, were stopped by the police outside Charing Cross station, searched and handcuffed. When we left to write this report, they had been held outside the station for about an hour. Trafalgar Square was tightly controlled, with the help of the police, and it was not actually possible to protest. The group of comrades were preparing to leave to attend the Republic street party in Holborn when the police stopped and searched them. Another thirty police were...