14 November 2014
A north London council is looking to turn 9 of its 15 libraries into unstaffed reading rooms, slashing floor space and handing over to volunteer groups. Local residents are fighting back.
14 November 2014
Staff working at the National Gallery in London opened an exhibition of their own artwork last night as part of their continuing fight against privatisation.
12 November 2014
Over a week after Rolls-Royce said it is cutting thousands of aerospace jobs, unions have still not been told where the axe is going to fall – even though local negotiations have begun.
10 November 2014
The Imperial War Museum is threatening to close the library at its main London site and cut its educational programmes at its sites at RAF Duxford in Cambridgeshire as well as HMS Belfast and the Churchill War Rooms in London.
6 November 2014
The National Pensioners Convention launched its Pensioners’ Manifesto yesterday at a rally of hundreds of pensioners in Westminster. There was a curious mood: polite but determined.
4 November 2014
Despite glaring evidence of failure, the government has announced an increase in its programme of school-based teacher training for 2015-16. One result will be a massive switch in funding away from universities.
31 October 2014
Just three days after Ritzy cinema owners Picturehouse accounced that a quarter of the workforce would be sacked, the company has been forced to back down.
30 October 2014
Having failed to deliver Scotland bound and gagged into the hands of the European Union through the “independence” referendum, the Scottish National Party is now trying to ensure that the whole of Britain will be locked forever in to the Brussels embrace.
28 October 2014
The owners of the Ritzy art house cinema in Brixton, announced on 27 October it would sack a quarter of the workforce – to pay for the wage rise won in one of the year’s most imaginative struggles.
26 October 2014
The Secular 2014 conference included a devastating analysis by Pragna Patel of the disturbing influence of fundamentalism in Britain’s legal system by what she calls “shariafication by stealth”.
24 October 2014
An international feast of property speculators visited London for the first time in October – networking, partying, and carving up Britain’s assets.
24 October 2014
A ban on ray fishing in Britain by the EU Marine Management Organisation threatens the end of fishing in North Devon.
24 October 2014
Women in east London are fighting a spirited campaign to stop evictions and to house local people in local estates.
On Monday 13 October the Royal College of Midwives struck for the first time in its long history – a four-hour stoppage.
It is a reflection of the discipline and loyalty of health workers to their unions that despite the low ballot turnout they struck and held out in the face of adversity.
The SNP-led administration in Scotland has awarded the contract to run ScotRail to Abellio, owned by Dutch state rail company NS.
The local government workers’ pay “dispute” is in now in period of consultation, set to end on 12 November – and the latest stage of an increasingly bad farce.
Steel workers in Britain once again find their jobs threatened after Tata Steel announced plans to sell its Long Products Division.
By the end of the next parliament the NHS could become a thing of the past, regardless of who is elected. Only workers can save it…
Staff at the National Gallery in London held a 24-hour strike on 15 October, the opening day of the blockbuster Rembrandt exhibition.
An international feast of property speculators visited London for the first time in October – networking, partying, and carving up Britain’s assets.
17 October 2014
Chancellor Osborne told the Tory conference in Birmingham he will freeze working-age benefits re-elected. The consequences might – and should – be a rise in trade union organisation.
17 October 2014
On 9 October the European Union released the text of its “negotiating mandate” for the TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership treaty that it is negotiating with the European Union. Perhaps inadvertently, it includes one telling admission.
15 October 2014
Adverts for private care displayed at maternity units are outraging midwives. On the picket line at an east London hospital, one midwife explained why.
15 October 2014
Excessive workload has driven nine out of every ten of teachers to consider giving up teaching during the past two years, according to an online survey carried out by the National Union of Teachers.
The first strikes in the NHS for 32 years on 13 October – especially in the London Ambulance Service – gave the lie to the idea that workers are weak and that unions don’t matter.
9 October 2014
SNP leader Alex Salmond promised on 19 September to accept the referendum result and he urged Yes supporters to do the same. He at once broke this promise.
2 October 2014
The number of underemployed in the workforce is increasing, according to TUC analysis in September of the latest Labour Force Survey from the Office for National Statistics.
30 September 2014
Reports that 71 per cent of 16- to 17-year-olds voted Yes in the Scottish referendum don’t stand up to scrutiny, says statistics programme.
30 September 2014
Midwives and maternity support workers will walk out on Monday 13 October after the government overruled the Independent Pay Review Board’s recommendation for a 1 per cent rise.
