AUCPB UK CLASS STRUGGLE 30 APRIL

Thu 21 Apr 2011 London

Journalists strike to save 'dearly beloved' newspapers

Journalists at the North London & Herts Newspapers took their message to the streets in their first week of strikes, which began on Tuesday.
The nine workers, members of the NUJ union, who are employed at Tindle Newspapers, are striking for two weeks against the company’s policy of non-replacement of staff. They want to secure one extra reporter to help ease the workload.
The strikers and their supporters met on the picket line on Wednesday and marched into Enfield town centre to hold a rally and raise support. They organised the protest as a mock funeral for their “dearly beloved” newspapers.
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26 Apr 2011 London
Tube drivers strike vote over reps victimisation
A strike ballot of all London Underground drivers in the RMT union over the victimisation of reps was to end on Wednesday of this week.
Bosses have recently sacked Eamon Lynch, an RMT Bakerloo Line drivers’ health and safety rep, and Arwyn Thomas, a driver at Morden, on disciplinary charges.
Both won “interim relief” Employment Tribunals, which is only awarded in cases where there is clear evidence that employees have been dismissed due to their trade union activities. They remain on full pay after this award.
The RMT believes that their sackings are part of a management plan to weaken the union as they try to drive through cuts.
The impact of the cuts to jobs and maintenance was seen on the service last week, in what the union described as “24 hours of tube hell”.
The Jubilee Line was plunged into chaos on the Tuesday evening after a power shutdown and faulty rolling stock and operating systems. This saw over 1,700 passengers having to leave their train and walk through sweltering tube tunnels with the assistance of station staff.
The line remained in disarray the following morning.
Later that afternoon, the Waterloo and City Line was hit by a communications fault and the Central Line was shut down during the rush hour. Other lines were also severely disrupted.
Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, said, “London mayor Boris Johnson needs to call an immediate halt to the jobs and maintenance cuts.”
The RMT has organised a members’ meeting in central London on Wednesday of this week to discuss the ballot result against victimisations and the plan of action.
In a separate dispute on the tube, the RMT, the TSSA and Aslef unions have all rejected bosses’ multi-year pay deal.
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Heathrow Express
RMT members on Heathrow Express are to ballot for industrial action over pay. The union has rejected a two year offer, describing it as “unsatisfactory”.

Saltend workers revive protests over lock-out
Locked out construction workers at Saltend in Hull have resumed their protests.
Some 400 of them have been locked out since 14 March.
The Saltend site is the second biggest construction site in Britain after the Olympics. A huge company, Vivergo Fuels, runs it. BP, British Sugar and DuPont own it.
The dispute began when Vivergo cancelled a contract with Redhall Engineering Solutions, the subcontractor that had employed the workers.
The bosses refused to transfer them to a new contractor.
After a number of weeks of protests against this, the pickets were lifted to enable talks to take place.
The bosses offered workers a bribe to go away. This was rejected at a mass meeting on Thursday of last week.
Keith Gibson, a locked out worker, told Socialist Worker, “This is the longest dispute I’ve ever been involved with, and the most serious.
“Vivergo tried to pay workers off—with no guarantee that they would get their jobs back. The work would be split up between different contractors and workers would have to bid for it.”
A national shop stewards meeting was called off by the unions last week, but it is set to go ahead on Wednesday of this week.
Meanwhile, the GMB is preparing to launch a legal challenge against Humberside Police after around 50 officers, some on horses, used what the union called “heavy handed” tactics against workers outside the plant.
Les Dobbs, a GMB organiser, said that the union is considering this because of “an unreasonable use of Section 14 of the Public Order Act”.
More than 100 delegates to the NUT teachers’ union conference attended a fringe meeting to hear Keith Gibson speak last week. Teachers showed solidarity by donating over £400 to the workers at the conference.
The lesson of the past week is that militancy is the key to the dispute, not talks with management.
Solidarity, and militant industrial action, can win the dispute. If the officials won’t call out other sites, then action should be taken unofficially
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