energy
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in the energy sector around the world.
New Labour goes nuclear
Just when you thought it could get no worse, New Labour goes nuclear.
The whispering campaign around the push for nuclear power has been gaining momentum since last year. Until then Britain’s nuclear programme seemed to have been largely written off as the costly and dangerous failure it was. Nobody even knows how to safely decommission the power stations already built or store the radioactive waste already produced.
British gas engineers out on strike
British Gas engineers are out on the first of five strikes to protest against the closure of the companies final salary pension scheme to new entrants.
Further 24 hours strikes are planned for 19 and 21 December, and 6 and 9 January, although the engineers have agreed to provide emergency coverage to vulnerable customers - they are front-line engineers who mend people's boilers.
6,000 workers are taking part, all of whom are GMB members.
Electricity and the Politics of Struggle for People's Needs in Tembisa - Franco Barchiesi
DELIVERY FROM BELOW, RESISTANCE FROM ABOVE
Electricity and the Politics of Struggle for People's Needs in Tembisa
Franco Barchiesi
Debate 4 (1998)
1. Electric Dreams, Shocking Awakenings, High-voltage Responses.
The Pre-Paid Meter Box Riots and their Aftermath
Progress & Nuclear Power - Fredy Perlman
The Following text first appeared in a special anti-nuclear issue of Fifth Estate magazine on April 8, 1979. It was written earlier in that year just after an accident at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in eastern Pennsylavania. As news of the accident spread, official messages insisted, "There is no need to overreact, the situation is stable, the leaders have everything under control," but eventually people living near the plant had to be evacuated. Here Fredy reminds us how the original inhabitants of this region were duped and destroyed by the platitudes, promises and police that always accompany Capital.
1912: The Miners' Next Step
A document produced in 1912 by the South Wales Miners Federation, which was one of the high points of syndicalist organising in the UK.
Being a suggested scheme for the Reorganisation of the Federation.
Issued by the Unofficial Reform Committee, Tonypandy, 1912
Iraqi workers' armed strike threat
Iraqi oil workers win pay increases with strikes and threats to take up arms.
The solidarity of oil sector workers in Kirkuk, Baaji and Baghdad's Daurra was key in achieving the victory. Coalition authorities are currently dependant on SOC - Iraq's biggest and most lucrative oil company - for supplies following the breakdown of Iraq's northern fields, which have suffered continuous attacks on their pipelines and stations.
