London

Faced with the prospect of three days of strike action from 18:30 on Sunday, London Underground has abandoned plans that the union had described as a fundamental attack on Tube safety standards and casualisation of safety critical work.

Cesare Copeta, an Italian national working seasonally in London, was employed by The Food Room, owners of The French Table restaurant in Surrey and the Tom Ilic restaurant in Battersea, which has been spotted listed in Time Out's Top 50 London restaurants.

The strike ballot saw 1,673 members vote for action with 333 voting against. The ballot result opens the way for joint action with fellow Tube union TSSA, whose own members voted for action earlier this month. The unions are opposing management attacks on safety standards and the casualisation of safety-critical work (details in notes below).

Around 400 jobs are expected to go when Wapping closes, with jobs across the industry potentially threatened as the Murdoch press looks to aggressively expand into the contract print market.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) working for the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) are furious that a below inflation pay offer has been imposed on them at a successful time for the museum.

The local Guardian reported that refuse workers fear they will not be able to pay their mortgages or look after their children if the cuts go ahead, and are threatening to strike.

“He was the most modest of men” - Rudolf Rocker
Woolf Wess was born to a Jewish family in Vilkomar (or Ukmerge) near Kovno in Lithuania in 1861.

He was the son of a Hasidic master baker and at age of 12 was apprenticed to a shoemaker.

There has been little easily available to read concentrating specifically on the long and rich history of the politics and struggles of the area. The following account charts the changing fortunes and developments of the communities, classes and individuals involved. It also offers some passing comments on the Clerkenwell of today.

LCAP, which was set up in August as a means of providing support to people who are not getting their legal rights through taking on ‘direct action casework’, identified homelessness as a growing problem in the capitol as resources are stripped away from shelter provision. Mat, a volunteer for LCAP, spoke to Freedom in a personal capacity about the group and campaign.

RMT today revealed that Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has agreed that the London Living Wage of £7.20 an hour will become the minimum for some 900 cleaners on former Metronet contracts from the moment TfL take charge of them.

For some cleaners paid only the minimum legal wage of £5.85 it will mean an increase of at least £1.35 an hour - well over 20%.

Up to 1,800 members working for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), will be taking part in the action.

Members will be picketing outside Caxton House on Tothill St, London today from 12pm-2pm with members in Sheffield, Darlington and Runcorn also taking part in the strike.

Trade unions have called a public meeting yesterday (Thursday) to fight the plans, which will see travellers unable to seek staff assistance at crucial times of the morning and night.

Strike action by more than 2,300 Metronet maintenance workers was suspended late last night after more than eight hours of talks between RMT, the failed company, its administrator and TfL yielded progress on the issues involved in the dispute.

The strikes were called after the company and its administrator failed to give the unequivocal guarantees on jobs, transfers and pensions that the union is seeking.

"The letter we have received from Metronet and the administrator falls way short of the guarantees our members need and deserve," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today

Metronet collapsed into administration recently, four years into a controversial PPP costing £17 billion. Jobs are going to be transferred to Bombardier, one of the stakeholders in the Metronet consortium.

The union is calling on the employers involved (list below) to guarantee that they will not bring forward or support proposed changes that would dramatically affect qualification for ill-health pensions.

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Contents
1855: Marx in the Park: "it looked as if the demonstration was going to simmer down to harmless Sunday amusements, but the police reckoned differently"

1866: The Hyde Park railings affair: "The police brought their truncheons into active use, and a number of the roughs were somewhat severely handled"

1914: Suffragettes on the Serpentine.

Joe describes events leading up to the march, including the changes in the CP leadership's tactics as they finally realised their calls for a peaceful demonstration elsewhere would be ignored. His account corrects false impressions later created by official Communist versions of the events.

Drivers and station staff walked off the job for 24 hours at 10pm last night (Thursday) over management plans to reduce the number of station staff available to remove passengers from trains. This has caused the closure of the Bakerloo line between Queens Park and Harrow and Wealdstone.

Introduction