London
Striking tube cleaners intimidated
Tube cleaners’ union RMT has demanded an end to “appalling intimidation“ of members involved in a 48-hour strike for a living wage on, one on July 1st-3rd. Tube cleaners also engaged in a 24-hour strike on June 25th-26th.
The union is gathering evidence that cleaners have been bullied, harassed and threatened with the sack and with illegal punitive deductions from their wages if they take strike action.
Bus drivers strike in Hackney
Bus drivers at CT Plus bus company struck on the 2nd of June to following the sacking of a Unite shop steward.
The bus company provides Transport for London, school contracts and special need services, and just won a contract for the 2012 Olympics in London.
Action took place between 3.30am and 9.30am on June 2nd, and a second strike is planned for 13th June between 1.30pm and 7pm.
Kavanagh, Mat, 1876-1954
A short biography of Mat Kavanagh, Liverpool-Irish class struggle anarchist.
“For the young anarchists of the 30s, of whom I was one, and right until the 50s, Mat was our link with the traditional working class Anarchism of the past and our mentor as no other” - Albert Meltzer
A rose by any other name: a radical history of Manette Street, London
A look at the radical history of Manette Street in London, whose buildings housed various elements of the socialist, anarchist and immigrant workers' movements from the late-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth.
Manette Street has probably more long-term associations with anarchism –and radicalism in general-than any other street in Britain. Formerly known as Rose Street, it acquired its new name in 1895 after the fictional Doctor Manette who resides there in Charles’ Dickens The Tale of Two Cities.
The Scum - comic about the Wapping strike, 1986
A contemporary spoof of The Sun newspaper containing a "Tintin" cartoon about the Wapping printers strike of 1986.
digitised by libcom.org
Tube strike suspended after safety guarantees won
Three days of strikes by more than 7,000 RMT station staff, signallers and drivers have been suspended by the union after lengthy talks this week yielded guarantees on a raft of safety and staffing issues.
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.
Direct action gets the goods again, this time in London
An underpaying, exploitative restuarant boss in London was forced to pay a foreign kitchen porter his owed wages and also holiday pay when a picket arrived outside his restaurant, backed up by threats of legal action.
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.
RMT and TSSA vote for joint strike action
RMT station staff and train operator members voted Thursday by a margin of five to one for strike action in defence of safety on the London Underground.
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).
Wapping print works to close
The Wapping print works which was notoriously used to break the print workers' organisation is to close, with two-thirds of staff set to lose their jobs.
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.
Science museum staff vote to strike
National science museum staff have voted overwhelmingly to strike over pay and plans to close the civil service pension scheme to new members.
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.
