Tea Break 3 - oil refinery strikes, February 2009
A PDF of the February 2009 issue of the irregular workers' bulletin Tea Break, written and designed by users of libcom.org, for general distribution. The freesheet focuses on wildcat strikes at refineries across the country, addressing issues raised by the conflict.
A brief history of the crisis
A concise background to the current financial crisis and recession.
However it may seem, the current crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. Following WWII, the government and employers were keen to appease a population weary from years of war and rationing.
What recession means for us
An analysis of the likely impact of the coming recession on workers' lives and a rallying call for collective action to mitigate that impact.
The recession is here. We're told to tighten our belts and brace ourselves for redundancies, wage and service cuts. Politicians and business leaders are united in saying we should pay for a crisis not of our making [see box for a brief history of the crisis]. A recession is simply when the economy shrinks for 6 months in a row.
Pay: what went wrong in 2007?
Libcom's analysis of what went wrong with the industrial disputes over the rising cost of living in 2007, and how to do things better in 2008.
A 'Summer of Discontent', Gordon Brown preaching pay restraint, union leaders talking about 'co-ordinated strike action', sound familiar? It should, because exactly the same things were being said last year.
Inflation: rising prices and the 2% pay ceiling
An analysis of the use of inflation to attack workers' conditions.
If the government were to announce that it was cutting the wages of all workers - public and private sector - there would presumably be uproar. And yet this is exactly what they have done by calling for ‘pay restraint’ and insisting all wage rises are capped at 2%. Make no mistake, a sub-inflation pay ‘rise’ is a pay cut. No amount of statistical trickery changes this simple fact.
Tea Break 2 - local government strike, July 2008
New issue of the irregular workers' bulletin put together by users of the website, libcom.org focusing on the 2008 pay dispute over sub-inflation pay offers.
Dispatch 1 - Royal Mail strikes, August 2007
Submitted by Joseph Kay on Aug 6 2007 09:01
First issue of a bulletin about the public sector pay struggles of summer 2007 by a group of workers around libcom.org. This issue focusses on postal workers.
Available here in TIF and here in PDF format. The text follows:
Dispatch
Public sector pay dispute — information for action
Issue 1 - August 2007
Royal Mail workers: Fighting to win
Doing the job as it’s meant to be done
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