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Teachers’ Strike: Tories Go To War With NEU As Impasse Grows

March 15, 2023 Steve Topple, The Canary. , , , ,
The National Education Union (NEU) began two days of strike action on Wednesday 15 March. The teachers’ strike saw countless staff walk out across England. So, what does the Tory government do? It puts out some shameless, baseless propaganda to try and turn parents against the NEU. Fortunately, it so far doesn’t appear to have worked – and the trade union has also hit back. NEU members are striking over pay, working conditions, and students’ education. For example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says governments have cut the real-terms pay of experienced and senior teachers by around £6,600 – or 13% – since 2010.

US, UK, Australia Unveil AUKUS Nuclear-powered Submarine Deal

March 14, 2023 Dave DeCamp, News From Antiwar.com. , , , ,
On Monday, the US, Britain, and Australia unveiled their plans to develop nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS, a military pact the three countries signed in September 2021 to coordinate on advanced military technology against China. President Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese formally announced the plans at the US Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego. The ultimate goal is for Australia to begin producing a new type of nuclear-powered submarine known as SSN-AUKUS, but that isn’t expected to happen until the 2040s.

A Four-Day Work Week Could Be Closer Than You Think

March 14, 2023 Anna Coote, In These Times. , , ,
The future of the four-day work week is looking brighter after the results of a major new study were released last month. Nearly 3,000 workers at over 60 organizations took part in the latest trial of reduced working time — and the findings surpassed most expectations. A large majority of workers reported significant improvements in their quality of life. And it wasn’t just employees who preferred the shorter working week: more than 90% of employers who participated opted to continue the arrangement. The U.K.-based experiment introduced a four-day week or equivalent cut in hours, with no loss of pay, from June to December 2022.

Prevent: Health Workers Resist UK’s ‘Counter Terrorism’ Strategy

March 12, 2023 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. , , ,
In the two decades since the UK government unveiled its ‘counter terrorism’ strategy ‘Prevent’, campaigners and human rights organizations have consistently documented its impact on racialized and otherwise marginalized communities, and the ways in which public services—including healthcare—have been weaponized in this process. A part of the government’s broader counter-terrorism strategy called CONTEST, Prevent’s stated objective is to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.” First implemented in the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings, Prevent was amended in 2011 to deal with “all forms of terrorism and with non-violent extremism.”

United Kingdom Teachers Join Strike Wave

March 3, 2023 Ross Domoney, The Real News Network. , , ,
The strikes in Britain are growing and this time it’s the teachers who have come out in force, demanding better wages amongst the cost of living crisis. On Feb. 1 up to 500,000 workers walked out in the UK, in one of the largest coordinated strike actions since the pensions dispute of 2011. It was a cross-union action which also saw train drivers going on strike as well as thousands of the government’s own civil servants. The teachers are refusing to back down in their demands and have promised further strike action and disruption in the coming months. TRNN heads to a protest in central London and speaks directly with the striking teachers, pupils, and other unions who have come out in support of the action.

UK Nurses Join Britain’s Cost Of Living Strike Wave To Save NHS

February 28, 2023 Alexander Morris, The Real News Network. , , , , , ,
After decades of targeted underfunding, the UK’s National Health Service is on the verge of collapse. Spiking inflation as a result of corporate profiteering in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine War have only worsened the situation, as the UK’s 300,000 nurses face staffing shortages on top of a cost of living crisis. All these conditions have driven the Royal College of Nurses to strike. This video is part of an ongoing Workers of the World series about the cost of living crisis in Europe. This story, with the support of the Bertha Foundation, is part of The Real News Network’s Workers of the World series, telling the stories of workers around the globe building collective power and redefining the future of work on their own terms.

Anti-war Protesters In Europe Demand West Stop Arming Ukraine

February 26, 2023 PressTV. , , , , , ,
The demonstrations took place in the major European capitals on Saturday, a day after an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine entered its second year. The Saturday rally in London was organized by Stop the War Coalition. It was held at Portland Place in the city's central area, from which the participants marched towards the Trafalgar Square. The London rally was attended by Jeremy Corbyn, a former Labour Party leader and a current member of the parliament. The protesters in London also chanted anti-war slogans, while holding banners calling for an end to the West's incessant campaign of pumping weapons into Ukraine.

Health Workers’ Actions In UK Escalate As Junior Doctors Announce Strike

February 22, 2023 People's Health Dispatch. , , ,
Junior doctors in England will be the next to join the wave of health workers’ industrial action in March. On Monday, February 20, the British Medical Association (BMA) announced the results of a strike ballot vote conducted among their junior doctor members, in which 98% of those who took part voted in favor of the strike.  Striking remains the last resort for health workers, but they have said that the cost of living crisis and lack of investment in salaries has led them to take this step. According to the BMA, since 2008, junior doctors have experienced a 25% cut to their income.

Lawsuit Targets Shell’s Board Over Energy Transition Plans

February 12, 2023 Dana Drugmand, Desmog. , , ,
Shell’s board of directors officially has been served with a world-first lawsuit aiming to hold its corporate directors personally liable for alleged mismanagement of climate risk. The lawsuit, filed Thursday by UK-based environmental law organization ClientEarth, contends that Shell’s strategy to address climate change and manage the energy transition fails to align with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and leaves the company in a vulnerable position as society shifts away from fossil fuels. ClientEarth alleges that inadequate climate strategy by Shell and improper management by the board amounts to violations under the UK Companies Act. ClientEarth, itself a token shareholder in Shell, filed its case in the High Court of England and Wales in London and is suing the company’s 11 directors. Institutional investors with collective holdings of over 12 million shares in Shell are supporting the legal action, which comes on the heels of Shell reporting a record $40 billion in profits in 2022.

UK Postal Workers Strike Against Handling Of Cost Of Living Crisis

February 10, 2023 Alexander Morris and Julia Schönheit, The Real News Network. , , ,
Massive mobilizations and strikes have been witnessed in the UK over the last couple of months against the Tory government for failing to tackle the ongoing cost of living crisis. Postal workers, railway workers, public service workers, barristers, dockers, garbage collectors, Amazon workers etc. have walked out and gone on strike to demand better pay and better working conditions. TRNN delves into the postal workers’ strike and its roots in over a decade of Tory austerity measures. This strike of postal workers is one of dozens taking place across the UK, with nurses, ambulance drivers, teachers, railway workers, and more walking out this winter amid a spiraling cost of living crisis. Britain’s Royal Mail is in a royal mess. After 500 years as the postal system of the British state, it was privatized in 2014, leading to what these posties are calling an ‘Uberization’ of their work: worsening working conditions, less secure contracts, and bringing in agency staff to lower wages.

Guaidó Is Gone But London Keeps The Gold

February 7, 2023 John McEvoy, Consortium News. , , , ,
In late December, Venezuela’s leading opposition parties voted to oust Juan Guaidó as “interim president” and dissolve his parallel government. This was clearly not the ending the U.K. government had in mind. Four years ago, the British government made the bold decision to recognise Guaidó as Venezuelan president and proceeded to facilitate his legal battle to seize roughly $2 billion of gold held in the Bank of England. Indeed, the U.K. government insisted at every turn that it recognised Guaidó — and not Nicolás Maduro — as Venezuelan president. In turn, Guaidó’s lawyers argued that he was authorised to represent and control the assets of the Central Bank of Venezuela held in London. Throughout this time, Guaidó paid his U.K. legal costs by drawing on millions of dollars of his country’s assets originally seized by the U.S. government. In other words, Guaidó tried to seize Venezuelan state assets with looted Venezuelan state assets.

AntiStrike Bill Step Toward Forced Labor In Britain?

February 3, 2023 Aidan McQuade, Consortium News. , , ,
The U.K. now has government ministers who revel in their contempt for human rights, including anti-slavery protections. The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has repeatedly and groundlessly asserted that migrants are trying to “game the system” by claiming to have been trafficked. She is doing her best to reframe slavery as an immigration matter and NGOs fear that the government’s protection responsibilities will be neglected in favour of establishing a hard-faced and xenophobic deportation policy. This affront to national and international law has attracted criticism from the United States, the United Nations and even the U.K.’s Office For Statistics Regulation. In normal times, it would also probably attract censure from the U.K.’s own anti-slavery commissioner. But that role is currently vacant because Braverman has failed to appoint anyone to it. How fortuitous for her.

UK Arms Sales To Saudi Arabia Face High Court Challenge 

February 3, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
On Tuesday, January 31, the High Court of Justice in London initiated a judicial review of the UK government’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia, even as the kingdom continues to lead an international coalition that has waged a war on Yemen for the past eight years. Over the course of three days, the court will hear a challenge brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) against a decision taken by former Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss to resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia in July 2020. The UK is the second largest arms supplier in the world, after the US. In June 2019, the UK Court of Appeal had ruled in favor of a previous legal challenge by the CAAT, declaring that the government’s licensing grants for arms sales to Saudi Arabia were “irrational and therefore unlawful” in the absence of a proper assessment of whether Riyadh had a record of violating international humanitarian law (IHL), or the “laws of war,” in Yemen.

Ambulance Drivers Join Cost Of Living Strike Wave Sweeping Britain

February 2, 2023 Ross Domoney, The Real News Network. , , ,
Spiking inflation is generating a global cost of living crisis, and Britain is no exception. As workers across industries hit the picket lines to denounce privatization and demand action from the Tory government to raise wages, ambulance workers are now joining the fray—with a major strike action planned later in February. TRNN speaks directly with ambulance drivers and emergency medical personnel who say their real wages are falling as Downing Street’s schemes to further privatize the National Health Service only continue. This video is part of a special Workers of the World series on the cost of living crisis in Europe.

United Kingdom: Half A Million Workers Launch ‘Megastrike’

February 1, 2023 Steve Topple, The Canary. , , ,
Parliament passed the third reading of the Tories’ anti-strike bill on Monday 30 January, meaning that only the House of Lords can stop it now. But workers around the country are unfazed. A “megastrike” of half a million workers will take place on 1 February, which includes the National Education Union (NEU) strike. All the details are below, including an easy way of finding out where your nearest picket or protest is so you can support our trade unions. As LabourList reported, MPs passed the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill by 315 votes to 246, with no amendments – meaning the bill got through in its original form. As the Canary previously reported, the bill: will force trade unions in certain industries to make sure some people work during strikes – defeating the object of industrial action entirely… The law will force unions to give in to what the government and/or employers say minimum service levels should be – depending on the sector. Business secretary Grant Shapps will be deciding what a minimum service level looks like for emergency and transport services.
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