Sparks of anger

Since May, there have been daily pickets outside the prestigious Piccadilly Gardens development in Manchester. The action began when four electricians were sacked by the contractor DAF Electrical for forming a branch of the TGWU/EPIU and insisting on their right to direct employment. There were seven further dismissals as other electricians took unofficial strike action in solidarity.

DAF have used the terms of the JIB (Joint Industry Board for the Electrical Contracting Industry) to justify the sackings. This body represents Britain's longest running ‘sweetheart deal', under which the employers pay workers' dues direct to the union (originally the EETPU, but now, through a series of mergers, Amicus). As such, no other unions are recognised.

Direct action gets the goods

Who says the wildcat strike is dead? When British Airways check-in staff promptly walked out in July, after management sought to impose a swipe card-based clocking-on system, they proved the power of the unofficial action.

The workers were, of course, right to be sceptical about the bosses' motives. The new “big brother” system would be used to monitor working hours, so bosses could even start sending people home during quiet periods, without pay. This would particularly affect the mainly women workers' ability to manage family commitments around working hours. Already, many are forced to do ‘tarmac transfers', passing children between partners at shift changes. This is only possible if people know their shift patterns 3 months in advance, as at present. Check-in workers only earn £200-240 per week, so paying for child care is not really an option.

Poverty gap widens under Labour

Remember the Tories looking after the rich at the expense of the poor? Remember the jubilation when the Labour Government was finally elected in 1997? Remember all the promises? Well, the latest research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the total poverty gap - the total income by which families fall short of the poverty line - has increased under Labour.

The report concludes that children who live in the poorest UK households have less of a chance of escaping poverty than when Labour came to power. Yet, child poverty is one of Labour's key targets, and has been at the heart of the political agenda since 1999.

It's time to stop paying for pain

The “historic” decision by the RMT to allow Branches to financially support other parties has certainly upset the Labour party, which is dependent on union money for its survival. Given that it looks certain that Scottish RMT branches will vote to support the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) at the next election there is now every chance that the RMT - one of the founders of the Labour Party - will finally cut its links with Labour.

The decision has been welcomed by people across the union movement and will only fuel the groundswell of feeling amongst many unions to follow the RMT example. Here at Catalyst, we view unions paying funds to Labour as the equivalent to paying someone to beat you up. However, while we welcome moves to cut the link with Labour, we are concerned about where the union money will otherwise end up.

No more waiting for weighting

Local government workers in London are currently fighting for a much-needed increase in London weighting. What with crazy house prices and rents, we simply have to get decent pay.

So far, the dispute has been under union leadership control. It has been 100% lawful and official - hence we have not yet achieved victory. We need to increase the pressure on the employers and try to win, and win quickly. We need to organise solidarity action, even if this does not have the official approval of union leaders. The first step is GMB and TGWU members not crossing UNISON picket lines. By doing this we can show the management that we are a united, determined workforce. If solidarity action escalates, they will have to give ground on the pay claim. But if they see people crossing picket lines, they will think they have the green light to reduce our wages and conditions.

Kasual Killing

Nothing demonstrates the both the inequity rife in Blair's Britain and the true blight of “asylum” seekers than the death of a 47-year-old man in a basement rubbish room of the Café Royal in London. For two years, while the rich dined in opulent splendour upstairs the man lived in the bowels of the hotel behind the rubbish bins.

When his naked and badly bruised body was discovered, police first though he had been murdered, before it was established that he lived naked due to the heat generated by the basement boilers and a post-mortem found that his injuries were consistent with a fall. The man had been an immigrant worker employed by an agency – one of thousands without papers who are forced to work for a pittance in hotels across London.

Norwich Union Job losses

It was recently announced that the UK's largest insurer Norwich Union (a member of the Aviva Group) is to offshore and centralise it operations, causing 2,500 job losses.

Norwich Union is just one of a number of companies making these changes - others include BT, British Airways and the HSBC bank. Abbey (formally Abbey National) has also announced a further 400 job losses in the UK. It has been predicted that up to 2 million financial sector jobs will be exported form the UK over the next 5 years.

Problems at work: No. 7: Women's work - next year's news

The government is set to introduce yet more measures aimed at “empowering” women – which actually means in this case, forcing them to take low paid jobs.

From October 2005, lone parents on income support with children over 14 years old will be forced to attend “work-focused” interviews every 3 months. This is a blatant attempt by Labour to intimidate single parents into pointless shitty jobs. Alongside this, the government also announced that lone parents will have to complete a “compulsory action plan”, part of which will include applying for any jobs on offer. These draconian measures are designed in the longer term to force single parents to take on any “suitable job” or lose their benefit.

Storm in a teacup?

Knowsley Housing Trust recently attempted to withdraw their workers rights to a tea break. Workers were asked to leave the works canteen by the Assistant Depot Manager, when they refused three of the men were made the subject of a disciplinary investigation. As a show of solidarity all the workers even those were out on the job returned to the canteen in an organised mass tea break even though it was made clear by management that anyone taking a break could take disciplinary action. Faced with the united response management were forced to back down and reinstate the workers right for a morning tea break. By the time the official union representatives arrived the workers' imaginative direct action had already won the dispute.

Asbestos rip-off

The plight of those suffering from asbestos related diseases is going from bad to worse (see previous Catalysts). First, Turner & Newall (T&N), once one of the biggest global asbestos companies, went into voluntary liquidation to avoid paying out compensation to asbestos victims. Then Kroll, the firm administrating T&N, started charging over £460 per hour for their services (so far their bills is £23 million). Meanwhile, the US administrators have been charging $75 million a year.