Bosses say...‘Sign up for pay cuts or you’re out’

Three and a half million people marched on over 200 demonstrations across France according to the CGT union federation

A wave of anger has swept through Newport, South Wales, at the government’s announcement that the Passport Office in the city is to close

The Tory plan to increase tuition fees is a vicious assault on students, education and working people

The racist thugs of the English Defence League (EDL) brought their hate to Leicester last Saturday—and were opposed by some 800 anti-fascists and anti-racists

Dane Kelly, a 24-year-old student from Leeds, was cleared on Monday of a charge of using threatening and abusive words and behaviour against a police officer

Lord Hutton’s pension review signals an assault on the living standards of five million workers

The battle to defend pensions at the BBC is at a crucial stage

Lord John Hutton was Labour defence minister in the last government

London firefighters were set to find out the result of their strike ballot on Thursday of this week—with a massive yes vote expected

Demonstrations around the country 19 to 23 October

Many students will have been shocked to see that the Liberal Democrats leaders have abandoned their pledge to oppose a rise in tuition fees

There is a crucial conference coming up that will build and coordinate resistance to education cuts

Activists across Britain are organising protests against the Tories’ brutal “spending review” axe package next week

Campaigners from Defend Council Housing (DCH) lobbied MPs on Monday over new threats to millions of tenants’ housing security

Tory foreign secretary William Hague was caught lying last week, after kidnapped aid worker Linda Norgrove was killed by a US grenade in Afghanistan

Bosses have used traffic lights to tell some 16,000 workers whether they face the sack at a huge mobile phone company created by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile

£6 billion

At the same time as attacking the workforce, Birmingham’s Tory housing chief is throwing the city’s asylum seekers out of their homes—to make room for “our people”

Racists and Nazis will try to grow as the cuts hit home

On Wednesday 20 October, ­millionaire Tory chancellor George Osborne will unleash a torrent of attacks on jobs and services

Racist Dutch politician Geert Wilders is launching a European Defence League in Amsterdam on Saturday 30 October

The Tories plan an assault on the working class that will drive down living standards and push up inequality

In his choices for his first shadow cabinet, Ed Miliband gave a strong indication of the approach he plans for the Labour Party in opposition—and it isn’t promising

The working class in Britain faces an avalanche of cuts

Quotes from the week's news

The world’s media has been following the plight of the miners trapped in Chile’s San José mine in microscopic detail, but there is far less interest in the conditions the miners normally work in

The fifth Viva Palestina convoy from Britain is nearing Gaza

Nato’s beleaguered Afghan war continued to spill over into Pakistan this week, reigniting tensions between the US and the leaders of its client state

Plans to replace the central station in Stuttgart, one of Germany’s major cities, have led to mass protests, and a political crisis for the German government

Eight people are dead and 150 injured after up to one million cubic metres of toxic aluminium sludge surged from an industrial plant in Ajka, western Hungary

Those of us who work in education frequently have to deal with questions of truth

Iain Ferguson looks at what it means and what it tells us about the Tories’ ideology and confidence

Socialist Worker is backing rank and file candidate Jerry Hicks in the election for general secretary of the Unite union

Siân Ruddick interviews Joshua Phillips on his new book about torture by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

The election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader has renewed a number of people’s belief that the party can be a vehicle for changing society

In the final part of our series Marieke Mueller shows how The Paris Commune confirmed Marx’s belief that a new society was possible

Birmingham success can boost fightback | Boycott was right | Schools for free | SW wrong on BBC strike suspension | Adult learning will become a luxury | What is a Liberal? | Help save Blindcraft | True face revealed | Quickfire response | Hunting the poor | Inconsistent on the Tories?

A strike by Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians is sparking a debate about art and the cuts, writes Simon Basketter

In the original 1987 film, Wall Street, iconic slimeball Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) summarised the Reagan-Thatcher era in three words, “Greed… is good

Veteran musician Tiken Jah Fakoly merges the sounds of Africa with funky reggae from Jamaica

The London film festival presents films from Britain and around the world at the BFI building on the south bank of the Thames

The First of the Swedish films based on Stieg Larsson’s trilogy of crime novels is released on DVD this week

Senay Courtney, Danny Burnett and Rohan Nakkady each win a pair of tickets to Men Should Weep at the National Theatre in London

Dozens of bus drivers at CT Plus in Hackney, east London, picketed their depot on Friday of last week over pay

Two major disputes taking place in Britain today dispel the myth that workers won’t fight over pay in a recession

The PCS union, which represents the majority of union members in the civil service, has rejected a new government offer on changing the Civil Service Compensation Scheme

Over 100 Astra Zeneca pharmaceutical workers marched in Macclesfield, Cheshire, on Friday of last week

Leaders of the PCS union in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), who represent 90,000 union members, last week rejected a below-inflation pay offer

Union activists on London Underground are pushing to escalate strikes as management step up attacks on jobs and safety

The Network Rail infrastructure firm has made a new offer to the RMT union to end a long-running dispute over the loss of 1,500 maintenance jobs

People suffering from the incurable lung cancer mesothelioma face a new legal lottery after the Court of Appeal threw the process for claiming compensation into chaos last week

The third meeting of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (Barac) took place on 28 September

Cameroonian journalist Charles Atangana’s case against deportation was adjourned for three months on Thursday of last week

Unite union members at Rollins Bulldog Tools in Wigan, Lancashire, have ended their all-out strike

Postal workers in Stevenage are preparing to march to defend their mail centre, which Royal Mail is threatening to close

Over 100 people packed into the Islington Hands Off Our Public Services (IHOOPS) launch meeting on Tuesday of last week

Around 150 people attended the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) international conference last weekend

Over 35 people protested in support of RMT union member and cleaner Mudashiru Atooki on Monday of this week

UCU lecturers’ union branches have responded impressively to the call for a special conference in higher education to organise for action in defence of jobs, pay and pensions

There was standing room only at a meeting in Hastings last week as pensioners, trades unionists, students and local councillors filled the hall at the trades council’s meeting against public sector cuts

Workers at Plymouth bed manufacturer Vi-Spring are striking to defend their shop steward

The lecturers’ UCU union’s further education Committee has backed the decision by delegates at a recent special pay conference to ballot as soon as possible over our rejection of the 0

Steve Acheson, a blacklisted electrician, won an Employment Tribunal last week in Manchester against the Beaver Management Services agency

Firefighters in Norfolk protested against cuts outside a council meeting on Monday

Activists were to protest to defend South Manchester Law Centre on Wednesday of this week

Activists are collecting names on a petition demanding an end to the victimisation of leading Newham Unison union activist Elane Heffernan

There were celebrations last week after Hackney council agreed to leave the CLR James Library in east London with its original name

Workers at the Tunnock’s bakery in Uddingston near Glasgow were voting this week on whether to accept a new pay offer recommended by their Unite union

SWP regional rallies | SWP public meetings | SWP branch meetings | Movement events | Unite Against Fascism | Bookmarks events