The right to strike in Britain is now under serious threat‏

“The right to strike in Britain is now under serious threat,” says Seumas Milne in a Guardian article reviewing the implications of the spate of injunctions granted to employers by the High Court over the past 6 months.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/19/clegg-ignores-right-to-strike

Dust and ashes by Adrian Mitchell‏

The Cedars of Lebanon have been stripped of their bark,
cut down to the sap, hacked down to the roots.
Now they are ashes floating over blackened villages.

Right wing opinion formers mount offensive against public services‏

Unsurprisingly the CBI and the dodgy right wing ideologues at the Tax Dodgers Alliance are suggesting that leading General Secretaries, such as Dave Prentis, are wrong to suggest that their members should be protected from cuts to pay for a crisis that was not of their making.

The deranged anti-union misrepresentations of the Israel lobby‏

A constant attention seeking tactic of the pro-Israel lobby is to misrepresent supporters of justice for Palestinian people as ‘anti-semitic’ or ‘pro-terrorist’ etc. However the latest propaganda offensive from an unrepresentative and marginal right wing lobbying organisation called TULIP takes the biscuit.

Unions should fear the coalition Government - FT‏

"The coalition must prepare itself for the battle ahead. Organised labour has seen off British governments before. If this administration is to prevail, it must have a clear strategy to tackle the pay rigidities of state employees that damage both the public and private sectors” concludes today's FT editorial which sets out and commends the Tory/Liberal prospectus for attacking national pay bargaining, decent pensions and in house employment in the public sector. http://m.ft.com/cms/s/0/cc30a462-6443-11df-8618-00144feab49a.html

Spain feels the pain – we are next‏

As we have commented before, the debt transfer from Banks to States to Workers was part of the so called rescue package for global banking. The banks collapsed, the state borrowed money from our pension funds to save them now states are clawing it back from workers, their children and pensioners. Ironically of course to pay our pension funds back as they buy the government bonds!

Strike ban overturned - solidarity with BA workers‏

The draconian and perverse High Court injunction which stopped strike action by Unite members on Monday has been overturned by Senior Judges.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10130274.stm
This shows the importance of unions resisting abuse and misuse of trade union laws by employers and High Court judges – at UK and European level. The strikes will go ahead next Monday and maximum support from the rest of the trade union movement is essential.
Further information at:
http://unisonactive.blogspot.com/2010/05/ba-high-court-injunction-is-grotesque.html

We cannot afford to be divided - Dave Prentis‏

UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis has sent the below letter to UNISON branches and members:
Dear colleague
WE CANNOT AFFORD TO BE DIVIDED
Ballot papers for the General Secretary election are now arriving at members’ homes and I wanted to take this opportunity to write to you about the importance of this election.

Financial reforms doomed to fail‏

Financial reforms doomed to fail...governments attempting to re-regulate the finance sector will find it impossible to do so...the debate over Obama's proposals suggests current efforts to reform financial regulation are “cosmetic” and won’t prevent another crisis, economist Nouriel Roubini told an audience on Tuesday at the London School of Economics. “The way I think about this crisis is not in terms of black swans (a sudden, rare event), but white swan events," Roubini said. "Crises are much more common than we think.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37219897

Impact conference debates Irish pay accord‏

The leading Irish public service union is holding its biennial conference this week in Kilkenn and is debating the proposed agreement between the Irish government and public sector unions on pay and reform of public services.
http://m.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0519/breaking61.htm?via=latest