Connex Train Drivers Stage One-Day Strike

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Connex Train Drivers Stage One-Day Strike

Disabled Workers Fight to Keep Remploy Open

One Quarter of Farm Workers Could Lose Jobs

DPRK Delegation Meets with US Officials in Berlin

Farewell to GIs from Panama Canal! Now Is the Time from South Korea!

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Connex Train Drivers Stage One-Day Strike

The first of the 24-hour strikes of the train drivers on London’s busiest commuter rail routes is due to take place today, Tuesday, beginning at midnight. More than 200,000 passengers use what are the busiest rail routes in Britain. It will be the biggest industrial action on the rail lines since the signal workers’ dispute six years ago.

The train drivers have said that the rail company, Connex, has threatened them with dismissal if they take part in the action, which has been organised within the confines of the already restrictive trade union laws. They complain of broken promises of a 35-hour week and 100% pensionable pay.

The general secretary of the train drivers’ union ASLEF, Mick Rix, asked whether "it is right that a company which receives huge sums of taxpayers’ money should then be able to spend that money on putting advertisements in the press and leaflets on misinformation? Instead of Connex conducting its Victorian employment attitudes in the media, it would be better employed using the taxpayers’ money to provide a better public service."

Connex has published a list of services it "guarantees" to run today, which represents one in 10 trains out of a scheduled timetable of 3,500. But more cancellations and delays are likely on Wednesday morning due to stock being out of place and with some drivers, because of different shifts, still being on strike.

If the dispute is not settled, five further 24-hour strikes of the 1,500 drivers will take place on February 2, 10, 18, 21 and 29. Overtime is also being banned.

Ballot papers were yesterday also sent to RMT drivers calling on them to support strike action over claims for the 35-hour week. The result is due next Monday, and could see the first combined strike by ASLEF and RMT workers in two week’s time. It should also be remembered that Connex is one of the privatised rail companies which have come under serious criticism of late for the standard of the services it provides to the public.

Disabled Workers Fight to Keep Remploy Open

Trade unions representing 6,000 disabled workers warned on January 20 that they would hold a strike ballot unless the government saves the Remploy factories threatened with closures after the cut in state grants. The strike ballot would take place after a final meeting between the company and the government on February 22 if the government did not reverse its course. The Remploy Consortium of six trade unions said that its campaign would include a candle-lit vigil outside the House of Commons and regional days of action.

In November, Remploy laid the blame for the proposed restructuring over the next three years at the government’s door. It said that its grant of £94 million had been frozen for five years. At that time, the Remploy chief executive said, "This means we must move with the times and we plan to upgrade our enterprises in the same way as any commercial organisation."

Remploy Consortium secretary Phil Davies said in a statement: "We want to reach an honourable agreement with the company and the government but we intend to make certain that the voice of disabled workers will be heard."

One Quarter of Farm Workers Could Lose Jobs

One in four farm workers could lose their jobs in the next 10 years, according to Sean Rickard of the Cranfield School of Management.

In an interview with the BBC, he predicted that more than 100,000 workers would be forced out of the agricultural industry, just as has happened in industries like coal mining, steel working and car manufacturing. He said, "Given that the industry has been subsidised for over 30 years, it would be amazing if it were not over-manned and if there were not great inefficiencies." Thus the "streamlining" characteristic of gearing industry to the market forces rather than to people’s needs is predicted to cause "social tragedies" and, according to Sean Rickard, "It’s very tough, it’s very painful," but, "That’s what agriculture needs to do."

In this connection, it can be noted that a report by the National Farmers’ Union last October found that 90% of farmers were suffering stress due to long hours, poor financial returns and fears of future instability.

DPRK Delegation Meets with US Officials in Berlin

A delegation of the DPRK led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan arrived in Berlin on January 20 for negotiations with US officials.

The latest round of Berlin talks, according to news agency reports, began on January 22, after being adjourned last November. The aim, according to the reports, is to lay the groundwork for a high-level visit from the DPRK to the United States.

However, on the same day, a spokesman for the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the recent US decision to test a missile interceptor system as part of the US imperialists’ drive to develop a full-scale "National Missile Defence" system. The spokesman said: "What matters is the US assertion that such a drive is intended to cope with a non-existent ‘missile threat’ from the DPRK and other countries. The DPRK and the US are now negotiating a solution to the issues of common concern, including the missile issue. To create a favourable atmosphere for the negotiations as well as for successful high-level talks between the two countries, the DPRK took an initiative of declaring a moratorium in September last year on missile test-firing." The spokesman noted that the US behaviour has compelled the DPRK to seriously consider the status of this moratorium. He added that an appropriate decision would be taken after watching future US movements.

The US at the same time is floating a rumour that the DPRK has completed a "bomb explosion test" whose results are "applicable to a nuclear bomb detonating test". Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, dismissed this as a cock-and-bull story, aimed to make the "nuclear and missile threat from North Korea" a fait accompli and support its assertion that its moves to establish the "missile defence" system is a "necessary measure" to cope with this "threat". The newspaper’s commentary points out that it is the US which tops the list of nuclear weapons and missiles, which are targeted at the DPRK wherever they are deployed. The commentary demands that the US should stop its reckless moves to establish the "missile defence" system and drop its wild dream of world domination.

The talks are also taking place as it is reported that this year Israel is to deliver one hundred unmanned anti-radar attack planes to south Korea. The KCNA called this move a "very grave move for arms build-up" and said it revealed south Korea’s "criminal attempt to have a military edge over the north and provoke a war against it". South Korea’s Ministry of Defence is to purchase the 100 Israeli-made Harpy unmanned air combat vehicles (UCAVs) for US$53 million.

Farewell to GIs from Panama Canal!

Now Is the Time from South Korea!

A spokesperson for the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) Foreign Ministry on January 7 replied to a question regarding Panama’s recent restoration of sovereignty over the Panama Canal from the United States.

Speaking to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the spokesperson noted that Panama completely restored the sovereignty over the Panama Canal which had been under US control for almost a century with the withdrawal of US troops from the Canal Zone on December 31 last year.

The spokesperson continued: This is a historic victory the Panamanians have achieved in the long-standing drive to defend the sovereignty of the country and national dignity and, at the same time, a common victory won by the peoples in Latin America and the rest of the world in their campaign against all manner of hegemonism.

Recalling that the Panamanian government expressed its readiness to reject any intervention by foreign troops in the Canal Zone in future, the spokesperson expressed solidarity with the principled stand of the Panamanians to defend the sovereignty of the Canal. The Korean people have fought against the GI presence in south Korea that has lasted for over 50 years, he noted.

He continued: When humankind has greeted the new millennium, hoping for independence and peace, our people are suffering misfortune and pain from a territorial partition and national division which has lasted for more than half a century. Its root cause is none other than the GI presence in south Korea. The United States, he said, should properly judge the trend of the times and withdraw its troops from south Korea without delay as it did in Panama.