Northern Ireland

Following one of the UK's biggest strikes in years, when half a million council workers walked out for two days against a sub inflationary 2.45% pay offer, unions have blocked further action.

The strike will take place across Scotland on Wednesday 24 September. The move follows the earlier action on 20 August, which came after 150,000 members rejected an offer of 2.5%.

The ongoing concern over increasing demands on probationary staff has been hightlighted in a current dispute with management in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences. UCU suspect that excessive workloads being placed on staff not yet in confirmed-positions may be widespread throughout the university.

The offer is for employees on JNC pay and conditions, which includes workers in youth clubs and Connexions advisers, and was rejected by both UNISON and the youth workers' branch of Unite, the CYWU.

UNISON has launched a campaign for fair pay for youth and community workers, while the CYWU is to ballot its members for industrial action, asking:

More than 500,000 workers were on strike on July 16 and 17, bringing disruption to schools, town halls, refuse collections and libraries throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

"This has been a fantastic response from our members," said UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis. "Local government workers have shown their anger and resentment towards this pay offer.

At the start of the picket 3 people had gone inside to leaflet customers and staff. There was a very positive response to the picket however one person was falsely accused of assaulting a Starbuck's member of staff after leafleting staff and customers inside.

For the first time ever, Queens University is attempting to introduce compulsory redundancies for staff. Normally, voluntary means are used to resolve staffing issues, but Queens senior-management were attempting to rush-through the compulsory redundancy plan tomorrow at Standing Committee meeting.

“Unite are trying to deny us our democratic right to peacefully protest.” – Gordon McNeill

The dispute between the sacked airport shop stewards and their union, Unite, was dramatically escalated on Tuesday afternoon.

His health is deteriorating rapidly and visibly. A healthy person might expect to live a week or so without food and water. Gordon suffers from a heart condition and has not recovered from the previous five day hunger and thirst strike at the start of April. He has already reached a critical stage.

Gordon has made it clear that he will refuse medical treatment if he is hospitalised.

The meeting took place on Thursday 3rd of April 2008 in the Ulster Peoples College in Belfast and was addressed by Donnacha DeLong (NUJ National Executive Council New Media Rep) Jason Brannigan (Organise!) and Chekov Feeney (WSM).