Bankers are the real scroungers

Important shifts in the battle against Tory attacks on public sector pensions took place last week

The UCU union’s national executive committee (NEC) met last Friday

The leaders of Britain’s three largest unions last week denounced Labour’s Ed Miliband and Ed Balls for supporting the Tory austerity agenda

The Tories suffered another setback to their brutal Welfare Reform Bill this Monday

Workers at factories and offices across England and Wales have been walking out this week against attacks on their pensions from consumer goods giant Unilever

Schools minister Michael Gove has retreated on plans to force a north London primary school to become a privatised academy

A cabal of hard right Tories is at the centre of attempts to witch‑hunt trade union reps for doing their job

Hundreds of low paid NHS workers at Guy’s and St Thomas’s trust in London have been told to leave their subsidised accommodation with just three months’ notice

Government plans to outsource NHS commissioning hit obstacles on Tuesday of this week

Surrey Police knew for nine years that the News of the World hacked the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler

Attempts by US lawmakers to restrict internet freedom have been postponed after high profile opposition

Campaigners won a last minute stay of deportation for two Cameroonian asylum seekers last week

Tory-run Basildon council has stepped up its campaign against Travellers at the Dale Farm site in Essex

The government is planning a major climb down in its assault on higher education, according to reports circulating as Socialist Worker went to press

Union activists in Bristol are busy building a public meeting on the pensions dispute

Academies transfer huge amounts of wealth from the public to private sector

Unilever’s chief executive Paul Polman likes to present himself as a champion of “equitable capitalism”

There was a warm reception for the public sector workers who visited the Colman’s mustard picket lines in Norwich on Tuesday

Union tactics at Unilever have changed since the December national strike

Tory-run Wandsworth council in south London has backed off from its plans to evict a family from their council home over the riots

Workers at the National Gallery in London walked out for two hours today (Thursday) to demand that the gallery hires more staff

Campaigns demanding justice for those who have died in police custody join forces today to launch a petition calling for major changes in the criminal justice system

A 100-strong protest at parliament turned into a celebration this morning, Friday, after Tory MP Nadine Dorries withdrew her abstinence bill

The multinational construction company Carillion won an employment tribunal (ET) today, Friday, against a blacklisted worker

Mohammed, the editor of the Revolutionary Socialists' weekly paper, talks to Judith Orr in Cairo

Socialist Worker editor Judith Orr reports from Tahrir Square in Cairo a year after the fall of Hosni Mubarak

Around 100 people joined a picket line at Montgomery Primary School in Birmingham today, Wednesday

The government’s statistics watchdog has attacked ministers for releasing lurid figures last week suggesting some 370,000 migrants are claiming benefits

The NUT teachers’ union has agreed to push for a coordinated, national public sector strike in March

David Cameron is trying to steal hundreds of millions of pounds from people who receive benefits—but he doesn’t mind giving handouts to his banker pals

Usually we hear that immigrants are taking all our jobs

our round-up of the week's quotes

Governments across Europe are set on imposing cuts that will wreck lives, slash jobs and destroy services

Workers in Greece’s Attica region, which includes Athens, are fighting austerity

More than 2,000 police forcibly evicted residents of the Pinheirinho slum district of Sao Jose dos Campos near Sao Paulo, Brazil, early last Sunday morning

The West African state of Nigeria was shaken by a series of bomb explosions on Friday of last week

Civil service workers across Zimbabwe began a five-day strike on Monday, demanding a doubling of wages

The European Union (EU) implemented a ban on all new oil contacts with Iran this week, and ruled that any existing ones will be terminated in July

A deadlock is developing in Syria as the Gulf Cooperation Council and Saudi Arabia withdrew their observers from the Arab League mission to the country

A US marine has pled guilty to a charge of “dereliction of duty” in relation to the massacre in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005

Paul Mason’s new book misreads the impact of technology on political struggle, writes Simon Basketter

The fallout from the unions’ response to the government’s “heads of agreement” on pensions is still being felt

Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have said that Labour must prove itself as a “responsible opposition” by accepting wage freezes and pay cuts

Socialist Worker editor Judith Orr returned to Cairo for the anniversary celebrations

Ahdaf talked to Judith Orr about the struggles in Egypt, the subject of her new book, Cairo: My City, Our Revolution

The Egyptian Revolution did not come out of thin air

On the first anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, Alex Callinicos looks at how to understand the revolutionary wave—and the potential for it to go much further

Benefit process makes disabled people sick | US did not win in Iraq | The rich are waging war with US piracy act | Socialists unite for Scottish independence | Press ignored Nigeria strike | Bread and Roses strike was inspiring | Killing royals no joke | Capitalism can’t be moral | Labour won’t get my money | We can make a revolution | Our tradition of anti-racism | Our tradition of anti-racism

War, class arrogance and popular discontent are at the core of Coriolanus, writes Gareth Jenkins

This short book is a welcome addition to the reading list for those, like me, who are relatively new to the socialist tradition

Comedian Phill Jupitus has joined left wing theatre company Red Ladder for a timely attack on David Cameron’s “big society”

Why does a mythical hero from 14th century England still inspire Hollywood movies, BBC dramas and even financial transaction taxes?

This website provides “mass observations” of everyday life filmed by groups of postgraduate students from Coventry University

We interview Mark Campbell, the left candidate in the election for UCU general secretary

Electricians protested in Glasgow, Manchester and London last week

Around 70 oil tanker drivers and their supporters rallied outside the Immingham oil terminal on Tuesday morning

Around 100 angry BBC workers at Mailbox Birmingham began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday of last week

Lecturers in the UCU union were set to gather in London for a special delegate conference this coming Tuesday to discuss their pensions dispute

Bus drivers in South Yorkshire held a mass meeting last Sunday to discuss the next steps in their pay dispute with their employer Stagecoach

Southampton council workers are planning to strike again—more than a year after the start of their battle over imposed pay cuts

A special meeting of councillors in Edinburgh last Thursday voted by 31 to 23 to end plans to privatise a swathe of council services

Three unions were set to strike together on Wednesday of this week at Birmingham’s Montgomery primary school

Unite union members at the Manchester site of IT giant Fujitsu have unanimously voted to accept an offer to settle their long-running dispute

People from across Leicester joined a public meeting to organise opposition to the English Defence League (EDL) last Saturday

The Defend the Right to Protest campaign has called a demonstration outside Wandsworth prison in solidarity with those inside

Over 70 people attended a public meeting to relaunch Fenlands trades council in Cambridgeshire last Saturday

The RMT union has suspended strikes by rail signalling workers in Glasgow in advance of talks with the Acas conciliation service

Unison union members in Stoke-on-Trent held two mass meetings last week over the council’s plans to cut their weekend pay and mileage allowances

The Unison union lobbied Norfolk council together with anti-cuts campaigners on Monday against plans to slash adult social care services

Occupy London activists are currently involved in two ongoing legal processes

The RMT is balloting for strikes on the Heathrow Express train service over the unfair dismissal of driver Zahid Majid and the victimisation of RMT rep Liaqat Ali

The PCS executive met last Thursday and reiterated the need for more coordinated national strikes before the end of March

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