Why are so many people taking strike action?
Where is New Labour at with the low-paid people that the Labour party was established to represent? Why does the UK still have some of the most vicious anti-union laws in Europe? In the London Borough of Barnet, a large number of careworkers who work for a grim outfit called the Fremantle Trust are planning another day of strike action this Saturday. Their dispute isn’t a Grunwick yet, but it’s on the road. Fremantle careworkers Carmel Reynolds, Anne Quinn, Lango Gamanga and Sandra Jones say they knew their working lives were about to take a turn for the perverse when Fremantle management began talking about cutting careworkers’ sick pay and holiday allowances late last year. It didn’t take long for the talk to evolve into policy. “It went from ‘we’re going to have to take your holidays and your sick pay’ to ‘we’ll do all that and we’ll freeze your pay and cut your weekend enhancements,” Reynolds says. She and the other careworkers had been worried about their salaries and terms and co
