> Merton and Sutton Trades Union Council (south London) also marked the >European Week for Health and Safety at Work with a public meeting in a >local church on Monday 16 October. > > The trades council issued a statement: "Merton and Sutton TUC believes it >is high time that something was done to bring to account the people who >cause deaths at work. > > "We need to create a new sense of moral responsibility among employers, a >sense of accountability for their actions and indeed their inaction, when >the resuit is the death of someone they have employed." > > The trades council acknowledges that it is a small minority of employers >who through callous neglect or culpable ignorance, allow their workers to die. > > "Time should be called on the criminal employer," said Merton and Sutton >TUC spokesperson Steve Browett. "We urge the introduction ofa new law >ofcorporate manslaughter to emphasise society's shock at workplace deaths >and disapproval of those who allow them to happen." > > On average five workers are killed at work every week in addition to >thousands who die annually through work-related diseases. Asbestos alone >kills more people every day than road accidents. > > The tragedy is doubled when lessons are not learnt and no one is held to >account. All too often the guilty party escapes with a paltry fine. > > Small fines imposed by the HSE give the message that causing a death at >work is no more serious than a parking or shoplifting offence. > > Merton and Sutton TUC quoted a number of instances where the punishment >was utterly inadequate: > > William Montgomery from Oldham was killed in August 1999 by a falling >14-metre steel bar on a Berkshire building site. Slough Magistrates' Court >ruled the employer, Simplex Piling, had failed to carry out the lifting >operation in a safe manner. The company was fined �1,000 and ordered to pay >�789 costs. > > Stephen Hayhurst was working on the new Citibank building at canary Wharf >when he fell 130 feet to his death down a lift shaft in March 1998. He had >been putting metal strips under the stair when he stepped on a flimsy piece >of plywood and fell eight stories to his death. Canary Wharf Limited was >fined �1,500 and two other companies fined �15,000 and �6,000 -- a total of >�22,500. > > Philip Mclnnes, a 19-yearold apprentice plumber, was electrocuted at work >on the Heathmount Hotel, Inverness in May 1996. He was helping to install >copper pipes but his employer failed to check whether the wires he was >working with were live and told the court he had assessed the risk by just >looking round. The employer was fined just �5,000. > > ************************* > >4) International story > >No end in sight to Israeli aggression. > >by Steve Lawton > >SEVERAL United States military bases were put on high alert last weekend in >Turkey, Bahrain and Qatar following the 12 October bombing of the USS Cole >at the Yemeni harbour of Aden. > > While in Cairo, after nearly a month of deadly Israeli attacks on the >Palestinian people, leaders of the 23 Arab nations gathered to unanimously >condemn Tel Aviv's overwhelming aggession. > > And Palestinian deaths continue to mount... l6-year-old Nidal al-Dbeiki, >shot in the stomach at the Erez Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel; >22year-old Nimr Yusif Meraei, shot near Jenin, West Bank... nearly 130 in >all, with 4-5,000 wounded - 33 of them earlier this week. > > Summit leaders called upon Israeli Premier Ehud Barak to pull back, >demanding the United Nations immediately dispatch an international >protection force to implement an end to the bloody conflict. > > The Arab summit while holding back from an outright call for diplomatic >ties with Israel to be severed, nevertheless declared that for any Arab >nation that did so, the Israeli government would be held responsible. > > And the leaders who have perpetrated the murders should face an >international war crimes tribunal, the concluding statement said. The key >Arab states of Iraq, Syria and Libya demanded tougher action against >Israel, while Libya's representatives walked out. For Iraq, this was the >first meeting of its kind to which it has been invited since 1991. > > Arab states continue to receive the wounded and medical aid is being sent >via Jordan. Kuwaiti health minister Ahmad al Jarallah received five wounded >Palestinians, and on their arrival earlier this week he said the government >and people of Kuwait "are proud of the heroes of the Palestinian uprising." > > No sooner was the Arab summit over as fighting continued, than Barak >called "timeout" from the shattered peace process. As we go to press, >whether Barak's call for an emergency unity government with Likud leader >General Ariel Sharon or general elections are called, is still in the balance. > > The Israeli army proceeds with its siege-imprisonment of Palestinian >areas. Barak, meanwhile, persists in pressing Western countries to arm >twist Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat into submission. He >continues to fail. The next summit opportunity is not likely to emerge >before 7 November US elections. > > The popular uprising, deliberately triggered by warlord Sharon's >1,000-strong invasion of Temple Mount on 28 September, has also to resist >the 180,000 Israeli settlers -- armed in breach of international law. They >have largely been ignored in the West but they are a significant factor in >the "behind-the-lines" anti Arab attacks. > > Planted on confiscated, invariably prime land made available after the >Israeli army usually bulldozed Palestinian homes, the settlers have acted >as a second force of sabotage and terror against Palestinians. They have >been killing, destroying and wrecking livelihoods in as equally >indiscriminate and random manner as the Israeli army which escorts, >protects and encourages them. > > Much was made of the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah two >weeks ago, little has been said ofthe lynchings by Israeli settlers in >Nazareth, Belt Furiq and Um Safa days earlier. While Israeli army snipers >pick off Palestinian stone-throwers, Israeli settlers take aim at families >out harvesting olives that are now in season and terrorise them away from >their vital source of income. > > In Um Safa village, for example, Kfar Oreh settlers near Ramallah -- scene >of Israeli rocketing and shelling -- Palestinian farmers were prevented >from gathering their crop. Villager Mousa Mohammed told al Qouds daily: >"While dozens of other families from the village and I were in our fields, >the settlers came and put their weapons in our faces, calling us to leave >the area, telling us they would shoot us otherwise." > > In the south Nablus village of Kufr Qallel, 70 farmers who had to hide in >caves to escape the hail of settler bullets, were besieged for seven hours. >Many have died and are still dying from their wounds in the conflict. >Whenthe Israelis used heavy weapons on Ramallah claiming, in time worn Nato >style, that they were hitting military-related targets (that just happened >to be around Yasser Arafats' headquarters), that pretence was soon dropped. > > Last weekend the Israeli's shelled and bombed Belt Jala from the Israeli >settlement of Gilo opposite it. Israelis called this a "proportional >response". Difficult to see how that squares, for instance, with flattening >the Talitha Kumi kindergarten and Inad Theatre. One of the Inad group plays >was performed for the first time during the Royal Court Theatre's >international festival in London recently. > > Israeli army fortifications are being built and road blocks set up as part >of the constant squeeze put on Palestinians from their rightful homeland >and from the rest of the world. The main entrance to Bethlehem in the >Hebron area was re-closed with concrete blocks. Consequently, thousands are >being cut off from their jobs. > > The Ha'aretz daily said there is a proposal to "separate the economies of >Israel and Palestine", which has also been promoted on television. It's >equally an attempt to stoke up a false fear in Israel that it is >threatened. He has since modified his position which the US has criticised >to one of "dissociation" not "separation". > > Dependence is the present reality. A quarter of Palestinian GDP is derived >from Israel and Palestinians rely on its water and electricity supplies. >All border passes are controlled by Israel, preventing Palestinian access >to neighbouring states and, therefore, again restricting their jobs. > > Israel could barely exist without the massive US aid. According to the >Ha'aretz daily Israel is expecting the US Congress to begin discussion of >an $800m package of 'aid', as we go to press. Half is supposedly to fund >Israeli withdrawal from the Lebanon; the rest is to develop an anti-missile >programme. This is in addition to the 'normal' deal which, in all, will >total $1.98bn by next year. > > But this vast difference in treatment is advancing the international cause >of the Palestinians. Seven Australian aid agencies launched an appeal for >emergency aid to help West Bank and Gaza hospitals. And protest actions >continue - from London to Athens to Jordan. > > Hundreds of Palestinians living in Greece burnt flags in front of the >Israeli and US embassies this week, while across the world in Jordan 10,000 >protesters defied armoured vehicles and tear gas to march on the Israeli >controlled border access to the occupied West Bank. Hundreds were injured >in the clashes with riot police. Solidarity advances. > > ********************* > >5) British news item > >Hands off our homes. > >COUNCIL tenants and their supporters who are campaigning against the >sell-off of council estates met last weekend in Manchester for a conference >aimed to launch a nationwide campaign against council house "stock transfers". > > Over 200 delegates from tenants' associations and trades unions >representing local authority workers attended the conference organised by >Defend Council Housing. > > Campaigners exchanged experiences and the evidence is that where tenants >do organise to resist the privatisation of their homes, as in Waverly, High >Wycornbe and South Bedfordshire, they are successful. > > Tenants have also rejected privatisation in Lewisham, Tower Hamlets, St >Helens, Cambridge, Cheltenham Fenland and Sandwell. > > The conference also highlighted the Government's agenda to continue the >Tory policy of privatising council housing until there is none left in >Britain. The plan is to privatise up to 200,000 homes a year. > > Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn described the "obscenity" of selling public >housing stocks while homelessness is rising. > > In many cases tenants are being told that vital repairs and refurbishment >of estates can only happen if they vote in favour of transfer. > > But once the houses are transferred, rents rise and tenancies become less >secure. > > Housing associations and other similar bodies are desscribed as non-profit >making but they exist in the private sector. They are obliged to borrow >heavily from banks to buy the stock and it is the banks that dictate policy >on rents. > > Alf Chandler, speaking for the Tenants' and Residents' association of >England attacked the Tory tactic of "right to buy" which undermined the >council house system in the 1980s by encouraging tenants to buy their own >homes. > > This led Lo a large proportion of the best homes becoming privately owned, >Ieaving those who could not afford to buy trapped in the poorer standard >accommodation which quickly deteriorated as the Tories forbade councils to >spend money on maintenance. > > Mr Chandler said: "We want to see an end the right to buy, we want to see >a right to rent". > > George Brumwell, general secretary of the building workers union Ucatt, >told the conference that privatisation was "the biggest con trick >perpetrated on the working class in the last century." > > He warned that Labour's adoption of Tory policies on support for the >private sector was linked to efforts to cut public expenditure and the >public sector borrowing requirement before joining the European Single >Currency. > > The conference called for all out support for a mass lobby of Parliament >on 24 January 2001. > > ********************* > > >New Communist Party of Britain Homepage > >http://www.newcommunistparty.org.uk > >A news service for the Working Class! > >Workers of all countries Unite! > > > > > _______________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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