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Bob Crow – an uncompromising fighter for the working class
August 1969
When British troops went in to Northern Ireland
August 1969 was a turning point in the history of Northern Ireland. It was then that the Labour Government of Harold Wilson took the decision to send troops onto the streets, first of Derry, then of Belfast.
The measure was presented as temporary – troops were needed, they said, because, with riots sweeping the streets, with huge parts of Derry and Belfast sealed off behind barricades and with pogroms starting to develop, it was clear that the Unionist government at Stormont had lost control. It was to be a ‘stop gap’. The troops would be withdrawn ‘as soon as law and order is restored’.
Youth Fight for Jobs tells Minister, “We demand jobs not excuses!”
Representatives from the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign met Minister for Employment & Learning, Reg Empey, on 18 February to challenge him on the Executive’s failure to create jobs.
Youth Fight for Jobs put to the Minister, concrete initiatives which could immediately be implemented to create jobs. We showed how a programme for building social housing, a publicly owned IT sector and how an expansion of the NHS could immediately create thousands of jobs, while at the same time provide much needed services.
Unions must fight to defend every job
At the end of January, Arlene Foster, the Minister responsible for job creation, bickered about the devolution of policing and justice powers to Stormont while 350 manufacturing job losses in Belfast were announced. This was just another demonstration of the complete inability of the main parties to deal with the crisis facing working-class people.
Hughes Christensen, a drill-bit manufacturer which has been based in East Belfast for over 50 years, announced that it would be closing its doors with the loss of 210 jobs. This firm is hugely profitable, with $47 million handed over to shareholders in the last quarter of 2009. The company also received handouts worth over £5million from taxpayers’ pockets through Invest NI.