As Unilever workers began organising picket lines across the country, the trustees of the company’s UK pension fund rejected union pleas and endorsed management’s proposal to close the existing final salary pension (FSP) scheme and replace it with an inferior career average earnings scheme, known as CARE.

In a statement, the global consumer goods giant declared, “This was a tough but necessary choice which reflects the realities of rising life expectancy and increased global market volatility. We have a responsibility to protect the long term sustainability and competitiveness of the business—and to do so is in the best interests of our people.”

Workers will lose up to 40 percent of their pensions. One worker in Manchester has calculated a loss of more than £64,000. A report in the Financial Times claims the coalition government could abolish the index-linked protection for pensions. The protection mechanism injects an average of 2.5 percent a year. Removing it would save companies £7 billion annually.

The Guardian reported on January 18 that the trade unions have documented evidence that once the CARE scheme is accepted it will be replaced within three years by an even less generous scheme that relies heavily on how its investments perform.

In some of the poorest areas of the UK, between 40 and 50 percent of children live in poverty, with areas of London featuring heavily.

The “Child Poverty Map of the UK” classified poverty as families claiming out-of-work benefits or in-work tax credits where income is less than 60 percent of the median—£25,000 a year. At below 60 percent of the median income, material deprivation leads to families struggling to meet basic needs like food, heating, clothing and the extra costs of schooling such as school trips.

After housing costs, household bills and general family spending needs will have to be met by approximately £12 or less per family member a day. For those families on benefits, this figure can be substantially less.

The figures used to compile the report by the Campaign to End Child Poverty were taken from tax credit data showing the number of families with children living on low incomes in a given local authority, parliamentary constituency or ward in the UK. It is considered to be an accurate and up-to-date picture of child poverty in the UK as recently as mid-2011.

The ongoing scandal over PIP (Poly Implant Prostheses) breast implants makes clear the human cost of the privatisation of health care in the UK, and the callous indifference of the political elite towards its consequences.

The implants, produced by a now liquidated French company, were used on some 400,000 women worldwide for corrective surgery or breast augmentation. Criminally, the firm used industrial-grade silicone more suitable for use in mattresses than human beings.

Surgeons began raising concerns about the implants following a number of failures, resulting in inflammation and other complications in 2007. The following year, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) noted these concerns.

The faulty implants were withdrawn from Europe and South America last year, but more than 1,000 ruptures caused French Health officials to recommend in December that some 30,000 women in France should have the implants removed.

Eight cases of breast tumours had been found after removal of the faulty implants in France by the end of 2011, although the French authorities deny there is no concrete proof to link PIP with an increased risk of cancer.

The International Students for Social Equality is holding a public meeting on Tuesday, February 7 to discuss the Richard O’Dwyer case and other attacks on democratic rights. Meeting details follow this statement.

The International Students for Social Equality calls on all students, young people, academics and workers to oppose the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer to the United States on copyright infringement charges.

If found guilty, the 23-year-old Sheffield Hallam University computer science student faces from five to ten years imprisonment in an US federal jail.

Judge Quentin Purdy at Westminster Magistrates Court ruled that, despite breaking no British laws, O’Dwyer can be extradited to the US to face trial for merely running a web site posting links to other sites where people could download copyrighted content, including movies and TV programmes.

David Cameron’s comments last week on funding the British film industry exposed the venal philistinism of the social layer he represents.

Looking to the “incredible success of recent years,” he called for lottery funding to be directed towards more “commercially successful pictures which rival the quality and impact of the best international productions” rather than what he described as “culturally rewarding” films. He called for the British film industry to become more “dynamic and entrepreneurial” and a global brand.

British films are publicly funded through the distribution of money raised from the National Lottery. Until last year, the body responsible for this was the UK Film Council, created by Chris Smith in 2000 when he was Labour’s culture secretary. But late in 2009, Labour was already floating plans to merge some of the Film Council’s functions with the British Film Institute (BFI). The coalition simply scrapped the Film Council altogether in 2010 and transferred its funding responsibilities to the BFI.

On January 18, Justice Lindblom at the Royal Courts of Justice gave the go-ahead for the eviction of the Occupy London Stock Exchange protest.

An appeal based on Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights against a City of London Corporation instruction issued last November to remove tents claimed to be an unreasonable use of a public highway and affecting business activity around St Paul’s Cathedral was rejected.

The decision is part of an effort to crush all centres of protest and provide authorities with a mechanism to ban protests in the future.

On October 15, Occupy London intended to occupy Paternoster Square, home to the London Stock Exchange. This was blocked by a police kettling operation, forcing protesters to set up camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral. Justice Lindblom described the camp as a “public nuisance” and said any one of the objections by the City of London Corporation that administers the city on behalf of the financial sector would have been compelling enough for him to find in its favour.

On January 13, Occupy Bristol, the largest tented demonstration outside London and part of the international movement against social inequality, was instructed by Judge Roderick Denyer at Bristol County Court to leave College Green, where they have been camping since October last year.

Occupy Bristol members and supporters staged a four-hour sit-in at the court in opposition to the hearing being scheduled to last just 15 minutes. They said that the decision to serve the eviction notice had been “pushed through” without recognising the right of Occupy Bristol to defend itself or introduce fresh evidence. The demonstrators argued that the case against them was “undefendable” due to the fact that the eviction papers had been served to an “unknown person”.

The legal action was brought by the Very Reverend David Hoyle, the dean of Bristol Cathedral, which owns the land, in conjunction with the City Council. They produced legal documents full of hearsay evidence from council and church officials regarding environmental damage, anti-social behaviour and drug and alcohol abuse at the camp.

British pseudo-left groups are seeking to cover for the trade unions’ capitulation to the government’s assault on public sector pensions.

On November 30, more than two million public sector workers struck against government plans to make them pay more, and work longer, for reduced pensions. Within weeks, the Trades Union Congress Public Sector Liaison Group (PSLG) announced it was suspending any further action and had accepted the “Heads of Agreement” (HofA) for the four main pension schemes within the public sector.

The outline agreement, which accepts all the governments’ parameters, was endorsed last week by the executive of the main public sector union, Unison. Together with the GMB, it hopes to railroad the deal through the health service, local government, and education.

A class judgement was handed down last month at Sheffield Crown when UK Coal, Britain’s largest producer, was ordered to pay a mere £1.2 million after four miners died following safety breaches at two of its collieries.

Anthony Garrigan, 42, Paul Hunt, 45, and Trevor Steeples, 46, died in separate accidents at Daw Mill colliery, near Coventry, in 2006 and 2007. Paul Milner, 44, died after an accident at the now-closed Welbeck Colliery in Nottinghamshire, in 2007.

Even though UK Coal admitted four breaches of Section 2(1) and three breaches of Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Justice MacDuff pointedly told Sheffield Crown Court he would not impose a penalty so high it would “cripple” a firm that has been experiencing economic problems.

The fine ordered was £112,500 in relation to each death and a further £187,500 in costs relating to each case. Justice MacDuff warned family members watching from the public gallery this may mean the fines were lower than some may expect, but according to a BBC report, “urged the families of the dead men to focus on the total combined financial penalty”.

Unions representing over 2,000 of the British-Dutch consumer giant Unilever’s 7,000 employees are holding a series of one-day strikes.

They are opposing plans by the company to close down the Final Salary Pension (FSP) scheme and replace it with an inferior Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) scheme. This would result in a pension decrease of up to 40 percent for long-serving workers. The CARE scheme was brought in for new employees in 2008.

The dispute has been ongoing since April last year. After negotiations broke down, a ballot was called that gave a clear mandate for strike action. The unions responded with a one-day strike across the company in December. There was a strong response from workers, although the timing, so close to Christmas, was questioned by many.

The decision to strike again was taken at a recent joint union conference in Liverpool, called after Unilever refused to reopen talks with the three unions involved—Unite, representing 1,600 employees, USDAW (460) and GMB (170).