BT have made a full and final pay offer of 3.5%. The T&FS Executive are recommending the offer to the members for acceptance in a consultative ballot the details of which will be advised to you shortly. The offer is in excess of the RPI and is in the upper quartile of pay settlements. This year has been a very difficult set of negotiations but after detailed consideration the Executive believe that the offer should be recommended. The Executive do not believe it would be in the members' interest to reject the 3.5% offer and ballot for industrial action.

The British National Party is a political organisation of the extreme right. It's supporters include Adolf Hitler worshipers, people who deny the Holocaust happened and those who believe that a small group of Jewish people secretly control the world. The Fascist British National Party averaged 17 per cent of the vote in the seats they contested in the last local government elections and now has a record 17 councillors across Britain. The BNP is now trying to present itself as a ‘respectable’ political party. In fact they are a fascist party. Currently they seek to attract votes on the basis of racism, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, homophobia and the vilification of refugees and asylum seekers. But fascists also stand for the expulsion of Black and Asian people from this country, the destruction of the trade unions and the elimination of basic democratic rights.

This is to give advance notice of the date of the Tolpuddle Festival and Rally 2005. Members are urged to attend on Sunday the 17th and join the rally and the branch banner for agreat day out. More informtion on weekend events, directions, car parking and camping can be found by looking on the Tolpuddle Martyrs website at www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk. On February 24th, 1834, six farm labourers from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle were arrested on a charge of taking part in an ‘illegal oath’ ceremony. In the eyes of their masters, however, the real offence was that they had dared to form a trade union to defend their livelihood. For this they were sentenced to seven years’ transportation to the penal colonies of New South Wales and Van Dieman’s Land.The sentences provoked an immense outcry, leading to the granting of free pardons and their return to England.

A historic episode in the struggle for trade unionists’ rights in Great Britain.

We shall never forget what we owe them.