What does "ruled out " mean? And United means what?

To rule something out is to exclude a possibility, past, present or future, depending on context.

A strike during the Easter weekend is ruled out: there will not be a strike during the Easter weekend.

The London police have ruled out Joe Smith as the murderer, because he was in Paris when the victim was killed.

Unite (not "United") is the name of a large British public sector worker's trade union.

Excellent!
"Police have ruled out Joe" is easy to understand. But "strike ruled out", when it does not serve as a headline, is hard to understand.

See the homepage of GuardianUnlimited right now.

http://www.guardiannews.com/uk-home

What do you mean "does not serve as a headline"?

They might have written 'strike has been ruled out". As written, it does seem better suited to a headline than text.

It's not the headline though is it? The headline is Maude urged to quit.....

If strike ruled out were the headline it means strike can only be a noun, not a verb.

Essentially, the Unite Union has called a strike ballot over health and safety. This is not the same as calling a strike, it just means the union has a stronger hand when they enter negotiations.

The negotiations haven't even started yet, the Condem government is trying to turn an industrial dispute about health and safety into a political one. This is because Unite donates to the Labour party. Also there has been a lot of bad press for the Tories lastely, the budget gave tax cuts to millionaires, imposed taxes on pensioners and baked savouries. This has been seen as an attack on the ordinary people by a wealthy elite. On top of that the Tory treasurer, John Cruddas, has been caught on tape selling dinners with Cameron for £250,000.

Francis Maude tried to deflect attention to Labour, by talking up the threat of a strike and advising everyone to fill up now, and fill up jerry cans as well. This has lead to panic buying and fuel shortages. As a result the woman in question was decanting petrol in the kitchen to take to her daughter who had run out of fuel.

No, it's more like a standfirst, sometimes called a "deck" in non-UK newspaper layout terminology. This is not the place - and I have neither the time nor the inclination - to deliver a detailed treatise on newspaper layout, however I will mention these things:

Headline - The main title of the article.

Subhead - A smaller one-line headline for a story.

Standfirst - Lines of text after the headline that give more information about the article.

(all the above are likely to be terse and omit articles, conjunctions etc)

Copy - Main text of a story. Written in normal English prose style.


Yes, provided a majority vote for it, but more importantly, to make a strike "protected", a ballot is a legal requirement. If a strike is "protected" then strikers cannot be dismissed or sued for taking part. Industrial action will normally be protected industrial action if it is official action organised by a worker's trade union in line with the law. In simple terms, the legal requirements are:

The dispute is a trade dispute between workers and their own employer

A secret postal ballot has been held and the majority of members voting have supported the action

Detailed notice about the action has been given to the employer at least seven days before it commences

It has been called for by someone in the trade union with proper authority.

What I think is shocking is that the Tories are tying to turn this into a political strike. The mier's strike of the 80's was political, Scargill and Thatcher, both equally repellant, destroyed whole communities between them. This strike is about H&S, not pay. What worries me is that if the strike goes ahead, some 21 year old lance corporal will blow himself up in a forecourt.