By James Copley A crucial victory was won this month in Wigan, with workers in bakers’ union BFAWU forcing bosses at the Hovis factory to employ workers on full time rather than zero-hour contracts, and put an end to the routine use of agency labour. These precarious workers are super-exploited, not knowing from one […]
To the surprise of many, the conservative Greek government has launched a crackdown on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. KD Tait looks at the reasons for this and what it means for the working class movement Six MPs and around 30 party activists, including Golden Dawn’s top leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos and his deputy, have been arrested […]
The TUC’s recent call for a mid-week day of action was a response to pressure from the rank and file – and pressure from the rank and file is needed to make it happen. Twelve months ago, the 2012 TUC Congress passed a motion from the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) calling on the unions to […]
As the economy shows signs of growth, the bosses are determined to take the lion’s share George Osborne boasts that Britain’s economy is “turning a corner” and that “those in favour of a Plan B have lost the argument”. This bragging seems to be based on little beyond the latest Gross Domestic Product figures, […]
By Jeremy Dewar The Daily Mail is a rabid, racist and reactionary paper. It has history. So it was no surprise to see it fighting against Labour’s left turn. But even by its standards, its attack on Ed Miliband’s dead father was shocking. In an article titled, “The man who hated Britain”, the Mail quotes […]
By Richard Brenner On 1 February 1960, an impulsive and practically unplanned act of bravery by four black college students sparked the great civil rights’ revolt in the USA. The students went into a Woolworths store in Greensboro, North Carolina and then sat down at a lunch counter that was reserved for whites. A waitress […]
By KD Tait On 7 September, the Metropolitan Police arrested 286 antifascists for venturing away from the police-determined route for a demonstration against the English Defence League in Tower Hamlets. The arrest and detention of the 286 represents a further attack on our already eroded right to protest, and indeed on our human rights. Lawyers […]
Read online (PDF) The October issue featuring coverage of the party conferences, Left Unity, the upcoming postal workers’ strike, antifascism after Tower Hamlets and much more… Time for action Tory Party Conference: seven more years of austerity Labour’s left turn – and what we need to do Recovery […]
Read WP373 online (PDF)
KD Tait reports on how the rise in zero hour contracts exposes the bosses’ latest strategy to beat the crisis – at our expense First published by the Revolutionary Socialists Up to one million workers are employed on zero hour contracts in Britain. These contracts give people no guarantee of work, but force them to […]
Postal workers should vote yes to fight not just cuts but privatisation too By a CWU rep In late August rumours from government sources surfaced in the press that the Coalition could announce the float of Royal Mail on the stock market in September, aiming to start selling shares to investors in October. In response, […]
By James Copley Militant protesters in the mid-Sussex town of Balcombe have temporarily disrupted energy firm Cuadrilla’s exploratory drilling for oil. Perhaps more importantly, they have brought to public attention the controversy around hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking”. Through persistent acts of civil disobedience and camping out on the site of the drilling, courageous activists […]
The struggle for a living wage has gone national, hitting 1,000 shops in nearly 58 cities across the USA. KD Tait reports On 29 August thousands of workers walked out in the biggest wave of strikes to hit the US fast food industry. Workers are fighting for $15 an hour and the right to unionise […]
By Dave Stockton The defeat of the Cameron-Clegg coalition in the House of Commons on Thursday 29 August by 285 votes to 272 was a historic occasion: the first time a British government was defeated on the issue of making war in over three centuries. It was also the first time the Parliamentary Labour […]
Dave Stockton writes, according to Greater Manchester Police a column of some 50,000 demonstrators threaded its way through the streets of the city centre in a route which passed within view of the Tory Conference venue. Placards, banners, chants expressed not only the defence of the health service but hatred of the Tories and all […]
By a CWU postal rep
A strike by 220 machine operatives and cleaners at the Hovis factory in Wigan shows that determined action backed by militant tactics and labour movement solidarity can beat the bosses. Members of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) voted for three weeks of discontinuous action to stop bosses using agency staff to undermine […]
Click to read as PDF Strike threat rattles Coalition, makes investors wary: Bring on a strike ballot & let’s all vote yes! CWU postal members will be balloted for industrial action from 20 September to 3 October – and not a moment too soon. With privatisation coming on top of a crap pay offer, […]
Martin Suchanek attended the Syriza Congress in July as an international observer from the New Anticapitalist Organisation (NAO) in Germany In last year’s elections in Greece, Syriza (The Coalition of the Radical Left) narrowly failed to gain the largest proportion of votes that would have given it the opportunity to try to form a government […]
The mass movement that erupted onto the streets of Egypt’s cities on 30 June 2013 against the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of President Mohamed Morsi was just as much an expression of popular anger and the continuing revolutionary will of the Egyptian masses as were the protests that brought down the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak on […]