By Rebecca Anderson UNLIKE OTHER public sector workers, the government’s 2022/23 pay offer to civil servants has not been improved by the wave of industrial action. Despite double-digit inflation, the government has refused to negotiate anything above the 2–3% pay rise that has already been imposed, not even offering the derisory one-off payments recently rejected […]

By Jeremy Dewar STRIKES—ESPECIALLY a prolonged strike wave like the present—draw huge number of trade union members into activity, and expand the numbers of activists building for the action. There’s lots to do: organising workplace meetings to get out the message and identify new activists, phoning up members to check postal addresses and win the […]

Education strike bulletin PDF for 27 April and 2 May

AS WE go to press NHS managers and Health Minster Steve Barclay are dragging the largest NHS union, the Royal College of Nursing, before the High Court in a bid by to block nurses’ strike action due to start on the May Day weekend. They claimed that the strike mandate would be invalid from midnight […]

More strikes announced, but union leaders preparing to settle for pay cut

WHEN THE CWU postal union finally released the text of its deal with Royal Mail after months of negotiations, it immediately became clear union leaders had conceded to most of Royal Mail’s demands. The members’ response was overwhelmingly negative. Even as the union’s media team was uploading video after video trying to spin the deal […]

Health bulletin for 29 March 2023

Vote 'No' to consultation and 'Yes' to action.

How can we get unions that fight?

The pay offer is an insult. Organise to fight for more.

Workers need a rank-and-file movement to take control of the dispute to stop a bad deal

By Dara O’Cogaidhin THE UCU strike has been called off following a campaign of anti-democratic, bureaucratic manoeuvring by General Secretary Jo Grady. After negotiations with the employers’ organisation UCEA, Grady informed members via Twitter that a ‘two week period of calm’ was agreed which would enable ‘intensive negotiations with the aim of reaching a final […]

THE STRIKE wave in response to the bosses’ offensive, which threatens to rob workers and the poor of 15% or more of their real income over two years, has given a welcome boost to millions. The number of walkouts over the past nine months marks the most sustained and widespread strike action for 30 years—despite […]

Editorial 15 March 2023, No. 401

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have told their ministers that they can raise their offers to the unions from 3–3.5% to 5% for the coming year and pay a one-off bonus to ‘compensate’ for the devastating loss of income in 2022–23. This would leave millions of public sector workers facing a 15% […]

Workers need to organise against any sell-out of the dispute.

Postal workers have done it again. Forced to reballot by the Tory anti-union laws after six months of strikes and lost pay, they smashed it, with a remarkable 95.9% vote for action on a 77.3% turnout, nearly as high as the previous record ballots. Even after 18 days of strike action last year and lost […]

By KD Tait ON 1 FEBRUARY hundreds of thousands of teachers, lecturers, civil servants and train drivers struck in the biggest coordinated day of action for many years. In London alone, 50,000 strikers marched in the biggest weekday demonstration since the protest against Donald Trump’s visit in 2018. Tens of thousands more marched in towns […]

Editorial February 2023, No. 400

By Jeremy Dewar PRIME MINISTER Rishi Sunak and business secretary Grant Shapps are rushing the Strikes (minimum service levels) Bill through parliament in order to deny workers the right to strike in six named sectors: health, transport, education, fire and rescue, nuclear power decommissioning and border security. Once signed off by King Charles it will […]

IN A historic first, nurses in the RCN union, pushed to breaking point, have joined the strike wave against the cost of living crisis. And despite media attempts to probe for public disapproval, they have massive support. A million patients are treated in the NHS every 36 minutes, and they are overwhelmingly grateful to and […]