Demand an immediate end to the state of emergency and all restrictions on democratic rights.

Against racism and neoliberalism.

As the Autumn’s coordinated strike action stalls, Jeremy Dewar reviews the unions’ record and asks how we can stop the retreat Up to 150,000 marched in London, Glasgow and Belfast in October in response to the TUC’s call, “Britain needs a pay rise”. There was wild applause in Hyde Park for our leaders’ speeches, none […]

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 […]

The Coalition of Resistance has called a People’s Assembly in June. Already it looks as if it will be big. But, asks Jeremy Dewar, will it unite the movement against austerity in the action we need? During the three years of cuts and closures, privatisation and poverty the Coalition government has inflicted on the working […]

DAVID CAMERON could yet meet his poll tax moment. His latest outrage, the bedroom tax, is igniting massive discontent. The Welfare Reform Act includes an attempt to snatch back housing benefit from anyone deemed to be living with a spare bedroom, including disabled people and low-income families. In areas like the North West tenants cannot […]

Read issue 369 here THE COALITION government is determined to start 2013 as it means to go on: by making workers, benefit claimants, pensioners and young people pay for the ongoing economic crisis. Austerity is now set to last till 2018 at least. A decade of pain. Not for themselves of course. This government has […]

Read the PDF version of our bulletin From Rebecca Allen and Jeremy Drinkall, candidates for the new steering committee to be elected on 17 November, on behalf of Workers Power Dear Brothers, Sisters and Comrades, We welcome the Unite the Resistance conference on 17 November as a chance to bring together the different struggles and […]

When the Tories cobbled together the Con-Dem Coalition in May 2010, they were clear about how they were going to tackle the economic downturn – by making the working class pay for the capitalist crisis. With the Lib Dems limping lamely behind them, the Tories set their plan to rip society apart and rebuild it in […]

The continent is still deep in recession. Coordinated by Germany, France and the European Commission and Central Bank, savage austerity is being imposed on its weaker economies. KD Tait looks at resistance in Portugal and Greece and opposition in France to the new Fiscal Treaty. The southern states of the European Union – Portugal, Italy and […]

The 1926 General Strike is rich in lessons for today. Dave Stockton looks at how the ruling class prepared for it while the unions leaders did not. In the mid-1920s the Miners Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) had almost a million members, and was the militant core of the working class movement. Coal was still […]

The Trades Union Congress has agreed to consider the practicality of a general strike in response to the government’s austerity programme. Their first step should be to ask their 6 million members what they think. Are they willing to take action in defence of jobs, wages, pensions, health and education? The entire left should be […]

Forty years ago, four London dockers were arrested and held in north London’s Pentonville Prison. The next morning a fifth was arrested outside while protesting at their arrest. Yet within five days the Pentonville Five were freed by a wave of unofficial action and the threat of a general strike. Dave Stockton looks at the […]

  Statement of the League for the Fifth International 20 August 2012 The League for the Fifth International condemns the brutal massacre – reminiscent of the Apartheid era – of 34 striking miners at the Marikana platinum mine, Rustenburg, South Africa. We condemn the actions of the British-based Lonmin owners for refusing to negotiate an […]

By Mark Booth AFTER A TURBULENT week of union executive meetings, 300 militants packed into Friends Meeting House for an emergency conference to fight the pensions sell out. It soon became clear to everyone at Unite the Resistance’s gathering that the PCS and NUT leaders would not be calling more strikes in the next few […]

Workers Power leaflet for the picket lines and protests on N30 • No concessions on pensions • Link up all the struggle against all the cuts • With the officials where possible, without them where necessary • Forward to a general strike to bring down the Tories

In the last days a general strike has rocked Egypt. The strike movement illustrates how the Egyptian revolution is entering a new phase, as workers come to the fore of the struggle to dislodge the military junta from power. Here we publish the statement of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, who have led […]

Massive student protests and strikes have rocked Chile as people fight back against education cuts by the unpopular right wing government, write Jeremy Dewar and Dave Stockton

Mass anger has again hit the streets of Athens in a general strike against the austerity measures killing the country. John Bowman reports for socialistrevolution.org

Resistance is growing to Cameron and Clegg’s vicious cuts programme. There is a wave of enthusiasm for the 30 June strikes – civil servants from the PCS union, teachers and education workers from the UCU, NUT and ATL unions are all gearing up to take coordinated action alongside one another. They are taking action against […]

Jeremy Dewar outlines a strategy for how to go forward after the co-ordinated strikes on June 30 In this issue of Workers Power we take a detailed look at the unions in preparation for the coordinated strikes on 30 June, because we recognise that this represents a key moment in the fight to stop the […]

We need mass strikes to beat the cuts, argues Jeremy Dewar. So how can we get them?

The TUC came under pressure today to call a 24-hour general strike against the coalition government’s all-out assault on workers and future generations “before it’s too late”, writes Louise Nousratpour at morningstaronline.co.uk Read more…

THE FIGHT against the cuts is taking a big step forward on 30 June, with a string of unions now pledging to shut the country down in a mass public sector strike, writes Jeremy Drinkall

The Public and Commercial Services Union has played a leading role in calling for the co-ordinated public sector strike on 30 June, writes Rebecca Allan, PCS rep

Teachers and council workers from Tower Hamlets called on their leaders to organise general strike action today in a mass rally after 2,000 trade unionists, joined by the local community marched against cuts. Council workers in purple Unison jackets were joined by school banners, behind which marched school children, parents and lots of teachers carrying […]

There is a serious debate going on within the movement about how to beat the cuts, write Jeremy Drinkall and Richard Brenner. Different strategies are being proposed but there is one thing that the TUC and Tories certainly agree on – nobody is talking about a general strike (or are they?)

Over the next four years the Tories and the Liberal Democrats want to destroy the welfare state as we know it, writes editor Simon Hardy

Mandate? No WAY. Cameron and Clegg do not have the voters’ backing for their vicious cuts package – the deepest in British history. Their Coalition only has a majority in Parliament because of Lib Dem support, and the Lib Dems only won votes because they promised to oppose the cuts. What’s more, no one voted […]

“No one was talking about a general strike.” This is how Brendan Barber opened his account of the 28 January TUC summit to a BBC radio interviewer. How odd, I wonder, how many other people start a report with a denial? It reminded me of Len McCluskey’s article in The Guardian just before Christmas. He […]