Say no to shoddy British Airways deal!

Rallies and demonstrations are due to take place across the country, as part of a growing grassroots revolt by nurses and health workers excluded from a recent public sector pay rise

The divide in Unite's dominant faction deepens.

Royal Mail is in the red - our answer must be renationalisation

As unemployment rockets, union rank & file and unemployed must launch fightback.

The answer to a Royal Mail in the red is renationalisation not cuts

Royal Mail's attempt to cut the postal service has been thwarted by the threat of walkouts.

In the DWP we should veto work that sanctions or penalises claimants and demand Universal Credit is paid on the first day, in advance, not six weeks in arrears. In the Home Office – end deportations and close the detention centres

To the surprise of many, when CWU leaders Dave Ward and Terry Pullinger announced the ballot result to members on Facebook,[2] they said they would not set dates for a strike, explaining that “it’s not the right moment for us at this particular point to take industrial action”. Since then Terry has said “we’ve got no choice in the matter”, citing the “unprecedented circumstances” of the coronavirus crisis.

Today the High Court granted Royal Mail an injunction to stop postal workers striking. This is an attack on the entire trade union movement. At this crossroads, an unofficial strike with the support of the CWU and the entire Labour and trade union movement points the way to victory.

The ‘deal’ agreed between the leader’s office and the trade unions is another stitch-up organised behind the backs of members, who should reject this unworkable policy

Differences within Left Unity, the ruling faction of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), have prompted the Socialist Party to launch a faction within that faction, the Broad Left Network. At the same time, the PCS Rank and File Network is being launched. This raises the question of how best to organise in the unions – rank and file or broad left?

Over the past seven years cleaners and security guards at London’s most prestigious universities have been fighting a relentless and courageous struggle for basic rights: the London Living Wage, sickness, holiday and maternity pay, workplace conditions, and end to contracting out and union recognition.

July 15 witnessed the first reading of the Tories’ new anti-union bill – effectively a series of amendments to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (1992). The Trade Union Bill aims to make what Tony Blair once called “the most draconian anti-union laws in Europe”, harsher still. David Cameron’s “slip of the tongue,” […]

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 […]

Over the past year or two the failure of the union leaders – left as well as right – to call the escalating and united action they have promised at the TUC and union conferences, and the catastrophic retreat without a fight at Grangemouth, underline the importance of not relying on, or waiting for these […]

  In the last issue of Workers Power, Tim Nelson of the International Socialist Network (ISN) wrote an article in favour of building a rank and file movement. Andrew Bebbington, also of the ISN, has provided a thought-provoking response. This is just the sort of debate on vital questions of revolutionary programme and tactics that […]

There is renewed interest in rank and file trade unionism among sections of the far left at the moment. Here we publish a guest article by Tim Nelson of the International Socialist Network (ISN) as a contribution towards future joint work   There is currently a debate within the socialist movement about the trade union […]

  Editorial – Workers Power No.375 / November 2013 By Jeremy Dewar In any period of time – be it the term of a government or a trade union general secretary’s career – a moment comes when, amidst the welter of events, a home truth emerges. At the end of October, Unite leader Len McCluskey […]

JERRY HICKS HAS delivered a sensational blow to Len McCluskey, scoring a massive 36 per cent of the vote in the election for the General Secretary of Unite, Britain’s biggest union, writes Jeremy Dewar Although Jerry didn’t win, the 50 per cent increase in the avowedly rank and file candidate’s poll will have sent shivers […]

  Here we set out what we think grassroots militants and socialists in Unite should be uniting around to fight for a union which is democratic from below, willing to oppose all austerity measures, and capable of taking on the Con-Dem coalition. An action programme for Unite Democracy Decisions made at branch meetings and sectoral/national […]