Hospital Managers have always regarded On-call fees as expensive, but have never been prepared to take the even more expensive approach of employing enough staff to run a proper round-the-clock service. Consequently the old Out-of-Hours (OOH) question gets hauled out every few years for another fruitless run around the block. However the current attempts to […]

Thousands of teachers thronged Markham Street in Westminster between the Home Office and Department for Education, writes Bernie McAdam, NUT. Some started jumping up and down as loud calls rang out for “Gove to go”. You could feel the frisson in the air as the police did not quite know what was going to happen […]

16 October 2013 – by a CWU postal rep It was announced this afternoon that postal workers have voted four to one for a strike to defend their wages, conditions and jobs in a newly privatised Royal Mail. The postal Communication Workers Union (CWU) has announced the first strike date for the 4 November. The […]

By a CWU postal rep If all the local areas currently on strike and all militants across the union were to walk out, coordinate their actions and appeal for everyone to come out, postal workers could still wreck privatisation and defend jobs and the union. CWU leaders Dave Ward and Billy Hayes would object that […]

By Rebecca Anderson This year’s Tory party conference saw a bonfire of human rights, welfare and hope for an end to austerity. Chancellor George Osborne revised his deficit reduction estimate and announced a further seven years of cuts; Home Secretary Theresa May announced plans to scrap the Human Rights Act; and Prime Minister David Cameron […]

By Bernie McAdam The teachers’ unions NUT and NASUWT called the second and third of their regional strikes this month as they step up their fight against Education Secretary Michael Gove’s attacks on their pay, pensions and workload. Teachers from the Eastern, Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside areas took one-day strike action on 1 October. […]

By Martin Suchanek, Gruppe Arbeitermacht “A huge victory for the international community” – that is what US President Barack Obama called the 27 September United Nations Security Council Resolution 2118 on chemical weapons in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also praised the document to the skies, while German Foreign […]

By a CWU postal rep The Coalition have put two fingers up to Royal Mail workers and the great majority of the population who oppose privatisation. They have gone straight for a sell-off, and of all the days they could have picked to announce it, they chose the day the result of the CWU postal […]

The Left Party Platform in Left Unity has called a public meeting on 17 October “to present the case for a broad left party”. Dave Stockton argues why this should not be our model   Workers Power shares one thing at least with the framers of the Left Party Platform. We want to see a […]

  By KD Tait The Revolutionary Socialists, formed around a core of former Socialist Worker Student Societies (SWSS) groups, have hit the ground running with successful interventions during Freshers’ Fairs at universities in Leicester, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Sheffield. With meetings of up to 50 students, three local zines launched, and a large presence on […]

    By Jeremy Dewar   Ed Miliband surprised supporters and opponents at the Labour Party conference this year. If they were expecting a copying of the Coalition’s policies, and defiant rhetoric aimed at the unions, then they were well wide of the mark. The sense that this was a break from Tony Blair’s New […]

  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, […]

At its meeting in June, the National Coordinating Group of Left Unity decided that platforms, with a minimum of ten signatures, could put resolutions to the November founding conference. In the course of the summer, three platforms, the Left Party Platform, the Socialist Platform and the Class Struggle Platform have been submitted and have sparked […]