Broad lefts and rank-and-file groups

On 3 October the National Union of Teachers begins its “non-strike” industrial action, a sort of work-to-rule, jointly with the other large teachers’ union, NASUWT. The NUT postponed the start from 26 September, apparently because of some question about whether the legally-due seven days’ notice had been received by all employers. The rank-and-file local associations network LANAC met on 29 September in Leeds to take stock. Almost all delegates agreed that teachers are already winning limited but important victories by demanding head teachers comply with the work-to-rule. Union members are...

Teachers in Chicago, Illinois have launched their first strike for 25 years as they take on city mayor Rahm Emanuel over a raft of issues including potential job losses, changes to healthcare benefits, pay and classroom conditions. The first day of the strike, on Monday 10 September, saw 434 of the city’s 578 schools shut completely, with the remaining 144 only opening for part of the day. The teachers’ union, the Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU), is led by the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), a radical rank-and-file body which has fought for union democracy and militant industrial...

Speaking after the 16 June unofficial meeting of teacher union branch delegates in Liverpool, National Union of Teachers (NUT) Exec member and Barnsley division secretary Roy Bowser said that the meeting “surpassed all my expectations". “More to the point, it was a true outlet for the way most members are feeling. I think behind the rhetoric there is a real base for a rank and file bottom-up push that hopefully will now help shape strategy”. Bowser knows something about union organising: he was active as a coal miner in the 1984-85 miners’ strike. In fact, the network set up from the 16 June...

The 16 June Local Associations conference of school teachers will discuss a statement from its organising committee resolving to “build a network of local associations and school reps that will enable teacher trade unionists to exchange information, debate and discuss strategy... and organise solidarity”. Tom Unterrainer suggests why and how. A rank and file network needs the maximum amount of democracy and accountability as it seeks to test and extend such mechanisms within the union as a whole. On a national level, it should be based on delegates from representative groups of workers — most...

National Union of Teachers activists will meet in Liverpool on Saturday 16 June to found a new network based on local branches (divisions and associations) of the union. The Local Associations for National Action conference is the product of rank-and-file initiatives at this year’s NUT AGM, where teachers angry at the leadership’s caution and ultimate capitulation over the pensions fight organised together to intervene into the conference debate, holding fringe meetings attended by up to 150 people. The conference will discuss a statement drafted by the steering committee elected at the AGM...

Bankers’ and bosses’ pay and bonuses, share prices, and profits have recovered nicely since the sudden crash of 2008-9. This semi-recovery for the bourgeoisie does not come with any economic recovery for the working class. Real wages are going down, and set to go down further. Unemployment is high and not falling. The Government plans even heavier cuts for the next few years than it has made in 2010-2. The economic picture globally (with a slowdown in China and high oil prices) and in Europe determines that the prospect is at best for a long period of economic depression, or possibly for fresh...

I grew up in a working-class neighbourhood on the South Side of Chicago. My Dutch immigrant grandfather, John Cornelius La Botz, became a socialist in Chicago during the Great Depression. As socialists, my father Herb and my uncle Bert La Botz were conscientious objectors to participation in World War II. They were drafted, interned in a camp for conscientious objectors in Big Flats, New York, and there became friends with other socialists, some of whom were associated with Dwight McDonald’s Politics magazine (est. 1944), which had broadly third camp politics. Since I was not born until 9...

On 4 March 2012, the long-held suspicions of hundreds of trade union activists in the construction industry were confirmed when it was revealed that the British state had been colluding with construction contractors to prevent union activists from getting work. The “Consulting Association” (CA), a shadowy body funded by most major construction contractors, held data on numerous individuals which included information that could not have come from anywhere except police records. The CA has also been revealed to be holding an “RMT file”, suggesting that the extent of their data collection could...

The “Unison Unleashed” rank-and-file caucus in the Sheffield local government branch of the public sector union Unison has narrowly missed out on unseating the existing bureaucratic leadership of the branch in the branch’s first election in two years. The existing branch chair, John Mordecai, was re-elected, but by only 410 votes to Unleashed’s 378 for that position. Similarly, for the Branch Communications Officer position there were just 100 votes in it, though Unleashed ran a brand new activist. The branch has been run by Unison’s regional office due to the local bureaucracy’s incompetence...

As Solidarity goes to press on 10 January, the public-sector pensions battle is in the balance. Many unions have expressed dissent with the “final” Government proposals of 19 December. In fact, it seems that the only actual union signatures on a document are the signatures of Unison, GMB and Unite on a joint document with local government employers, and Unite has withdrawn that. Aside from that, even the union leaders keenest to put a lid on the issue are saying no more than that they will negotiate with the Government on its new terms and suspend action in the meantime. Trouble is, that is...