Broad lefts and rank-and-file groups

Cinema workers at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton have announced 11 April as the date for the first strike in their dispute over pay. Members of BECTU at the cinema have conducted a long-running campaign to win the London Living Wage of £8.80 an hour. The typical hourly rate at the Ritzy is currently £7.24. Workers voted to strike by an 85% majority. Sparks win contract fight Electricians working at a Network Rail construction site in Three Bridges, Sussex won new contracts following a wildcat strike on 4 April. Following attempts by the agency through with they were employed to worsen their terms...

Nominations for General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) close on 30 April. Martin Powell-Davies, secretary of Lewisham NUT, is standing as the left candidate for General Secretary, with the support of the rank-and-file activists’ network Lanac, along with Patrick Murphy (Leeds NUT secretary and an AWL member) for Deputy General Secretary. The NUT plans a one-day national strike on 26 March, but the condition of the union’s campaign against education minister Michael Gove’s frenzy of right-wing policies underlines the need for a left challenge in the union elections and a...

The Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC), the rank-and-file network in the National Union of Teachers (NUT), held its latest conference in Leicester on 1 February. NUT National Executive member Patrick Murphy reported that there would now be a national strike before the end of March, with the date to be announced on 7 February. Promises to follow the three well-supported regional strikes last year with a joint national strike by NUT and NASUWT have now been broken twice by the two unions. All delegates agreed that the immediate priority now was to build for the March strike, but...

Unite is the UK’s largest trade union, with approximately 1.5 million members in industries as diverse as cabin crew, speech therapy, power stations, and car production. It has 100 full-time organisers, organising workers in mainly unorganised workplaces and industries. Its General Secretary Len McCluskey boasts that he has never blocked or repudiated a strike during his tenure and its “leverage” campaigns have seen noisy protests and intense lobbying beating the likes of Honda, London Buses, and major contractors and firms in the construction industry. Yet Unite still suffers from the same...

The Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC) will hold a campaign conference in Leicester on Saturday 1 February. LANAC is the rank-and-file network which has been central to organising resistance to the National Union of Teachers (NUT) leadership’s conservatism and vacillation in the ongoing dispute over pay, pensions, and workload. The main strategy motion proposed to the conference calls for the NUT to adopt a strategy that includes: • A calendar of ongoing national action – not just isolated strike days • Escalation from one to two-day action – warning Gove that more could...

Britain’s two main teaching unions have pulled back for a second time from a promise of joint national strikes. Following regional strikes in October 2013, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) assured members there would be a joint national strike before Christmas 2013. That commitment was reneged on, superficially because Michael Gove offered “talks”. Both unions publicly committed, in writing, to striking nationally no later than 13 February if those talks failed to yield serious concessions. Although there is no sign...

Trade union activists working in Higher Education have set up the "University Worker" blog as a forum for discussing the current pay dispute. The blog says it will "help keep up the cross-union co-operation fostered by our first strike on 31st October. It is open to members of any and all of the Higher Education unions (UCU, Unison, Unite, EIS, etc)." Read the blog here .

The steering committee of the Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC), a rank-and-file network in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) met on 23 November in Nottingham. The meeting was attended by over 20 delegates from NUT associations (branches), and others. Its main discussion was on the union’s ongoing dispute over pay, workload, and pensions. Delegates discussed how to revive national action, and how to build a real campaign over workload. LANAC will circulate a model motion calling for national strikes, and for the union to promote local strikes over workload, and to...

Unison United Left, a left-wing grouping in the public sector union Unison, has recently split, with some of its leading figures planning to form a new organisation. A statement announcing the split is online here . AWL supports this move, but believes more clarity is needed about the reasons for the split and the basis of the new organisation. In a spirit of comradeship and support, we have written the following statement. WHY AWL SUPPORTS A NEW RANK-AND-FILE INITIATIVE IN UNISON For many years, AWL members active in Unison have said that Unison United Left (UUL) has been a completely...

Earlier this summer, Max Watson, Chair of London Met Unison, and on the National Executive Council, wrote on his blog an article entitled “IWGB: Two small unions?” . Max documents the behaviour of the IWGB (Independent Workers union of Great Britain) trade union at London Met – claiming poaching, duplicity, and more. He goes on to draw parallels with a collection of workers and campaign I am heavily involved with at the University of London, based at Senate House in Bloomsbury (I am the Youth Officer of the Unison branch, and an IWGB member). The campaign is called "Tres Cosas” (“three things”...