Unions & politics

Trade Unions and politics

List of rallies on 1 February strike day

If you have information that's missing here, or a correction, email us: awl@workersliberty.org ENGLAND Birmingham : Centenary Square B1 2ND, 12 noon AND Conference and Events Centre, Hill Street, Birmingham, B5 4EW, 6pm Bournemouth : rally in town square, BH2 6ED, 12 noon Brighton : assemble at The Level, Brighton, 11am Bristol : assemble outside Defra Horizon House, BS1 5AH, at 10.45 am to march to College Green, BS1 5TJ. Rally there at 12 noon Canterbury : assemble Westgate Hall, Westgate Hall Road, Canterbury CT1 2BT, move off at 11.45 for march around city centre and then back to Westgate...

Unite: disaffiliation attempts continue to simmer

Until 3 February Unite union branches will be nominating candidates for the union’s Executive. Voting is 27 March to 25 April. There are two slates: United Left (UL), and what could be called the Sharon Graham (SG) slate. The United Left, long dominant on the Executive, was always primarily an electoral machine in the tradition of the old Broad Lefts, dominated by the politics of the Morning Star . Apart from a sometimes substantial dissident minority, it was uncritical of Len McCluskey, general secretary 2011-21. It declined, then was thrown into disarray when Steve Turner, its candidate in...

Glasgow Labour bars workers' leader, okays council leader who attacked workers

Shona Thomson, Glasgow workers' leader, barred from Glasgow Labour selection Presiding over a pay scheme which discriminates against women workers is no barrier to being selected as Labour candidate for election to Westminster. But being a leader of the strike which put an end the scheme does not prevent you from being disqualified at the first stage of selection. And you can be old enough to join the army and kill people – but simultaneously be too young to be selected as a Labour candidate. The decision of Glasgow Shettleston and Glasgow Provan Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) to hold...

UK trade unions speak out for migrant workers

Most national UK trade unions have signed the "Migrant Workers' Pledge" coordinated by migrant rights organisation JCWI . This is very welcome. Trade union activists should push and organise to translate this into much stronger concrete action. We note that GMB and CWU have not signed. We know activists in both are pushing for them to do so. We would also draw attention to the wider demands for migrants' rights and free movement raised by the Labour Campaign for Free Movement , and the model motions for union branches, Labour Parties and other organisations they are promoting. Migrant Workers'...

Anti-strike law fight must start now

Newly “elected” TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak (he was the sole candidate in an election in which the electorate consists only of members of the TUC General Council) has responded to the threat of harsh new anti-strike laws by saying that the TUC will “challenge them legally”, and make the Tories “pay a high political price”. The exact nature of the price, and how payment will be exacted, is not specified. Nowak has also said he doesn’t want to “go back to the 1980s”, implying he opposes the full repeal of all the anti-strike and anti-union laws, despite TUC congress having repeatedly voted...

The strikes must take on politics

Thousands-strong rallies of fire fighters and postal workers organised by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) on 5 and 9 December brought the energy and solidarity of those unions’ disputes together in a concerted and visible way. Both workers and supporters will have been buoyed by the collective show of strength. In addition to workers being brought together from across the country, the images of thousands of fire fighters in uniform packing Westminster Methodist Central Hall, and over 15,000 postal workers in bright pink CWU tabards filling Parliament Square...

New India solidarity group launched

Delhi anganwadi (early years) workers on strike earlier this year About 50 people attended the formal launch of the India Labour Solidarity campaign in London on 6 December. ILS was set up in the summer – its first activity was leafleting at Labour Party conference in September – to “promote solidarity between workers and their trade union and labour movements in the UK and India”. The meeting was chaired by Praveen Kolluguri, a Communication Workers’ Union member in the telecoms sector who is BAME officer of Kingston and Surbiton Labour Party in South London and on the Labour Campaign for...

3 December union rights conference - the labour movement must do better

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch speaking As strikes burgeon in the UK, we are also seeing a resurgence of the decades-long drive to legally suppress strikes. The edifice of multiple anti-union/anti-strike laws introduced under the Thatcher and Major governments was completed by 1993; the 1997-2010 Labour governments did nothing to touch these laws; and the next attack, the Trade Union Act, was not passed till 2016. Then, in July 2022, we had the legalisation of agency labour for strike-breaking, and now an attack on transport workers’ right to strike. The Tories are not moving as fast or on...

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