Head of education, campaigns and organising for the General Federation of Trade Unions HENRY FOWLER explains why it is launching a fund to support trades councils and give them access to a new range of courses and resources
Latest editorial
Automation and closures are challenges – but failure does not have to be inevitable
SHARON GRAHAM of Unite the Union explains how rebuilding the shop stewards’ movement will help develop meaningful industrial power in an age of growing jobs uncertainty
A robot appears before a parliamentary select committee last year
While working people face austerity, arms companies enjoy massive government contracts, writes ARTHUR WEST, exposing how politicians exaggerate the Russian threat to justify spending on a sector that has the lowest employment multiplier
ANYA COOK reports from the Newcastle citizens’ assembly, where over 240 people gathered to create a people’s manifesto ahead of next year’s local elections – part of former mayor Jamie Driscoll’s Majority movement
While claiming to target fraud, Labour’s snooping Bill strips benefit recipients of privacy rights and presumption of innocence, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE, warning that algorithms with up to 25 per cent error rates could wrongfully investigate and harass millions of vulnerable people
Real security comes from having a secure base at home — Keir Starmer’s reckless and renegade decision to get Britain deeper into the proxy war against Russia is as dangerous as it is wasteful, writes SALLY SPIERS
The plan is to stigmatise and destabilise South Africa in preparation for breaking it up while creating a confused and highly racialised atmosphere around immigration in the US to aid in denying rights to non-white refugees, explains EMILE SCHEPERS
ALAN SIMPSON warns that Starmer’s triangulation strategy will fail just as New Labour’s did, with each rightward move by Labour pushing Tories further right
TODAY as trade unionists our most significant, long-term challenges arguably have very little to do with the political circus surrounding Brexit.
The continued crisis in wages, the rise of contingent and outsourced work that so badly fragments our labour market, the job threat from the dawn of industry 4.0 and the corresponding decline of collective bargaining that has helped underpin this all. We face many serious problems but they are not insurmountable and managed decline does not have to be inevitable.
Among all of this, one thing is for certain. If we want to drive up living standards, we will face a fight for jobs and possibly for the future of work itself.
More from this author
Unite general secretary SHARON GRAHAM says we should be wary of politicians talking of 'growth' when its rewards are all diverted to the pockets of the rich
Once again workers are being forced to pay for a crisis not of their own making – but when our movement works together we can take on the unscrupulous employers, argues Unite leader SHARON GRAHAM
Putting our faith in this or that political leader is no strategy at all: in the face of poverty wages now and workers’ lives being put on the line during Covid, our only option is directly organising for class power ourselves, writes SHARON GRAHAM
The Morning Star publishes an exclusive preview of new Unite leader SHARON GRAHAM'S address to the TUC Congress tomorrow
