STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
Latest editorial
Solving unions’ entrenched identity crisis
This is an important book dealing with an important subject of critical concern to all labour movement activists, writes MARY DAVIS
ALL CHANGE: Sharon Graham on the picket line with Weetabix workers
CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity
The bard mourns the loss of comrades and troubadours, and looks for consolation with Black Country Jess
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, Parthenope, Where Dragons Live and Thunderbolts* reviewed by MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE
Arise: Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence
Jane Holgate
Pluto Press, £16.99
TAKING her cue from Hobsbawm’s analysis of the decline in trade union power, Holgate seeks to address the same problem — namely why trade union power has continued to decline since 1979, and whether this means that trade unionism in the 21st century requires “a fundamental rethink about the structure and strategy of trade union organising.”
Holgate’s book centres on how trade unions organise and the main organising models that have been adopted during the past 40 or so years in response to union decline.
She analyses these models and finds them deficient in that they ignore what, for her, is the vital question — the locus of power.
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Despite some steps forward for women’s rights, the tasks ahead remain daunting as in many parts of the world these rights are being eroded and the clock is being turned back, argues MARY DAVIS
