FRAN HEATHCOTE believes that while the the Chancellor outlined some positive steps, the government does not appreciate the scale of the cost-of-living crisis affecting working-class people, whose lives are blighted by endemic low pay
Campaigning for workers’ rights in the south west
As trade unionists gather for their annual conference, battles against health service privatisation and exploitation of migrant workers highlight the urgent need to counter Reform’s divisive message, writes KERRY BAIGENT
[Jess Hurd Photography]
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pouring €11.5bn into the Kiev swamp, blocking Trump’s peace plan, and pushing Nato right up to Russia’s borders – no matter if it costs hundreds of thousands of lives, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE
The unifying victory of Irish progressive forces in the presidential campaign should be a salutary lesson to the left in this country, argues MARY GRIFFITHS CLARKE
Martin Taylor, the hedge-fund multimillionaire who has poured millions into pushing Labour rightwards, helped finance Lucy Powell’s supposedly dissenting campaign — suggesting her victory was not the ‘soft-left’ rebellion some have claimed, says SOLOMON HUGHES
A November 15 protest in Mexico – driven by a right-wing social-media operation – has been miscast as a mass uprising against President Sheinbaum. In reality, the march was small, elite-backed and part of a wider attempt to sow unrest, argues DAVID RABY
TRADE UNIONISTS are heading to the South West TUC (SWTUC) annual conference and AGM this weekend to participate in an agenda packed full of guest speakers, workshops and motions. We will be debating a range of important topics, including artificial intelligence, the migrant worker visa campaign, the Employment Rights Bill and the Unison motion against the current proposal to privatise community health services in Bath and NE Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire.
Unison will be speaking to delegates as we ramp up our campaign for Wes Streeting to call in the decision made in October 2024 to hand over community health services to a private healthcare firm affecting 2,000 workers.
HCRG (formerly Virgin Care) are owned by the private equity firm Twenty20 Capital and the contract was awarded without proper consultation and without meeting several legal obligations. This weekend we will be calling on affiliates to sign petitions, lobby councils and make their own submissions to the Secretary of State.
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