We can't move forward as a progressive society, until we break away from our neoliberal past, says CHRIS WILLIAMSON
Latest editorial
We must fight to defend the rights we had under the EU
In the face of Tory machinations under the guise of a 'review,' the Scottish government and trade unions are opposing any downgrading of our employment protections, reports CHRIS STEPHENS MP
We can be confident that if the Tories were intent on protecting workers’ rights, they would simply maintain those already enshrined in EU law — rather than ploughing ahead with a review and selecting what they want to keep
Why did so many self-described progressives respond to an anti-semitic attack by questioning the victims, asks JULIA BARD
Austerity is breaking the education system. We must unite to save our schools and pay our teachers properly, says NEU national president ED HARLOW
A nationwide mobilisation signals growing resistance to the far right, but lasting change will depend on deep organising in every corner of society, writes GAWAIN LITTLE
Marx’s early lectures on economics, together with Engels’s additions, provide a valuable introduction to Marxist political economy today, writes the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Art matters because stories, herstories, histories, and even flights of fancy matter, posits MATT KERR
I AM finalising this column on Burns Day morning, a day when many Scots celebrate our national bard, Robert Burns. Rather fittingly, the issue of workers’ rights was to be debated in the House of Commons later on. An appropriate occasion given the bard’s radical instincts and his call for workers’ representatives and women to be elected to Parliament; a call made long before trade unionists and women entered the green benches.
I am also finalising this column just having received confirmation that my name has not been taken for the call list to speak in this debate — an innovation introduced due to Covid-19 restrictions. I will outline below some of the key points I would have raised if called.
Regardless of one’s own view of Brexit, it was always a suspicion that the Farages, Patels, Johnsons and other hard-right figures saw it as a vehicle to eradicate employment rights. Indeed, many of them said so.
Similar stories
In part IV of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY tells how austerity minister Francis Maude’s attempt to destroy the PCS Civil Service union totally backfired
Employment lawyer ALICE BOWMAN warns ‘day one rights’ include an undefined ‘initial period’ and the zero-hours contract fixes create baffling fixed-term loopholes. If the Bill doesn’t work properly and deliver, Labour is doomed
The Bill addresses some exploitation but leaves trade unions heavily regulated, most workers without collective bargaining coverage, and fails to tackle the balance of power that enables constant mutation of bad practice, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
BFAWU general secretary SARAH WOOLLEY highlights a catalogue of health and safety failings at the Mowi fish processing plant in Fife