While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
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We must force their hand with a workers’ bill of rights
The government is openly committed to meeting the social and financial crisis with attacks on working people rather than reform. That is why we must now launch our own programme, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
Detailing the deluge of delusion and dishonesty pushed by the pro-war camp, IAN SINCLAIR identifies four key tactics corporate journalists use to confuse audiences and suppress opposition to the proxy war in the east
From ‘moral duty’ to ‘military Keynesianism,’ Labour manipulates language to justify slashing welfare but pouring billions into warfare, condemning communities like Glasgow South West to deeper poverty, writes MATT KERR
With politicians dismissing constituents’ fears of global war, the peace movement must look beyond Parliament to prevent catastrophe, writes TOM MORRISON
The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
RISING food, energy and housing costs and the falling value of wages mean that workers’ living standards are under attack. So are their legal rights. The government refuses to introduce an Employment Bill, promised in 2019, and is currently on course to remove a large body of workers’ rights derived from EU law, including the right to paid holidays.
The government is also attacking trade union rights, with further restrictions designed to undermine the ability of workers to fight back. Yet British workers are already among the least protected in the developed world, and British employers are among the most powerful.
British workplaces have been plagued for years by zero-hours or work-on-demand contracts, flexible contractual terms giving wide-ranging powers to managers to dictate when, where and how work is to be done, fire-and-rehire allowing employers to reduce pay and working conditions, and, at P&O Ferries, the emergence of fire-and-replace as a corporate tactic.
More from this author
Labour’s long-awaited Employment Rights Bill does not do nearly enough to remove the restraints on trade unions or to give them the powers they need to make a significant difference to the lives of the millions of workers, write KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC
Professor Keith Ewing and Lord John Hendy KC examine the new deal for workers outlined in the King's Speech and what should follow it
We know the legislation intends to compel unions to force a ‘minimum’ number of workers over their own picket line, but how exactly is not clear, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
by Professor Keith Ewing and Lord Hendy KC
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Falling short of what was promised: many of the new rights in the Employment Rights Bill have defects or escape loopholes that all need addressing, writes LORD JOHN HENDY KC
The Employment Rights Bill is a vital opportunity to rebalance power between workers and employers. As it passes to the Lords, pressure must be brought to bear to strengthen this key legislation, argues ANDY McDONALD MP
Labour’s long-awaited Employment Rights Bill does not do nearly enough to remove the restraints on trade unions or to give them the powers they need to make a significant difference to the lives of the millions of workers, write KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC
Professor Keith Ewing and Lord John Hendy KC examine the new deal for workers outlined in the King's Speech and what should follow it