Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
SUPERYACHTS have been the refuge of the super-rich during the Covid-19 pandemic.
While ordinary workers across the world suffered the economic effects of multiple lockdowns and others, particularly in healthcare, were saving lives or even risking their own, the wealthy have taken to sea in order to escape lockdowns and travel restrictions.
Much of the travel and leisure industry has been severely curtailed by governments closing their borders or imposing quarantines on arrivals.
MARTYN GRAY asks TUC congress to endorse measures that would help stop the present exploitation of seafarers
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR
KEVAN NELSON reveals how, through its Organising to Win strategy, which has launched targeted campaigns like Pay Fair for Patient Care, Britain’s largest union bucked the trend of national decline by growing by 70,000 members in two years


