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
Latest editorial
It’s time to explode myths of privatisation
Far from being ‘more efficient’ and providing ‘choice,’ privateers taking over the public sector have worsened service delivery, and workers rights’ have been utterly compromised on the altar of corporate greed, warns HELEN O’CONNOR
RESOLUTE: GMB ambulance workers in Shropshire on strike last year
The protests against the US presidential visit are over, but the public probably doesn’t know that new US nuclear bombs are now stationed here, putting us all in danger — we have to raise awareness and get them out, writes CND’s KATE HUDSON
In a speech to the 12th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, SEVIM DAGDELEN warns of a growing historical revisionism to whitewash Germany and Japan’s role in WWII as part of a return to a cold war strategy from the West — but multipolarity will win out
CLAUDIA WEBBE argues that Labour gains nothing from its adoption of right-wing stances on immigration, and seems instead to be deliberately paving the way for the far right to become an established force in British politics, as it has already in Europe
DENNIS BROE gives an update on the last week of anti-austerity protests against the Macron regime, which has seen the supposedly more right-leaning Gilets Jaunes join with the unions and the left
JOHN PERRY and FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ unpack the latest propaganda attack on Nicaragua, explaining how a clearly biased, US-backed regime-change NGO used a totally unrepresentative sample and survey methodology to get a ridiculous result
PRIVATISATION of the public sector has a heavy human cost. Myths about “good” privatisation or “socially useful” contracting are not borne out by the real experiences of workers or those using services.
Privatisation means that even the water isn’t safe to drink in certain parts of this country. Thames Water, a company that turned over a cool profit of £2 billion last year, is now lobbying government to increase household water bills by 40 per cent.
Decades of cuts and privatisation have thrown the NHS into crisis. Wherever the private sector is allowed to get a foothold, whether it’s the NHS, councils, schools, waste collection or public utilities, we the public and the workers suffer detriment.
More from this author
As more people on the left are now questioning the sex industry, HELEN O’CONNOR reports from a timely fringe at TUC Congress where women on the front line gave their perspective on why prostitution should never be considered ‘work’
With fascists and their supporters cynically and falsely posing as ‘defenders of women,’ the left must take violence against women seriously and gain a better understanding of women’s oppression, warns HELEN O’CONNOR
As some celebrate a pay rise, outsourced, privatised workers face continued exploitation — ending this injustice by bringing them in-house must become a top priority for the labour movement, writes HELEN O’CONNOR
HELEN O’CONNOR sees a worrying trend of women exiting the labour movement in their thousands, and warns that if this tide is not stemmed with proper and effective action, it will only be to the benefit of the capitalist class
