As women dominate public services yet face pay gaps, unsafe workloads and rising misogyny, this International Women’s Day and TUC Women’s Conference must be a rallying point, says ANDREA EGAN
THE labour movement is facing one of the most vicious attacks in recent history. The Tories’ Minimum Service Levels Act is the latest in a long line of anti-union laws, taking aim at our right to strike. As we celebrate International Workers’ Day, we must be clear-eyed about what is at stake.
The Westminster government is intent on driving down wages and silencing workers who fight for better pay and conditions. They know that workers’ power lies in our ability to organise in our workplaces and to withhold our labour.
The eight-hour day, better pay, safer conditions, the weekend and paid holiday would not exist unless bosses knew we could stop the workplace. Workers who can’t strike, can’t bargain. And if you’re not bargaining, you’re begging.
CWU leader DAVE WARD tells Ben Chacko a strategy to unite workers on class lines is needed – and sectoral collective bargaining must be at its heart
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’
When it comes to extreme weather events, from wildfires to flash floods, it’s firefighters who are on the front line of defence, but services have been cut to the bone, and government is not taking seriously its responsibility for the environment, says STEVE WRIGHT



