VIJAY PRASHAD examines why in 2018 Washington started to take an increasingly belligerent stance towards ‘near peer rivals’ – Russa and China – with far-reaching geopolitical effects
P&O and freedom of association: a memo to Keir Starmer
A Labour government would be wise to implement new recommendations from the ILO that would protect trade unionists and their right to bargain collectively, writes Professor KEITH EWING
ROGER McKENZIE looks back 60 years to the assassination of Malcolm X, whose message that black people have worth resonated so strongly with him growing up in Walsall in the 1980s
At least 1.5 million tons of crude oil has been spilt in the Niger Delta since 1958, writes PAVAN KULKANI
ANDREW MURRAY surveys a quaking continent whose leaders have no idea how to respond to an openly contemptuous United States
Based on his experience of Haringey Council Councillor MARK BLAKE believes only a radical policy rethink will reconnect councils with the alienated constituencies they are supposed to serve
Last week the CPUSA launched a new Rapid Response project aimed at mobilising a popular resistance to policies enacted by the new government. CAMERON HARRISON explains
ON November 2 2023, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) freedom of association committee released its report on the P&O case. Readers may recall that on March 17 2022, P&O Ferries dismissed 786 seafarers and replaced them with agency workers recruited overseas on terms and conditions of employment greatly inferior to those of the staff they replaced.
To compound the mischief, it was alleged that the staff in question were given letters of instant dismissal and that workers on the vessels at the time of their dismissal were escorted off by hired security, passing replacement crews waiting in coaches nearby.
All this was done without prior notice, without consulting the recognised trade unions, and in breach of collective agreements between the unions and the company.
It will also be recalled that shortly after the decision was taken, P&O was the subject of excoriating criticism and its senior personnel humiliated by parliamentary committees.
More from this author
New writing has underlined the importance of the 1873 case that victimised striking farmworkers and led to a national outcry — yet aspects of the law used against them remain on the books, writes professor KEITH EWING
The latest plans to suppress industrial action are chilling. They are the hallmark of authoritarian government – and worse, argues Prof KEITH EWING
On the 50th anniversary of the jailing the Pentonville Five, Professor KEITH EWING recalls how British governments, Tory and Labour, have systematically adapted the law to suppress legitimate trade union activity
Severely rattled by the ongoing rail dispute, the Tories are looking at ways to force ‘minimum servicing,’ agency strike-breakers and a massive increase in damages onto the unions, writes Professor KEITH EWING
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The defeat reshaped Britain forever. Despite our supposed ability to rely on international agreements instead, successive governments, including Labour of course, have weakened our workplace and legal rights, writes LYDIA HAYES