ANDREW MURRAY wonders what the great communist foe of Oswald Mosley would make of today’s far-right surge, warning that while the triumph of Farage and ‘Robinson’ is far from inevitable, placing any faith in Starmer in an anti-fascist front is a fool’s errand
Taking a stand for proper pay
Outsourced workers at Princess Royal hospital are fighting back against appalling treatment by their employer, ISS. They deserve our full support, writes HELEN O’CONNOR
The picket line outside the Princess Royal hospital
LOTTE COLLETT welcomes the arrival of a new party for the left, a vehicle for councils to finally fight for progressive policies on housing, green spaces and public facilities, rather than administering cuts and misery from central government
KEVAN NELSON reports back from a delegation to the epic celebrations for the anniversary of Vietnam’s 1945 revolution, where British communists found a thriving, prosperous socialist country, brimming with ambition and well-earned national pride
Our economic system is broken – and unless we break with the government’s obsession with short-termist private profit, things are destined to get worse, warns Mercedes Villalba
Following the resignation of Nepali Prime Minister KP Oli amid mass youth-driven protests, different narratives have circulated which simplify and misrepresent the complexities and reality on the ground in Nepal at the roots of this crisis, argue VIJAY PRASHAD and ATUL CHANDRA
The US is desperate to stop Honduras’s process of social and democratic change, writes TIM YOUNG
DOMESTICS, porters and catering staff, employed by outsourcing giant ISS, are moving deeper into a trade dispute in Princess Royal hospital in Kent and this week they are taking their first 48 hours of strike action.
The story of these vital hospital staff serves as a reminder that there is no such thing as good privatisation. The one thing that breaks a pay deadlock is organising a workforce properly, within a union to take militant action against the worker exploitation and deterioration of services that is integral to outsourcing.
Princess Royal is a private finance initiave (PFI) hospital, which means that three separate parties, the NHS trust, ISS and the PFI leads are given the ability to blame each other for pay stagnation and the workers being driven downwards into poverty.
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
