Latest editorial
Dockworker Meikysha Wright and others strike outside the Virginia International Gateway in Portsmouth, Virginia, US, October 1, 2024
A WAR of words broke out between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and employer’s body the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) as dockers walked out yesterday at 36 ports on the country’s east coast.
The strike by around 45,000 workers is expected to cost the US economy $5 billion (£4bn) a day.
The union accused the USMX, which represents companies operating in ocean terminals and port operators, of making “low-balled” pay offers and violating the previous contract by introducing automation at several US ports.
Four decades on, the Wapping dispute stands as both a heroic act of resistance and a decisive moment in the long campaign to break trade union power. Lord JOHN HENDY KC looks back on the events of 1986
Organised workers at the notoriously anti-union global giant are scoring victory after victory, and now international bodies are pitching in to finally force this figurehead of corporate capitalism to give in to unionisation, writes EMILIO AVELAR
MARTYN GRAY asks TUC congress to endorse measures that would help stop the present exploitation of seafarers
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