YANA PETTICREW explains what’s behind the strike and how the entire sector rests on super-exploiting an unorganised workforce
When female workers enforced Britain's first minimum wage
MAT COWARD recalls a time when imaginative employment of newsreels helped secure a memorable victory for an industrial action by the chainmakers
(L to R) Handbill for an April 11 1910 National Federation of Women Workers meeting to discuss the chainmakers' strike, with Macarthur's name, as president of the federation, prominent; Mary Macarthur addressing the crowds during the chainmakers' strike, Cradley Heath, Sandwell, West Midlands, England, 1910
[(L to R) Anonymous/Public domain - Edwin Beech/Black Country Living Museum/CC] 
BILL KIDD MSP says increasing Britain’s nuclear arsenal at this time is dangerous and expensive folly
ROGER McKENZIE asks whether the US’s shift to targeting everyone at once will instil greater co-operation among rising powers
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the government’s proposals to further limit the right of citizens to trial by jury
As we mark the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, JOHN WIGHT reflects on the enormity of the US decision to drop the atom bombs
DIANE ABBOTT explodes the anti-migrant myths perpetrated by cynical politicians and an irresponsible mass media
YOU might well be tempted to set up The National Anti-Sweating League after getting stuck in a tunnel on the rush-hour Northern Line, but a century ago “sweating” had a particular meaning.
In 1899, the House of Lords committee on sweating (look, I’m sorry, but if you're going to giggle every time, we'll be here forever) defined sweatshop labour by three criteria: it was underpaid, the hours were excessive, and the working conditions were unhealthy.
The point being that they meant bad pay, long days and crap conditions that were dramatically worse than the already dreadful norm.
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