Head of education, campaigns and organising for the General Federation of Trade Unions HENRY FOWLER explains why it is launching a fund to support trades councils and give them access to a new range of courses and resources
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Wilko: the killing-off of our high streets
It's clear ‘market forces’ cannot be trusted with our workplaces, our essential shops and our communities — we need to look at worker control and co-operative ownership models, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE MP
A man walks past the closed Wilko store in Barking, east London
While working people face austerity, arms companies enjoy massive government contracts, writes ARTHUR WEST, exposing how politicians exaggerate the Russian threat to justify spending on a sector that has the lowest employment multiplier
ANYA COOK reports from the Newcastle citizens’ assembly, where over 240 people gathered to create a people’s manifesto ahead of next year’s local elections – part of former mayor Jamie Driscoll’s Majority movement
While claiming to target fraud, Labour’s snooping Bill strips benefit recipients of privacy rights and presumption of innocence, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE, warning that algorithms with up to 25 per cent error rates could wrongfully investigate and harass millions of vulnerable people
Real security comes from having a secure base at home — Keir Starmer’s reckless and renegade decision to get Britain deeper into the proxy war against Russia is as dangerous as it is wasteful, writes SALLY SPIERS
The plan is to stigmatise and destabilise South Africa in preparation for breaking it up while creating a confused and highly racialised atmosphere around immigration in the US to aid in denying rights to non-white refugees, explains EMILE SCHEPERS
ALAN SIMPSON warns that Starmer’s triangulation strategy will fail just as New Labour’s did, with each rightward move by Labour pushing Tories further right
IN SOLIDARITY, we must enable the development of worker-recovered companies and the government must act to support retail workers and to protect local high streets and communities that depend on them.
These are the clear lessons following the collapse of yet another major high street chain — and one on which many struggling people relied for low-cost essentials.
Offers from various investors to buy Wilko, which was founded in Leicester in 1930, have fallen through, and all 400 of the retailer’s stores are now set to disappear from our high streets by early October, putting around 12,500 staff out of work through no fault of their own.
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