From London’s holly-sellers to Engels’s flaming Christmas centrepiece, the plum pudding was more than festive fare in Victorian Britain, says KEITH FLETT
ON MONDAY Sharon Graham will have led the Unite union for 100 days — and she’s certainly hit the ground running.
In that time the union has secured 43 pay deals worth over £25 million covering 12,000 workers.
Many of these are big, above-inflation wins that will make a real difference, from the lowest-paid Bexley refuse workers who secured an 11 per cent increase to rises exceeding 20 and even 30 per cent for some lorry drivers. The deals will add thousands of pounds a year to predominantly low-paid workers’ incomes.
CWU leader DAVE WARD tells Ben Chacko a strategy to unite workers on class lines is needed – and sectoral collective bargaining must be at its heart
Incoming Usdaw general secretary JOANNE THOMAS talks to Ben Chacko about workers’ rights, Labour and how to arrest the decline of the high street
Congress can chart a bold course that will force meaningful transformation for the people of Scotland



