As the RMT Health and Safety Conference takes place, the union is calling for urgent action on crisis of work-related stress, understaffing and the growing threat of workplace assaults. RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY explains
Waiting for Nothing
A “LOST” US classic of Depression-era fiction has been republished by Scottish imprint The Common Breath.
Tom Kromer wrote Waiting for Nothing in 1935, a fictional account of life among the homeless, the soup kitchens and the “Hooverville” encampments, which Kromer knew from personal experience.
It is a bit like John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novels — which it predates — only with a hard-boiled prose that is so spare and accurate it feels close to Samuel Beckett.
Similar stories
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD introduces the creator of the Good Food Guide, communist and crime fiction writer – Raymond Postgate
With most of recorded history dominated by the voices of men, LYNNE WALSH encourages sisters to read the memoirs of women – and to write their own too
MARIA DUARTE recommends a tense thriller that uses Palestinian characters to explore the predicament of migrants in Europe



