RMT leader Eddie Dempsey's stark warning shook up a fringe meeting at the Scottish TUC
Engie: low-wage contractors and the NHS
SOLOMON HUGHES looks at the French firm drafted in by the privateers to run security in our hospitals and its empty commitment to the Living Wage
French connection: Engie is expanding its grip on the public sector in Britain
Incredibly, US Republican states are systematically dismantling child labour protections, with children transformed back into the cheap, disposable workers of the Dickens era, reports ANDREW MURRAY
KYRIL WHITTAKER looks at what guides Vietnam 50 years after reunification
Scotland’s rapidly growing support for Reform UK is the result of a profound crisis of trust in mainstream politics — one that progressives share, and must harness, writes DEREK THOMSON
COLL McCAIL rejects the Scottish Establishment’s attempt at an ‘elite lockout’ of Reform UK and says the unions should be wary of co-option by their class enemies in Holyrood just to keep one set of austerity-mongers in power instead of Reform UK
That Scotland was an active participant and beneficiary of colonialism and slavery is not a question of blame games and guilt peddling, but a crucial fact assessing the class nature of the questions of devolution and independence, writes VINCE MILLS
The devastating impact of austerity has left Scotland’s education system on its knees, argues ANDREA BRADLEY, urging politicians to show courage by increasing wealth taxation to fund our schools properly
CONTRACTED-OUT security guards at Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester have voted to strike for equal pay with their NHS colleagues in a dispute that shows what is wrong with Britain’s “crony capitalism.”
The guards work at Tameside — but they work for a multinational corporation called Engie. Thanks to both New Labour and Tory privatisation, many workers who run our public services are actually employed by the private sector: the big corporations squeeze their profits out of our NHS, our taxes and their work.
According to their union, Unison, the Tameside guards are paid less than NHS rates. Some are paid only the minimum wage rate of £8.72 an hour, or lower for under-25s.
More from this author
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
Why is the Labour government so addicted to giving government jobs to Tories when it spent so long trying to oust them? In the hope the favour is returned the next time the Tories return to power, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
Israel’s number one death dealer supplying the IDF in its murderous campaigns against the Palestinians is now actively wining and dining our military top brass, looking to flog its blood-soaked wares, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
