TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
AT the very moment he was getting one of the world’s most prestigious awards — a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” — Reverend William Barber, co-leader of the New Poor People’s Campaign, was getting arrested in Chicago’s Loop while demanding McDonald’s workers get $15 an hour and the right to unionise.
Somehow, it seemed fitting: Barber has been campaigning for workers’ rights and civil rights from the day he started Moral Mondays in North Carolina years ago to oppose the anti-worker, anti-minority, white supremacist actions of the Republican-dominated state legislature.
Now he’s got nationwide recognition of a higher order — and $625,000 over five years to plough into the campaign, if he wants — for that drive.
Trade unions and community groups are mobilising to push back against Trump’s racist raids after new revelations of spying on legal protesters. MARK GRUENBERG reports from the US state of Minnesota
The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse and union member, has sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls from National Nurses United to dismantle Ice and related agencies, says MARK GRUENBERG
Organised workers at the notoriously anti-union global giant are scoring victory after victory, and now international bodies are pitching in to finally force this figurehead of corporate capitalism to give in to unionisation, writes EMILIO AVELAR


