Since 2010, one in five firefighter jobs has disappeared alongside 30% funding cuts — all while climate breakdown brings record blazes and flooding. It’s time to fund our fire service properly, writes FBU general secretary STEVE WRIGHT
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China’s democracy: how the National People’s Congress works
Western media dismisses the National People’s Congress while ignoring its extensive consultation processes, massive public participation mechanisms, and a tiered structure involving millions of deputies, explains JENNY CLEGG
Closing session of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 11, 2025
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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
Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP
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With 90 courses from health and safety to neurodiversity, AI and political economy, we are helping workers understand the political context of their struggles, writes general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE
CHINA’S nearly 3,000-member National People’s Congress (NPC) has just gathered for its annual meeting in Beijing. Western mainstream media continually disparages China’s main legislature as a “rubber stamp parliament” — mindlessly repeating the phrase to numb readers’ minds to any thought other than that China must be a dictatorship.
That there are other forms of democracy — the idea of democratic centralism, deliberative democracy, has been around for over 100 years — the mainstream media cannot comprehend.
True, the NPC only meets for two weeks a year and never seems to reject any piece of legislation put before it. However, the reason why laws are passed unanimously is that they undergo a prior long and arduous process of deliberation, consultation and revision to ensure disagreements and differences are addressed and ultimately consensus is reached.
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The US does not have a plan for peace in the Middle East — nor is it in their interests. China does have a plan — and it is in the interests of the rest of the world that it is listened to and supported, explains JENNY CLEGG
