As women dominate public services yet face pay gaps, unsafe workloads and rising misogyny, this International Women’s Day and TUC Women’s Conference must be a rallying point, says ANDREA EGAN

The TUC’s NIKKI POUND says there are gains in the Employment Rights Act for women — but there’s a hell of a lot more to fight for 

FRAN HEATHCOTE looks at the persisting inequalities women face in the Civil Service workplaces as TUC women’s conference begins

LUKE FLETCHER outlines Plaid Cymru bold plans for wide-ranging policy consultations with trade unions in Wales

The biggest strike in global history is a template for our future. The silence tells you all you need to know, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

Cuts in Oxfordshire will not stop at the county boundary, Fire Brigades Union warns

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

As assaults on transport staff rise and the Scottish Parliament heads for dissolution, promised legislation to protect rail workers has yet to materialise, says ANN HENDERSON

Dockers from Italy, Greece and beyond will stage co-ordinated port blockades on February 6, declaring ‘we don’t work for war’ – in a call in solidarity with Palestine. ALFIO BERNABEI reports

The selection, analysis and interpretation of historical ‘facts’ always takes place within a paradigm, a model of how the world works. That’s why history is always a battleground, declares the Marx Memorial Library

Megapicket to shut down Birmingham’s refuse sites

The newly catalogued News International Dispute Archive ensures the history of the Wapping dispute – and the solidarity it inspired – is preserved, accessible and alive for future generations, says MATT DUNNE

Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media

The once beating heart of British journalism was undone by technological change, union battles and Murdoch’s 1986 Wapping coup – leaving London the only major capital without a press club, says TIM GOPSILL

LAURA DAVISON traces how Murdoch’s mass sackings, political deals and legal loopholes shattered collective bargaining 40 years ago – and how persistent NUJ organising, landmark court victories and new employment rights legislation are finally challenging that legacy