No pay, no productivity
Stop all this talk about higher productivity being the route to higher pay. In fact, the reverse is true: only when pay rates rise will capitalists be forced to invest…
Features
Features
Guards battle still raging [shorter]
Disputes about staffing and pay are sweeping through the rail industry…
Grenfell: no control, no accountability
Tenants at Grenfell Tower could not have done more to attract attention to the risk of fire. But they were up against more than penny-pinching profiteers – a whole system had been designed to take control away from them…
On the march towards a European army
The current president of the European Commission wants it. So did his predecessors. And now the whole EU is taking steps towards the creation of a unified European military, along with unified defence research…
How politicians created a childcare crisis
What happens when the government introduces a childcare scheme but fails to fund it properly? Nurseries are closing, childminders are quitting – and parents and grandparents are picking up the bill…
Unions plan a future for British shipping
Trade unions involved in British shipping have set their minds to exploiting the opportunities that will open up when we leave the EU. In so doing, they are setting an example to the whole trade union movement…
They call it a housing market, but it’s just chaos
After Brexit, we must seize the opportunity to roll back privatisation, the market, and the free movement of labour and capital to rethink Britain’s housing…
Shh...don’t mention the class struggle
Suddenly, politicians seem to be wanting to talk about work. Low wage work, minimum wage work, gig work, any kind of work. Just as long as there’s no contradiction between employers and workers…
EU: making pain in Spain
The EU is standing to one side in the crisis over Catalonia. But the situation is also of its own making…
How market madness is throttling broadband
Britain could have led the world in fibre broadband. Instead, hostility to nationalised industries and blind faith in the market shut development down – and are still holding back the country’s productive forces…
Fight the fees? There’s no time like the present
Students facing a working lifetime of debt are up against the clock. They must use their time at university to demand the abolition of tuition fees – and force their vice-chancellors to join them in the fight…
Paying the price of the European Union
It’s become a mantra, endlessly repeated by the TUC: “Workers must not pay the price of Brexit.” What price would that be? And how about acknowledging the price of staying in the EU?
Migration and control
We’ve had a government policy paper over free movement. But we still need clarity…
At last - a strategy for shipbuilding
There was a time when the term “industrial strategy” would simply bring sneers from government. The vote to leave the EU has changed all that. The first clear product is a plan for Britain’s shipbuilding industry…
Government scraps electrification plans
Beset by EU-dictated cost rises, the transport secretary is cancelling a raft of plans to extend electrification across the rail network. The move has sparked fierce opposition, and not a little ridicule…
Research and division
British universities have been doing well out of EU funding – but at a cost for everyone else…
NHS pay battle falters
More and more staff at Barts Health are seeing the importance of protecting Agenda for Change rates…
Free movement? More a free ride for universities
Academics complain that their wages have been capped since 2008, and they’re right. But they don’t seem to be applying their collective intellect to working out why…
Independence requires a defence industry
Leaving the EU will also take us away from the advancing moves to form a European army – and make it all the more important that Britain maintains an independent military capability…
Lessons for Britain from the Cuban revolution
Cuba's own experience when Soviet aid was suddenly lost shows that a country that relies on its people has nothing to fear from self-reliance - and everything to gain...
Trade unions in crisis – time to change
The lowest membership since the Second World War, the lowest number of workers on strike since records began - these are the symptoms of a failure of purpose that most unions are trying their hardest to ignore...
Why it has to be one law for all
We are witnessing the growth of parallel legal systems run by religious courts…
Independence means taking control
The working class is the force that drove and achieved the referendum vote for independence. And the working class gave the government the job of leaving the EU. We must hold it to its promise…
This year's Durham Gala – much to celebrate
The annual Durham Miners Gala started life as a celebration of mining communities but it has become a celebration of trade unionism and working class values…
Albania's election – with EU interference
Socialism brought real progress to Albania, but now the country is a playground for capitalism being driven remorselessly into the arms of the European Union…
Looking forward to Durham Miners Gala
22 May 2017
The Durham Miners Gala started life as a celebration of mining communities but is now a celebration of trade unionism and working class values. This year’s Gala has much to celebrate.
So why are we relying on EU healthcare staff?
Do British workers really not want to work in the NHS? No, they want to, but they struggle first to find the money to train, then to live on the wages. And have been reluctant to fight for pay…
The hidden price of online shopping
While the online shopping giants get spectacularly rich, the workers who deliver to your home face zero hours contracts and long hours for minimal pay. Workers has been investigating the hidden world of the couriers…
Rail: a test case for independence
Building the new Britain means building new railways, making the equipment here in Britain, and running the rail network in the way we decide, for the benefit of the people.