The EU is built on the “free movements” of capital, labour, goods and services, that is, on uncontrolled movements of all four. Capital needs these “freedoms” in order to maximise its profits, and for no other reason.
At last, a sea change is taking place in the thinking of the unions on TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership treaty being negotiated between the European Union and the US.
Health workers will have to decide whether to meekly acquiesce in a continuous reduction of earnings or find a way to do what generations of workers before them have done: fight to improve pay.
Occupied countries learn the hard lesson that when you lose something it can be difficult, and often impossible, to get it back later.
Anti-union legislation is so complex that legal firms are making a killing by advising employers on how to use the law to attack workers.
This is what capitalist economic recovery looks like. Our GDP per head is still lower than it was in 2008. Real wages have been cut. Debt has risen.
Apart from the odd rhetorical flourish, the Second International never aspired to be a revolutionary organisation, unlike the First. It left no worthwhile legacy.
It is delusional to think that any body other than workers themselves can prevent the extraordinary rendition of Britain that TTIP represents.
The stark conclusions of a detailed academic study on the economic effects of TTIP seem to have shaken some unions out of their complacency about the deal.
Novelist and journalist James Meek outlines how foreign companies have taken over much of our infrastructure
This book from a professor of international political economy recounts the intellectual and practical history of austerity and judges it a dangerous disaster. The author shows that austerity does not work as advertised. It does not reduce debt and does not promote growth; instead budgets are cut, economies shrink.
24 December 2014
The nearly £6 billion announced by the government for maintaining local roads over six years is less than half the money needed to deal with the backlog, says the GMB.
