Disputes / Birmingham bin workers expected to pay for council’s bankruptcy

Some binmen are being told to take an £8k pay cut after national austerity and local mismanagement combined to bankrupt the city.

Pay and conditions / Starmer ditches the promised ‘right to switch off’

Confirming what might have been anticipated about how sincere the Labour party was in its pre-election pledges to bring in a ‘New Deal for Workers’.

Lay-offs and closures / The Grangemouth scandal

Failure to mobilise against job cuts at Grangemouth reveals the fraudulent nature of Unite and SNP leaders.

Trade unions / TUC leader endorsing Ukraine war is a betrayal of British and Ukrainian workers

Further proof that the gang in charge of the official organisations of working-class resistance have been completely bought off.

Palestine / Gaza ceasefire: Palestinian resistance celebrates significant victory

While the war for liberation is far from over, the Israeli entity has been mortally wounded.

Science and technology / How the Chinese beat Trump and OpenAI

A classic case of constraints acting as a spur to creativity – and in the process destroying the imperialist goal of monopolising new technology.

USA / Who is Elon Musk really?

Is it possible to be hailed as ‘the world’s richest man’ and also be ‘a rebel’ and a ‘friend of the people’?

Trade unions / Divided we beg – Unite union demands expanded military production

The Labour aristocracy once again demonstrates its total subservience to British imperialism and its war machine.

British politics / The life and crimes of John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott

One more example of a working-class man who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.

China / Ella Rule: What I learned in Xinjiang

Innovations abound as the Chinese region pushes ahead with its agricultural and industrial development.

Korea / Massive strikes called as crisis deepens in occupied Korea

Underpinning the scandals around corruption and authoritarianism is the US imperialists drive to restart the Korean war.

Trade unions / Greek dockworkers block ammunition shipment to Israel

Greek and Indian dockers have given a lead. Transport workers around the world need to follow this example and refuse to cooperate with zionist war crimes.

Industry / Starmer government pushing fresh sell-off to hedge fund vultures

The Labour party grovels to Wall Street and the City of London.

Education / Education union colluding with Labour against the workers

The NEU has thrown in the towel of struggle, betraying not only its own rank-and-file membership but also the wider interests of the working class.

Capitalist crisis / Labour means austerity, racism, repression and war

So where are the trade unions?

Society / Jury refuses to convict Palestine Action activists for arms factory damage

The state will continue to persecute Palestine solidarity activists through the legal system until such time as the organised working class forces it to stop.

Social wage / Media blames workers for the corruption and fraud endemic to capitalist society

It is not ‘benefit cheats’ who are emptying Britain’s treasury but the unending subsidies to monopoly capital.

British politics / No votes for genocide-enablers or Nato warmongers!

We are calling on workers to help the campaigns of, and give their votes to, all candidates standing on an anti-genocide, anti-Nato and anti-Labour platform.

Pay and conditions / P&O boss admits he couldn’t live on the starvation wage paid to his workers

Toothless select committee hears how CEO agonised over accepting his £183k bonus after summarily dismissing 800 staff.

China / Yellen’s visit to Beijing: penny lectures from economic ignoramuses

The USA is outraged to find it no longer calls all the shots on its much-promoted world market.

Palestine / Nakba 76 – talk by Dr Ranjeet Brar

Join us to show your solidarity with the people of Palestine and remember their long history of struggle.

Education / Join the students: No cooperation with genocide in Gaza! Free Palestine!

Britain’s students are leading the way. The rest of the working class is duty bound to follow their lead.

Trade unions / Gaza, inflation, Assange … Where are the trade unions?

While crime after crime is committed against the people, those who should be organising the resistance are doing nothing.

Civil liberties / Assange extradition: where are the unions?

As an innocent man is tortured for the crime of exposing the criminals, British workers should be organising meaningful action in defence of all our rights.

Lay-offs and closures / Are we about to see the end of railway manufacture in Britain?

The government seems uninterested in diverting any of our public funds to this genuinely useful purpose.

Trade unions / Dockworkers in India take a collective stand against Gaza genocide

Indian trade unionists lead the way in boycotting Israeli arms shipments.

Civil liberties / Latest twist on Assange’s extradition: cause for pessimism or optimism?

While an individualist view tends to despondence, there is a positive aspect to British imperialism’s blatant complicity in persecuting free speech.

Trade unions / Model motion: No cooperation with genocide in Palestine!

Trade unions must mobilise the organised power of the working class to force an end to British complicity in the zionists’ atrocities.

Cuba / Cuban health workers vow to face down the genocidal US blockade

Solidarity must move on from the charitable aid mentality and work for the destruction of the imperialist system.

Health / Vape wars: Children in the sights of tobacco giants

It seems unlikely that the British government has any real intention of stopping the corporate dope-pedlars in their tracks.

Trade unions / TUC launches fake ‘campaign to defend the right to strike’

A campaign most workers are unaware of, aimed not at overturning anti-worker legislation but at garnering votes for the perfidious Labour party.

Economy / Post Office scandal: Trouble on the Horizon

The power of monopoly laid bare: evidence reveals a picture of tampering with witness statements, falsifying data and coercing would-be whistleblowers.

Industry / Grangemouth refinery workers’ jobs at risk

Why is Scotland’s main oil refining plant planning to become a mere import hub?

Pay and conditions / Scottish Water workers vote to strike

Bosses are trying to force the ‘modernisation’ of pay structures – ie, to enforce ever more draconian pay cuts on workers.

World / Joti Brar: How can workers learn the truth if everyone is too scared to tell it?

We must respect the workers enough to believe they are capable of learning and we must create opportunities for them to do so.

Trade unions / Arms factory blockaded as calls for practical solidarity with Palestine grow

Non-cooperation with zionist Israel is firmly on the agenda. ‘The time to act is now.’

Trade unions / Mass non-cooperation urgently needed to help end Gaza blitzkrieg

Workers have power to prevent Britain’s continued military, propaganda and logistical support for zionist massacres.

Disputes / Support pay restitution for doctors; defend the NHS!

The British government is holding both patients and staff to ransom.

Health / Are striking doctors really ‘greedy’ and ‘uncaring’?

An answer to ‘The Times view on health sector strikes: Uncaring profession’

Trade unions / Joti Brar: a personal account of anti-war struggle against the trade union bureaucracy

Why is it so hard to get anything meaningful done via the existing trade union mechanisms?

Ukraine / With depleted uranium, nuclear war is underway in Europe

Nato war crimes in Donbass don’t stop at DU; Donbass civilians are routinely targeted by cluster bombs and petal mines.

Trade unions / Who is behind the TUC motion asking British workers to support war crimes?

It’s not too late to reverse the disastrous decision taken by many union delegations and the bureaucratic leadership clique to support this criminal resolution.

Lay-offs and closures / ‘Post-socialist mortality crisis’ proves that deindustrialisation kills

The ruling classes stir up populism amongst deindustrialised populations in order to try to persuade workers to pin the blame for their hardship onto other workers.

Industry / Air traffic out of control

Who is to blame for the recent mayhem in the skies?

Britain / The collapse of Wilko

Wilko stores across the country are expected to close over the next few weeks with the chain struggling to find a buyer.

Trade unions / Which way forward for the trade unions now?

It is time to break out of suffocating ‘unity’ with those who serve our class enemies.

Trade unions / Why do so many trade union struggles in Britain fail?

Teaching union NEU led its members into months of strike action, only to capitulate and accept a below-inflation pay rise. Why?

Korea / South Korea: the ‘Land of Morning Calm’ is working itself to death

Capitalist dystopia in action: behind the ‘economic miracle’, the daily grind keeps getting harder.

Health / An NHS nurse speaks out on pay, privatisation and demoralisation

The conditions that have led to a haemorrhaging of trained staff from the health service have not come about by accident and will take a serious fight to reverse.

Capitalist crisis / EVENT: Trade unionism and working-class leadership

Don’t sit on your hands; don’t fiddle while Rome burns! Your class needs you; the future of humanity needs you! Step forward and help make history!

Ukraine / Stop the War’s capitulation hides truth about Ukraine, stops workers organising

It is time we in Britain got off our knees and organised a mass movement of real opposition to the imperialist war drive.

Trade unions / Mick Lynch, Sharon Graham and the capitulating left

As the next election approaches, supposedly ‘radical’ trade unionists are lining up obediently behind Starmer and Labour, against the interests of their members.

Pay and conditions / Homeless charity workers on strike for decent wages

St Mungo’s staff have suffered a 30 percent real-terms pay cut in the last ten years.

Trade unions / Derby Silk Mill commemorations 2023: no communists allowed

How did the CPB appoint itself the gatekeeper of the British working-class movement?

British politics / Communist message to Silk Mill rally: Ditch the Labour party!

Don’t settle for social democracy when only scientific socialism has the answer!

France / Joti Brar: We are heartened and inspired by French workers’ fighting spirit

Unfortunately, even the most militant of Britain’s trade union leaders seem keen to end the strikes here as quickly as possible.

Trade unions / Model motion: No cooperation with the imperialist drive to war

Only the collective action of workers has the power to stop the war drive in its tracks. This demand must be taken up in every trade union at every level.

Trade unions / Model motion: Urgent measures needed to address the cost of living crisis

Why are workers being asked to pay the cost of a crisis that was not of their making? If capitalism cannot provide for its workforce, then capitalism must go.

Trade unions / Model motion: Defy the anti-trade union laws

Within the current legal framework, workers’ right to strike in Britain has been all but annulled. This situation must be reversed by means of collective action.

Trade unions / Model motion: Break the link with Labour

The essential precondition for a successful struggle for decent pay is that our unions must break their connection with the imperialist Labour party.

Trade unions / Defy the anti-trade union laws!

It is time we turned the struggle for decent wages into a struggle for socialism.

Trade unions / The real trade union barons

Having been absorbed into the fabric of the state machine, most trade union leaders now work not to aid but to suppress their members’ struggles.

France / The French working class fights on

Already there have been isolated instances of gendarmes refusing to obey orders. If the cotagion spreads, will the rest of Macron’s state machinery be more reliable?

British history / Twenty years later: the predatory imperialist war against Iraq

While the heroic resistance was defeating US and British imperialist forces, the British working class was effectively demobilised by its corrupted leadership.

Working-class history / Long live May Day!

Workers have made immense sacrifices in the great struggle of labour against capital; have shed rivers of blood in their quest for a better life and real freedom.

Italy / British delegate in Italy: Our rulers are working to overturn Brexit

Workers across Europe share the goal of defeating both the EU imperialist bloc and the US-led Nato war machine.

Trade unions / NHS pay offer exposes the limitations of trade unionism

The NHS dispute has brought into sharp focus the inability of modern trade unions in Britain to advance working-class aims.

France / Strikes in France demonstrate the benefits and limits of trade union action

Why are French workers being forced to endlessly fight the same battles?

Trade unions / After the strikes, what then?

As union leaders look for the exit, their members’ anger is being directed towards yet another diversionary ‘vote Labour’ campaign.

France / French workers fight for their pension and retirement rights

Militant fighting spirit is on display in abundance in France. What is now needed is class-conscious leadership and vision.

Education / Why I left my first teaching job: ‘No support, no training, no care for the kids’

This view from a school gives an insight into why so many of our teachers are feeling so demoralised.

Education / Support our teachers; save our schools!

It is not only their present ability to exist that Britain’s teachers are fighting for, but our children’s future.

Pay and conditions / Pardeep Singh and Boohoo: sweatshop and semi-slavery conditions on the rise

An immigrant worker whose punishment beating was filmed by his employer serves as a stark reminder of the true face of capitalist exploitation.

Trade unions / TUC directs its members’ anger into more meaningless busywork

An email campaign to reverse anti-union laws? Really?

Capitalist crisis / Capitalists are causing inflation, not workers!

It’s time for the hoary old myth about wages causing inflation to be put to bed. Higher wages lead to lower profits, hence the bosses’ opposition.

Civil liberties / Minimum Service Bill is the latest salvo in the class war against workers

No cooperation with union-busting anti-strike laws! 

USA / The US ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ – blatant protectionism

US monopolies are hoping to survive the present crisis at the expense of their rivals, but alienating all their allies will ultimately only hasten their demise.

Health / The ruin of the NHS for the benefit of private interests

In their desperation for sources of profit, our exploiters as individuals even end up damaging their own collective interests.

Colombia / Colombian president Gustavo Petro walking the tightrope of ‘total peace’

Will the new government be allowed to implement its social programmes to address the damage from decades of US-backed terrorism and war?

Divide and rule / Tribute to Comrade Avtar Jouhl

An indefatigable fighter against racism and imperialism, and for socialism, which he knew held the only solution to humanity’s problems.

Disputes / Support our nurses’ struggle for decent pay!

It is not our hard-pressed medical staff who are greedy, but the privateers who are pushing down their wages in the interests of profit.

Trade unions / Are Britain’s union bosses interested in helping their members fight back?

As the crisis deepens, the ruling class is looking far more determined than the unions, where lions continue to be led by loyal Labour donkeys.

Capitalist crisis / The cost of living crisis is a capitalist crisis!

The capitalists have shown themselves to be entirely unable to run their own system for the benefit of society.

Health / Coffey’s ‘plan for patients’ boils down to more targets and some magical thinking

Reams of empty phrasemongering are aimed at hiding the fact that Truss and co have no plan to do anything to fix the crisis in our health service.

Trade unions / Shameful capitulation of workers’ leadership in face of ‘mourning’ demands

With hunger, blackouts and war knocking urgently at workers’ doors, our demand should be: ‘Don’t mourn, organise.’

Disputes / Amazon workers against Victorian working conditions and derisory pay

Despite unions being banned by Amazon, its British staff have been staging wildcat actions in defence of their right to decent pay and conditions.

Capitalist crisis / Cost of living crisis: the fightback is under way

Growing militance among unionised workers and vigorous new campaigns to combat the effects of poverty and inflation signify a change in the workers’ mood.

Disputes / Support the postal workers!

Workers at Royal Mail are joining those on the railways and the docks in standing up for pay and conditions.

Support the Felixstowe dockers!

Workers at the country’s busiest port are using their collective power to demand a pay rise in line with rampant inflation.

Health / Dr Bob Gill: The demise of British primary healthcare

First they came for the cleaners, then they came for the caterers, then for the porters, the student nurses and the junior doctors. Now they’re coming for the GPs.

Disputes / Victory to the striking railworkers; defend the right to strike!

In fighting to save jobs and defend pay, railworkers are in the front line of a desperately-needed push-back against the onslaught of capital.

Pay and conditions / Sainsbury’s CEO in the money as workers feel the pinch

As conditions for the mass of workers get rapidly worse, the obscene inequalities of the system come into ever-sharper relief.

British politics / Boris in trouble: It’s the economy stupid … and that bloody stupid war

The commentariat might not be admitting it, but it is the Ukraine war that looks like finally finishing off Boris Johnson’s premiership.

Disputes / Train strike: Britain could see the largest walk-out since the 1926 general strike

Meanwhile, the government is considering adding to anti-trade-union legislation to try to outlaw the action before it begins.

Ukraine / Nato weapons for Ukraine: military aid and future profits for the USA

Arms monopolies have jumped at the chance to force as many countries as possible to replace their entire machinery of warfare.

Lay-offs and closures / The day that P&O sacked all its staff: view from a worker in Dover

When capital makes decisions about its profit margins, it is real people whose lives are destroyed.

Lay-offs and closures / P&O sackings: Don’t make workers pay for the capitalist crisis

The ferry company’s callous treatment of its employees reminds us yet again that the logic of the capitalist system is impervious to the needs of human beings.

Canada / Solidarity with the Freedom Convoy of Canada

The arteries of the Canadian capital are clogged to the point where Canada’s whole rotten capitalist system is having a heart attack.

India / The Indian farmers’ magnificent victory

What lessons can workers everywhere learn from this historic struggle, and how is a decent future to be secured for India’s small farmers?

Korea / South Korean workers strike for secure work and better living standards

Strikers demand job security, healthcare, social housing and the right to free assembly in latest class-war skirmish.

Economy / Energy crisis: more millions to prop up the privateers

Taxpayer cash will shore up monopoly profits while workers shiver this winter.

Health / Derisory pay offer covers further cuts as NHS privatisation reaches new heights

National clapping and a George Cross have left nurses empty handed as the new health chief helps US profiteers move in.

Industry / A curate’s egg: Shapps’s ‘Great British Railways’ scam

The proposed railways ‘solution’ is less a plan for renationalisation than it is a promise to provide further subsidies to monopoly capital.

Energy / Why is Britain importing coal from Australia and the USA?

Is it fear of militant miners that keeps our rulers from reopening deep mines in Britain while we still have a need for coal?

Economy / ‘Just in time’ reveals the fatal inadequacy of market mechanisms

Global supply lines have been designed with profit maximisation, not the needs of the people, in mind.

USA / US state revokes child protection laws instead of creating decent jobs for adults

Wisconsin is planning to patch up the cracks in its faltering economy by getting children to work longer and later.

Economy / Gas prices go through the roof as global shortage ties supply lines in knots 

Millions of families will again be forced to choose between heating and eating this winter.

Italy / Workers at the GKN factory in Florence fight back

Workers demand an end to the dismantling and export of their industries and the protection of their rights to healthcare and a decent environment.

Pay and conditions / Keep on trucking: supply lines chaos as Covid and Brexit effects combine

The obvious answer to the present shortage of skilled labour is to invest in training and to improve pay and conditions in the areas concerned.

Economy / Fraud office’s ‘deferred prosecution’ trick shields top bosses from legal action

The lords of finance capital have long made it clear that they are above the law: now it’s being implicitly accepted by those who supposedly ‘regulate’ their activities.

Social wage / Unemployment and poverty set to rise as furlough ends and benefits are cut

A brutal shock is in store for many workers as the temporary multi-tiered unemployment support system is slashed back to the bone.

Industry / The Sanjeev Gupta, Lex Greensill and David Cameron affair

Once again we see the absurdity of a system that leaves the fate of essential industries and millions of workers in the hands of rapacious fraudsters.

Economy / Post Office pursued vindictive prosecutions against subpostmasters

The appeal court victory of 29 of those wrongfully convicted has opened the floodgates for hundreds more claims.

Industry / Greensill debacle: the door keeps revolving

The collapse of this particular debt-laden finance house is drawing public attention to some very uncomfortable truths.

Industry / FlyBe is dead, long live FlyBe

Turns out all it takes to avoid the creditors is a slightly tweaked name and a fresh coat of paint.

Pay and conditions / Don’t make care workers pay for the crisis in social care!

We must renationalise and reunite social care with healthcare, and pay all workers in the sector a decent wage.

Disputes / Shrewsbury 24: Justice delayed is justice denied

Workers must start to organise themselves so as to be able to demand justice now – social justice for all.

Industry / Cameron’s hand caught trapped in the till as Greensill collapses

The collapse of yet another debt-laden house of cards has shone a light on the revolving door between career politicians and the corporations they serve.

Social wage / Don’t tell Newham we are all in it together

The financial and physical inability to isolate or to work safely has led to far worse covid outcomes for the poorest in our society.

Industry / With ‘saviours’ like Gupta, who needs enemies?

If you are rich enough, you can get richer still without spending a penny; it is the workers who pay when the vultures’ schemes collapse.

Pay and conditions / Bringing Kaplan to book: time to get organised in the gig economy

A reminder that the whole reason for having trade unions is to fight the workers’ corner everywhere.

Lay-offs and closures / Chester Road closure: No to GKN’s industrial vandalism!

A 270-year-old British manufacturer is being slowly dismantled by asset-stripping vultures, destroying vital jobs and engineering capacity in the process.

Health / DVLA: Keeping non-essential staff in offices is endangering lives

The biggest outbreak of covid yet recorded in Britain is taking place in a government office in Wales – and staff are still being forced to come in to work.

India / The largest strike the world has ever seen is taking place now in India

But you wouldn’t know it from Britain’s corporate media and Labour-affiliated trade union leaderships.

Lay-offs and closures / Jobless figures mount as Paperchase is latest retail chain to fail

As the economic crisis is exacerbated by repeated lockdowns, company after company is going to the wall.

Lay-offs and closures / Sunak extends furlough till April as jobless stats sow panic

The number of redundancies continues to climb inexorably each month, despite all efforts to massage the figures and soften the blow.

Industry / Government announces extra £16.5bn for military

Government promises spending will protect 10,000 jobs, but at what cost to the working class?

Economy / Debenhams, Arcadia: Making workers pay for the crisis

Tens of thousands are set to lose jobs and suffer pension cuts, once again making workers pay the price for capitalism’s failings.

Economy / Edinburgh Woollen Mill: the vultures circle

Thousands of workers look set to lose their jobs, but the man whose fortune they made will have no trouble hanging onto his millions.

Economy / CBI arrogance undermines capitalist stability

Thinking representatives of the system are increasingly concerned with how blatant the corporate control and looting of the Treasury has become.

Pay and conditions / Railway pensions under threat

It is the bosses’ responsibility to see to it that deferred wages are paid in full; why are workers expected to take the hit?

Pay and conditions / FT spills the beans on the great pensions rip-off

Not content with stealing workers’ unpaid labour today, the capitalists are conspiring to steal their right to a dignified retirement tomorrow.

Britain / Civil servants face coercion over return to the workplace

In a desperate bid to restore city centre footfall, the government is pushing workers back into offices.

Pay and conditions / Papa John’s fails to deliver

Sheffield pizza workers force bosses to pay withheld wages through collective action.

Lay-offs and closures / Nissan slashes workforce and pensions, poised to flee Sunderland altogether

Blame Brexit; blame covid ... blame anything but the capitalist system.

Health / PPE scandal: crony capitalists make a killing while frontline workers sacrificed

Meanwhile, the system’s defenders are worried that workers might learn the right lessons.

Pay and conditions / Ministry of Justice retreats on sick pay for cleaners

Victory for struggling cleaners after Emanuel Gomes’s death, who worked for a week with suspected covid and a raging fever.

Industry / Leicester sweatshops keep their heads down despite covid panic

Fashion industry gangmasters are riding out the storm, safe in the knowledge that it will be business as usual before long.

Disputes / Support the Tower Hamlets strikers!

The Labour-run council plans to sack thousands of workers and re-hire them on dodgy new contracts with worse pay and conditions.

Economy / Bosses press on with sackings as crisis deepens

As the furlough support scheme comes to an end, the true depth of the economic crisis is becoming ever clearer.

Disputes / Drivers resist Goldstar intimidation

Union-busting haulier cowboys forcing extremely dangerous conditions onto workers.

Health / We are not battery hens: covid outbreaks in the meat packing industry

Why are so many workers in the meat processing industry succumbing to the coronavirus?

Economy / Go Outdoors ‘rescued’ – for now

Financial fancy footwork may allow the chain’s owners to sidestep onerous lease conditions as high street footfall plunges.

Lay-offs and closures / P&O takes the money and runs

The shipping company is laying off a thousand workers on the very routes it is being paid public money to operate.

Lay-offs and closures / Imperial College sacking vital IT workers

University managers plan to axe more than half their IT staff, despite their heroic work in enabling vital pandemic research.

Pay and conditions / Conditions at Yodel: report by a worker

Workers in the logistics industry are being sweated at ever-more intense and unendurable rates.

Lay-offs and closures / British Gas and SPS are latest to announce big job losses

As the economic crisis bites, employers are looking to cut not only jobs but also pay, pensions and everything else.

Disputes / Covid couriers sacked for requesting PPE and social distancing

Workers responsible for transporting covid test samples from hospitals to labs are being victimised for requesting basic safety measures.

Industry / End British export of rubber bullets

British arms manufacturers continue to profit from these lethal ‘crowd control’ weapons.

Pay and conditions / BA threatens to sack its entire workforce

After rinsing the furlough scheme, the airline is now insisting that its staff should accept huge pay cuts or be sacked.

Lay-offs and closures / Debenhams shafts its cafe workers

Catering staff at the department store have been summarily dismissed without notice or redundancy pay.

Economy / British trade agreements after Brexit

By pinning all their hopes for Britain’s future on a US trade deal, our rulers are taking us out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Lay-offs and closures / Thousands more to go at Rolls Royce’s Derby plant

As more and more manufacturing jobs are being scrapped, workers are the victims of the downward spiral of capitalist crisis.

Lay-offs and closures / Jobless total rockets

As the economic crisis bites, over a million workers in Britain have been forced precipitously onto the breadline.

Industry / ‘Back to work’ stampede – and may the devil take the hindmost

Reopening schools and workplaces without proper safety measures highlights the government’s true priorities.

Pay and conditions / Workers in the US and Britain fight for workplace safety

Wildcat strikes and a high-profile resignation are highlighting the anti-worker essence of capitalist accumulation.

Lay-offs and closures / British Airways takes the money and runs

The Covid-19 crisis is highlighting the necessity for public ownership of all our vital services.

Economy / Covid-19 furlough scheme: a bonanza for big business

While thousands of workers find themselves without a job, bosses are cashing in on the ‘free money’ of the furlough scheme.

Capitalist crisis / Burying bad news: crash caused by overproduction not coronavirus

The present economic crisis has been long in the making, but is being passed off as the result of the covid lockdown.

Health / Covid-19: Why is it that Cuba can manufacture PPE, but Britain can’t?

Britain’s frontline workers continue to put their lives on the line, paid in broken promises and empty gestures.

Lay-offs and closures / RIP FlyBe

The only rational way to ensure that vital infrastructure exists and is run for the benefit of all is public ownership.

Pay and conditions / Barclays spies on its own staff

The banking giant is using ‘Big Brother tactics’ to monitor staff and keep their noses to the grindstone.

Pay and conditions / Amazon is bad for your health

What a surprise: working too hard and too long leads to unsafe working environments.

Disputes / Wirral’s binmen to strike?

Outsourced waste collector Biffa is playing fast and loose with its workers’ pay.

Pay and conditions / Offshore oil workers under threat

Will trade unions now get off the back foot and start to mobilise their members into an active campaign of resistance?

Pay and conditions / Lecturers rise against pay cuts and pensions robbery

The marketisation of education: staff are being sweated so that universities can make fat profits.

Social wage / Work doesn’t pay and British families know it

Fourteen million people, including four million children, live in poverty in Britain, and more than half of those come from working families.

Pay and conditions / Union-busting at St Mungo’s homeless charity

More pressure on workers in the charity sector, where a race to the bottom is well underway.

Disputes / RSPCA: You wouldn’t treat a dog like this

Despite healthy donations and reserves, the charity is using a minor single-year operational deficit to justify ‘salami-slicing measures‘ on pay and conditions.

Pay and conditions / Defend railway pensions!

Workers have a right to their deferred wages in retirement and to a dignified old age after a lifetime of work.

Capitalist crisis / FlyBe farce exposes lunacy of privately owned transport

A hefty subsidy to the airline’s private owners may not be enough to save a vital service and thousands of jobs.

Pay and conditions / Firefighters victory forces government retreat on public sector pensions

The FBU has won its case to get former pension rights restored, and the case has wide implications.

Industry / Car industry crisis pushes Peugeot-Fiat merger

Workers rightly fear for their jobs as another round of ‘cost-cutting’ looms.

France / French class war continuing as neither side looks ready to back down

Macron continues to push EU-backed pensions attack while unions have called for a general strike and total oil refinery blockade.

Disputes / Stand with rail strikers defending passenger safety

Railway bosses have abandoned the deal that was struck a year ago and are refusing to restart talks without preconditions.

France / French strikes expand and deepen as more workers join the fray

A class war is underway in France and the workers show no sign of backing down. Victoire aux grévistes!

France / Support the French strikers!

France’s militant unions are joining forces with yellow vest activists in a serious challenge to Macron’s EU-backed assault on living standards.

Disputes / Support the South Western Railway strike

Railway workers are fighting to put safety ahead of profit: keep the guard on the train!

France / France goes on strike: can Macron survive?

As militant trade unionists prepare to join yellow vests on the streets, the class struggle in France is moving into a new gear.

Disputes / Royal Mail: high court bans the strike

For how long will we accept the right of bosses’ courts to decide how workers’ organisations are run?

Working-class history / Avtar Jouhl: lifelong class fighter against racism

Comrade Avtar reflects on a life of struggle in the IWA and the trade unions from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Trade unions / Stifling criticism of Israel in the British trade-union movement

TUC votes in support of Palestine, but decision is ignored by the media, including those on the left.

Society / The true level of unemployment

Joblessness is being underreported by a factor of 200 percent.

USA / General Motors workers on strike in the US

The workers have paid a heavy price for their employer’s return to profitability.

Disputes / Royal Mail workers vote overwhelmingly to strike

Mail workers are ready to fight for their pay and conditions, but is their union prepared to back them?

Lay-offs and closures / City leeches celebrate the demise of Thomas Cook

Financial gamblers in the City are playing with loaded dice, deliberately pushing companies over the edge in order to get paid.

Climate change / The TUC and climate change: don’t mention the wars

Unions tail-end middle-class eco protests and stoke illusions in ‘green’ capitalism.

Industry / British Steel sold for ‘blood money’? A reply to the Morning Star

Where should workers look for their salvation from the crises that destroy industry and jobs?

Pay and conditions / Cleaners demand fair pay at government department

Outsourced staff are on strike for living wages at the department of business.

USA / US workers force child migrant concentration camp to close

Homeware staff strike against their employers’ profiting from privatised detention camps.

Lay-offs and closures / Nissan to cull 12,500 jobs globally as Chinese car market stalls

The crisis of overproduction continues to wreak havoc with workers’ lives.

Education / Teachers given pay rise, but schools forced to pay

Government will fund a 0.75 percent increase, with schools told to find most of the required cash from their own budgets.

Iran / Unions call on British government to send in the gunboats

What would Bob Crow have said to the ITF’s blindly acquiescing in the war games of our imperial masters?

Pay and conditions / GMB protest at Rugeley Amazon

British trade union seems more worried about defending the profits of shareholders than the interests of workers.

Pay and conditions / Railway pensions under attack

As profiteering franchise bidders haggle with the government over contract terms, workers’ hard-earned pensions are once more under threat.

Lay-offs and closures / Fight against the closure of Ford Bridgend

Workers are not to blame for the crisis; stop redundancies and demand nationalisation!

Lay-offs and closures / British Steel: overproduction crisis claims another scalp

As thousands of workers lose their jobs, the vultures of Greybull Capital are standing at the front of the queue for ‘reimbursement’.

Italy / Italian dockers obstruct Saudi’s criminal war on Yemen

Dockworkers in Genoa have given a vital lesson to workers everywhere in how to harness our collective strength.

Pay and conditions / Support the Sellafield strikers!

Workers at the Sellafield nuclear plant are in revolt against poverty wages and management bullying.

Society / Hunger on the rise in Britain, despite economic ‘recovery’

In-work poverty testifies as to who really paid to bail out the banks in 2008. And while hunger is on the rise, one-third of food produced every year is wasted.

Disputes / Privatisation directors’ fat salaries come from ripping off health service workers

Sodexo and Mitie are the latest hospital outsourcing companies to face industrial action by staff over terrible pay and conditions.

Disputes / Left-Labour-controlled Newham is not such a New Jerusalem

Despite working for a Labour council and a Corbynite mayor, council workers in Newham face pay cuts and bullying.

Social wage / Fire Brigade Inc

Cuts and outsourcing are part of the slow drive towards total privatisation of this essential service.

Lay-offs and closures / Interserve: another outsourcing giant hits the wall

In the pursuit of monopoly profits, another building corporation turned ‘public service provider’ has gone bust – and the public will be picking up the tab.

Disputes / Brum bin strike concludes with a payout

A new deal was concluded in March to appease workers’ anger at secret payouts to GMB members during the 2017 strike.

Disputes / Deliveroo strikes spread

Increasing numbers of workers in the gig economy are fighting for basic rights at work.

Social wage / Privatisation undermines the probation service

The government has reneged on its promise to step in if the privateers failed to deliver.

Divide and rule / Asda continues to flout equal pay rulings

Automation and unequal pay are just two of the tools being used by retail giants to divide workers, reduce costs and win the cut-throat war of competition.

Lay-offs and closures / Honda doesn’t blame Brexit

The cover is blown on the attempt to blame everything on Brexit as Honda’s CEO denies that the Swindon closure has anything to do with Brexit uncertainty.

Disputes / South Western railworkers win battle to keep the guard on the train

Safe and affordable public transport for all. Support our rail workers!

Disputes / Deliveroo strike in Bristol: gig economy workers fight back

Resistance to the poverty pay and union-busting tactics of so many zero-hour and gig economy employers is gathering momentum.

Disputes / Refuse, resist! Brum rubbish collectors ready to strike as council talks fail

Brummie binmen are days away from an all-out strike, clashing once again with a Labour council that has rewarded scabs and blacklisted strikers.

Lay-offs and closures / Jobs massacre at Jaguar Land Rover confirmed

Overproduction not Brexit is to blame. But if there really are too many cars in the world, what are workers to do?

Health / Newcross Healthcare: rinsing the public coffers

The true face of privatisation in our public services, where greed and abuse are rewarded and people come last.

Lay-offs and closures / Carillion: lawyers make hay whilst workers wait for pay

As workers try to get recompense for lost jobs and wages, the whole crooked business of outsourcing is being exposed to view.

Pay and conditions / Support the workers against Condor and the ships of shame!

Defend Brexit and fight for better working conditions for all.

Lay-offs and closures / Defend Brexit and manufacturing jobs

Overproduction in the car industry is being blamed on ‘Brexit uncertainty’ in an effort to justify reversing the EU referendum result.

Industry / Interserve: dead men walking?

How can the outsourcing racket, which sucks the public purse dry while failing to deliver decent services, finally be put an end to?

Disputes / Cammell Laird strike suspended for now

Workers’ resistance has led to a stay of execution at the Merseyside shipyard.

Lay-offs and closures / Cammell Laird shipyard strikes

Overproduction is hitting industry after industry, proving once more that capitalism cannot solve the problems of the masses.

Civil liberties / Branding the wage slaves

British companies are starting to experiment with microchipping their staff as a way of keeping tabs on their movements.

Lay-offs and closures / FT leaks plans by Jaguar Land Rover to axe 5,000 jobs

The joy of capitalism: unemployment is the workers’ reward for enriching the company's owners.

Lay-offs and closures / Support Asda Queslett workers’ fight for jobs

Don’t let machines come before jobs, nor profit before people.

Pay and conditions / Marriott hotel staff walk-outs across the USA

Hard-pressed hospitality workers are fighting back over low pay and increasingly brutal conditions.

Disputes / Birmingham: Two-faced council breaks promises to binmen and residents

Birmingham’s militant binmen deserve our full support as their dispute looks set to break out again this Christmas.

Social wage / Bristol bus protest highlights failing public transport in Britain

Workers must demand renationalisation as the first step towards affordability, planning, and the sanity of a socialist economy.

France / Macron compares French workers to Asterix and the Gauls

Yet as the class struggle intensifies it is Asterix and Obelix who symbolically represent the determination to resist exploitation and oppression.

British politics / Venezuela solidarity falling short

British workers have the power to give real solidarity to Venezuela, which is in the front line of the struggle against the imperialist enemy.

Pay and conditions / University of Manchester support staff to strike against pension attacks

Cleaners, caterers, security and admin staff are fighting to defend their right to a dignified retirement.

Pay and conditions / Glasgow: Teachers take to the streets

Pay and conditions in the profession continue to decline, leading to a retention and recruitment crisis in our schools.

Society / Meaningful employment is a right for all

Useful work well done for collective benefit brings personal fulfilment. A society that can't provide such work to its members is not fit for purpose.

Disputes / Support the Glasgow women’s strike for equal pay

But beware the Labour wolf in sheep's clothing!

Lay-offs and closures / Ford plans jobs massacre

Overproduction is affecting the car industry severely, as glutted markets take their toll on sales and workers are thrown to the wall.

Disputes / FE lecturers ballot over derisory pay offer

It is not the job of workers to square the accounts of their employers.

Pay and conditions / Courier strikes

As the food delivery industry consolidates itself, the winning companies and putting the screws on drivers to up their profits.

Industry / Dental industry: another ‘self-employed’ scam

Privatisation has led to massive concentration in dentistry, with employees rebranded as ‘associates’.

Pay and conditions / Theft of steelworkers’ pensions

Successful campaigners lose up to half their entitlement, shafted after all by caveats in the small print.

Pay and conditions / Bosses’ pay soars

While Labour business rep worries over ‘undermining public trust in business’!

Korea / Victory for Samsung workers

Electronics giant finally forced to concede to safety concerns after over 100 worker deaths and more than 1,000 days of sit-in protest .

Disputes / Support the fast food strikers!

Fast food workers across Britain are organising to demand decent pay and conditions.

Pay and conditions / University of London workers strike a blow against the outsourcing racket

A simple demand for a basic rights is causing consternation in the camp of the class enemy.

Disputes / Support Birmingham’s homecare workers

Before Labour councillors privatise the service completely.

Lay-offs and closures / More redundancies in the Midlands: Rolls-Royce and JLR

The world crisis of overproduction is far from over.

Disputes / West Midlands firefighters threat of strike causes employer to retreat?

Long live workers’ militant unity.

Pay and conditions / Gig economy faces legal setbacks

Curbs being put on fictitious ‘self-employment’.

Pay and conditions / Court victory for workers’ rights

Supreme court makes landmark ruling against the practice of fake 'self-employment' by which companies strip workers of their rights.

Disputes / French rail workers lead the fight to defend pay and conditions

Macron's government hopes to use divide-and-rule tactics to break the resistance of the French working class.

Disputes / TGI Fridays staff strike over tips ‘redistribution’

Cut-throat competition in the oversupplied public dining sector is forcing real wages down even as the minimum wage officially goes up.

Trade unions / Universities union leader Sally Hunt sidesteps members’ censure motion

Trade union 'democracy' in action.

Industry / GKN takeover brings mayhem to thousands of working-class lives

Unelected shareholders and executives continue to make decisions affecting thousands of families, revealing the true nature of the capitalist system.

Industry / Privatised rail industry totters

The resistance of rail workers to safety-cutting measures is bringing the question of renationalisation back onto the political agenda.

Disputes / Glasgow lowlife

Yet another 'arms-length' union-busting operation as Glasgow city council's chosen privateers hire scabs rather than pay agreed wages.

Disputes / University workers sold down the river

With friends like the University and College Union leadership, who needs enemies?

France / France fights back against Thatcherite ‘reforms’

French workers have only to see what has been done to the British working class in recent decades to understand the ramifications of their present fight.

Leaflets / Support the northern trains strike!

Shareholders get richer while workers and the public suffer.

Disputes / Why lecturers need to remain steadfast in defence of their pensions

Plans to rob workers of their deferred wages and replace them with a slashed pot totally dependent on market fluctuations must be resisted.

Pay and conditions / Council workers win skirmish with Manchester outsourcing cowboy

The involvement of Labour councils in the outsourcing racket should make unions think twice about their generous donations to the party's coffers.

Leaflets / Hands off lecturers’ pensions

A decent pension for all workers is a right, not a privilege.

Capitalist crisis / Capita poised to follow Carillion down the tubes

Yet more proof of Marx’s observation that under capitalism profit is privatised and debt is nationalised.

Trade unions / Postal union caves in on pensions

The CWU's failure to stand up to the marketisation of pensions will affect more than just postal workers.

Disputes / Support the McWorkers: class against class!

Organisation is a vital weapon in the fight for our rights.

Lay-offs and closures / The collapse of Carillion

Financial and political commentators are suddenly ‘discovering’ that PFI and the privatisation of services might not be such a good deal after all.

Disputes / Crossrail electricians walk out

Blacklisting Balfour Beatty manager dismisses union members in an attept to avert strike action.

Disputes / Migrant workers in London: We are not the dirt we clean

New unions are championing London's invisible workforce.

Disputes / Rail strikes multiplying

The government and rail operators are continuing to force unsafe driver only operation onto staff and passengers.

Pay and conditions / Pay gap widens: the rich get richer

What the minimum wage did for us ...

Trade unions / Super Puma helicopter still flying despite multiple fatal crashes

The government continues to prioritise private profit over public safety.

Cote d’Ivoire / Draconian response to customs officers’ strike in Cote d’Ivoire

Behind Ouattara’s comprador regime lies the not-so-hidden hand of French and US imperialism.

British politics / Theresa May’s election U-turn

Proposed new laws to curb strike action by key public-sector workers were hastily ditched as Corbyn's popularity rose during the election campaign.

Trade unions / Aslef’s ‘shabby deal’

Rail bosses use divide and rule tactics to weaken resistance to safety-cutting measures.

Disputes / Birmingham’s binmen conclude their strike … for now

A ‘new’ deal has been offered that appears to make some concessions, but which demands more work for the same money.

Disputes / Editorial: Message to Birmingham’s bin workers

Trade unions / Derek Robinson: the passing of a working-class hero

A staunch and fearless union leader, one of an increasingly rare breed.

Industry / Industry matters: Fighting the trade war harder

Disputes / Binmen on strike in Birmingham

More council cuts = more rats! Birmingham’s refuse workers are mounting strong resistance to the latest austerity plans of the city’s Labour-led council.

Trade unions / The fight-back of the low-paid

‘Precarious’ workers are doing it for themselves.

Health / Cloak and dagger: the operation to kill the NHS

The campaign to destroy the NHS is reaching its final stages: how did we get here and what can we do?

Education / Education under attack

Capitalism in crisis is wrecking our children’s future; it’s time to wake up and fight back.

British politics / Birmingham council in financial crisis

A strike by binmen and other workers is inevitable.

British politics / How the scabs were ditched, and other dirty laundry of 1989-90

The latest release of cabinet papers gives us a further insight into the secret doings of our ruling class.

Palestine / What more can we do for Palestine?

“In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.”

Disputes / Shrewsbury 24: Amnesty International shows its true colours

Even forty years later, the ‘human rights’ champions are still not prepared to tell the full story of their collusion with Labour in keeping Des Warren locked up.

Disputes / Editorial: Junior doctors vote to reject new contract

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt vows to impose new conditions anyway as privatisation plans ramps up another gear.

France / Strike wave hits France

Workers are vigorously opposing their government’s attempt to rip up the French labour code.

Industry / Industry matters: Cleaners’ victory

Lay-offs and closures / Tata: the vultures circle

While the capitalist crisis continues to destroy workers' lives, our union leaders are still trying to push us down the blind alley of support for British imperialism.

Trade unions / Blacklisters cough up but justice still denied

Construction monopolies pay out token amounts to their victims in the hope of avoiding further exposure in the courts and media.

Pay and conditions / Union-busting at Topshop

Retail giant's outsourced cleaners protest against victimisation of activists.

Trade unions / Unite says no to Brexit

Britain's biggest trade union backs monopoly capital's view on the imperialist exploiters' club.

Disputes / No to the new doctors’ contract; save our NHS!

Hunt declares victory for the government; BMA’s Malawana declares ... nothing.

Lay-offs and closures / BHS workers facing loss of jobs and pensions

This is not the ‘unacceptable face’ of capitalism; capitalism itself is unacceptable.

Health / Sudden death of the ‘weekend effect’

One of the key planks in the government's propaganda offensive against junior doctors has been exposed as a total nonsense.

Disputes / Greece: the struggle continues

General strikes resume in the fight against austerity.

Disputes / Kohler workers’ strike in the US

Workers demand an abolition to the two-tier pay system and equality among all the company's employees.

Industry / Industry matters: TUC touts for the EU

Industry / Industry matters: pay ‘rises’ belied by decline in real wages

Health / The junior doctors’ contract and the US corporate takeover of the NHS

Dr Bob Gill explains the unreported and sinister drive behind the push for changing junior doctors’ contracts.

Industry / Steel industry in terminal decline

The only way to save the steel industry in Britain is to fight class against class.

Disputes / Letter: Boycott the General Medical Council

The medical profession needs a new, independent governing body, capable of acting in the true interests of patients.

Proletarian news / Industry matters: Amazon unveiled

Industry / Industry matters: French ferry workers blaze a trail

Trade unions / Industry matters: Blacklisting rampant

There is increasing evidence that the practice of blacklisting has never gone away – and has been quietly condoned by governments of all parties.

Theatre / Shrewsbury 24: United We Stand review

Culture, education and entertainment are brilliantly combined in Neil Gore's moving and insightful play.

Ukraine / Anglo-US imperialism ratchets up its bellicose stand against Russia

As inter-imperialist contradictions sharpen, some trade unionists are already campaigning for a defence of the imperialist fatherland.

Working-class history / The Victorian origins of workfare

Where did the government get the idea of subsidising free labour for big companies like Tesco?

Working-class history / Downton Abbey, the Jolly George and Stop the War

Please, if we ask you nicely, will you? Pretty please?

Working-class history / Book review: Striking a Light, the Bryant and May Matchwomen

Louise Raw reveals the connection of these militant young East End strikers to new unionism, socialism and Irish republicanism.

Working-class history / The matchgirls’ strike of 1888

A landmark victory in working-class history, with much relevance to the many workers today who are once more unorganised and unrepresented by any union.