Disputes / Bus drivers need decent pay; passengers need a decent service!

First Group’s profits vanish without drivers – the exploiters can’t do without workers, but the workers could do fine without an exploiting class!

Trade unions / The Spark: Unions shilling for Labour on Ukraine, gender and more

The first issue of our industrial news sheet examines recent cases of trade union leaderships failing their members and the wider working class.

Disputes / Birmingham bin workers smelling rats

Neither the council nor the unions seem in any hurry to bring this dispute to a conclusion. Workers are left wondering why.

Social wage / The current poverty crisis and our tasks

Living standards in Britain are continuing to deteriorate, and the rate of deterioration is accelerating.

Trade unions / RMT union launches new campaign to end outsourcing on the railways

It is not their inability to think logically but their dedication to profit-generation that leads our rulers to destroy public services.

Pay and conditions / Enable care workers strike against poverty pay in Scotland

Low pay has become such an issue in the care sector that up to 30 percent of vacancies are unfilled.

Social wage / People’s Assembly puts on show of fake outrage over ‘Tory Starmer’

Ever hopeful of rescuing their reputations and keeping a lid on working-class discontent, the fake left are at it again.

Trade unions / Communist work in the trade unions

Our role is not to take over the bureaucracies but to bring a class-conscious understanding and programme to rank-and-file militants.

Disputes / Birmingham’s gone bust! But why are workers told to pay?

No one has explained why some of the most hardworking and essential employees should bear the brunt of a crisis they had no hand in making.

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’.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 / 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!

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.

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: 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.

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?

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.

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.

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! 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 / 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.

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?

Pay and conditions / Cleaners demand fair pay at government department

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Defend Brexit and fight for better working conditions for all.

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 / 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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 ...

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.

Trade unions / Aslef’s ‘shabby deal’

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

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.

British politics / Birmingham council in financial crisis

A strike by binmen and other workers is inevitable.

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.

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.

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 / 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.

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

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 / 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.