Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
Latest editorial
The EU is far from being a guarantor of workers’ rights
BRIAN DENNY separates the chaff from the wheat in the EU rights debate
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
A recent TUC report claimed that withdrawing from the EU would turn the clock back on women’s rights by “decades.”
Yet there is evidence that the EU itself has launched its own assault on equality for some time, not least through its ruthless austerity programmes.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady claimed that only EU membership can defend gains in the workplace, ranging from protection against pregnancy discrimination to fairer pay, holiday and pensions.
Similar stories
The unions are unhappy with the Employment Rights Act 2025 and with good reason. KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC take a close look at why the Bill promised more than it delivered
Comments from Matt Goodwin and Danny Kruger expose a reactionary vision in which falling birth rates are blamed on women, says JUDITH CAZORLA
Half a century after transformative laws reshaped Britain, women’s rights are again contested. This International Women’s Day is a call to remember how change was won, and to organise to defend it, says KATE RAMSDEN
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR