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
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Now is the time
We are under a ferocious political attack from a fiercely anti-union Tory government, so it is in our members’ best interests for Corbyn and McDonnell to succeed, writes MARK SERWOTKA
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
This time last year we were all still trying to interpret the shock general election result — anticipating the kind of onslaught we would face, but still several weeks away from the beginnings of a new political movement.
We were right to expect the worst. As our union was preparing for its annual conference, Business Secretary Sajid Javid was laying the groundwork for the Tories’ deeply ideological Trade Union Bill.
That hateful piece of legislation, pure political malice, provided the background music to what has been an all-out assault. In the Civil Service, the removal of the check-off method of collecting subs through salaries has been accompanied by the promise of tens of thousands more job cuts, continuing pay restraint, plans to close hundreds of offices and the potential for further cuts to redundancy terms just a few years after ministers claimed the previous round put the scheme on an “affordable and sustainable” footing.
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A past confrontation permanently shaped the methods the state will use to protect employers against any claims by their employees, writes MATT WRACK, but unions are readying to face the challenge
In the final part of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY explains how in 2018, after years spent rebuilding the PCS into a leading force against austerity, a damaging rupture emerged from within the union’s own left wing
In part IV of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY tells how austerity minister Francis Maude’s attempt to destroy the PCS Civil Service union totally backfired
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