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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Organising against the great recession to come
A scatter-gun approach will not change the balance of power in the workplace. We need a focused national organising strategy informed by the best research and intelligence, says ROGER McKENZIE
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
ECONOMISTS and politicians are referring to this moment as the great recession to come.
As furlough ends, as spending plummets, as markets shrink and redundancies and cuts tsunami across the economy, trade unions will be left to defend our people from poverty and despair — our historic mission which sometimes we have failed to accept. Some theorists also suggest that trade unions will decline in numbers and power during recession.
As workers chase jobs that are disappearing and as those still in work desperately cling onto them, then so it goes that the unions will lose even more power and that the consequences of not making hay while the sun shines will hit us.
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NICK TROY lauds the young staff at a hotel chain and cinema giant who are ready to take on the bosses for their rights
Incoming Usdaw general secretary JOANNE THOMAS talks to Ben Chacko about workers’ rights, Labour and how to arrest the decline of the high street
KEVAN NELSON reveals how, through its Organising to Win strategy, which has launched targeted campaigns like Pay Fair for Patient Care, Britain’s largest union bucked the trend of national decline by growing by 70,000 members in two years