Unison director of organising KEVIN LUCAS explains the Organising to Win strategy, its successes to date and key tests on the union’s horizon
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Tackling the scourge of precarious work
Young workers do want to get involved in Unison, and where that is enabled we see growth in workplace power, argue Unison North West Young Members co-chairs ZAIHERA CHAUDHRY and IAN CAULFIELD
British military spending is among the highest in the world, diverts scarce resources from far better causes and fuels international conflict. It’s time we made different choices, argues LIZ PAYNE
Trade unions, trades councils and community organisations must work together to build lasting solidarity and resistance to the far right, argues DREW GILCHRIST
Animal metaphors are testament to delight in the non-human world and what we hope and wish for human freedom, argue ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT"
Economists estimate extreme poverty could be drastically reduced for a fraction of global defence spending, yet military budgets continue to expand year on year, says JON TRICKETT MP, ahead of the Stop the War International Conference on Saturday
WAGE inequality in Britain is equal to the worst in Europe and this has worsened, hand in hand with precariousness and deunionisation, both driven by neoliberalism.
Precarious work is not new, capitalism has seen all this before. It has existed since the industrial revolution. Marx referred to an “industrial reserve army of labour,” able to be coerced into filling in gaps as employment patterns changed.
According to author Jonathan White, in his article “Precarious work and contemporary capitalism” published on the Trade Union Futures website, Marx argued that “capitalism constantly creates a surplus population amongst the working class who live in a state of precariousness and poverty.”
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