Latest editorial
Peter Mandelson speaking at the Future Countryside conference at Hatfield House, June 6, 2023
TRADE unions have hit back after Lord Peter Mandelson wrote in the Sunday Times today that Labour should “slow down” on boosting workers’ rights.
The Blair-era Cabinet minister said the new deal for workers — which Labour has pledged to implement within 100 days of winning office — “must not be rushed,” should be done in consultation with business and “should not go further than the settlement bequeathed by New Labour,” which infamously left Thatcher’s anti-union laws intact.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said that “Peter Mandelson earns his corn working as a consultant for private corporations.
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
SHARON GRAHAM reflects on the lessons of Murdoch’s confrontation with print workers – and argues that, in an age of AI, automation and net zero, only early organisation, collective power and planning can stop history repeating itself
Labour’s long-promised Act has scraped through the Lords. While the law marks a step forward, its lack of collective rights leaves workers short-changed — and sets the stage for a renewed campaign for an Employment Rights Bill #2, argues TONY BURKE
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