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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Unite's victory for casual workers at Marriott hotels shows the power of collectivism
A group of hospitality workers – many of them never organised before – collectively demanded, and won, the right to be furloughed by their initially reluctant employer. BRYAN SIMPSON explains
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
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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
ON APRIL 8, Marriott Hotels managers sent a letter to over 1,000 casual workers, stating that they were “yet to determine their position” on whether they could be furloughed, citing “significant cashflow issues” as their justification.
This was despite government guidelines released almost two weeks previously, on March 26, stating that zero-hours workers were perfectly entitled to be furloughed and paid at least 80 per cent of average annual earnings.
In fact, this was simply a case of a huge multinational doing everything it could to avoid keeping its most precarious workers on the books.
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