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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Will TUC 2019 mark 'emancipation time' for trades councils?
Bridgwater trades union council members showing support for the Glasgow women's equal pay strike last year
[Kate Pearce]
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
LOCAL trades union councils – or “trades councils” for short – have been, for over 150 years, the active rank and file of our trade union movement.
In 1867 and 1868, trades councils in London, Manchester and Salford convened the national gatherings of trades unionists which became the TUC Congress.
Trades councils have been at the heart of all the major confrontations between labour and capital for the last 100 years: the autumn 1920 Councils of Action that prevented Winston Churchill waging war on the fledgling Soviet Union through Poland; the 1926 General Strike, where trades councils in many towns and cities assumed working-class power; the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike, where in many, if not most, cases trades councils set up the NUM Support Groups.
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