HENRY FOWLER, assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), reports on Day 2 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at the Workers’ Retreat, Quorn Grange Hotel
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Heroes & Villains of 2022
The Morning Star sorts the rotten scoundrels from the good eggs of the year just gone
HEROES: Rail workers on a RMT picket line at Birmingham New Street Station on November 16 2022
Assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions HENRY FOWLER reports on day 1 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at Quorn Grange Hotel
MPs and others called for the urgent release of tortured Palestinian doctor, Hussam Abu Safiya, held hostage by Israel and reportedly near death, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Strike Map co-founder HENRY FOWLER discusses the significance of today’s joint union letter to video game giant Rockstar, demanding trade union recognition for its workers. Their conversation highlights how our movement can harness its collective power to rebuild union power across the private sector
Capitalism has exploited — and polluted — our natural resources for too long, it’s time we treated our rivers as living beings, writes MIRIUM GAUNTLETT, LIAM SHAW and ROX MIDDLETON
The PM leaves office having squandered Labour’s electoral mandate and alienated its grassroots. He will not be missed, writes BRIAN LEISHMAN MP
HEROES
Workers on strike
How do you choose? The nurses who have undertaken the first national strike action in their union’s history? The transport and postal workers standing firm in the face of bosses’ dirty tricks and a government determined to break their spirit, cut their pay and wreck their industries? The workers who have won hundreds of localised disputes and demonstrated again and again that there’s power in a union? RMT leader Mick Lynch has said “the working class is back” in 2022 — the struggle continues, but the courage and militancy we have seen this year is an inspiration.
Symon Hill
The extraordinary decision of police officers to arrest people for protesting at the anti-democratic travesty that was King Charles III’s accession to the throne showed how heavy-handed policing has become in Britain and how urgent is the fight for freedom of speech. Hill’s call of “who elected him?” at the king’s proclamation in Oxford saw him charged under the Public Order Act — but he spoke for millions of his fellows who would be citizens, not subjects.
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Meanwhile, incoming PM Andy Burnham dithers over who should be his Chancellor
Labour’s toxic centrists have wealthy backers but there’s little to suggest they can win over MPs or party members in an open fight, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’