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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Visit a picket: week three
This week the Strike Map Team talk to a UCU striker from their picket line in north-west England
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
THEY SAY it’s grim up north — but they obviously have never stood on a picket line in Liverpool on a sunny spring day. After rejecting insulting and divisive pay offers the City of Liverpool College UCU branches along with six Further Education (FE) colleges in north-west England took strike action yesterday May 18.
This isn’t the first strike of its kind; unfortunately FE colleges every year force members to take industrial action in the face of pathetic below inflation pay offers. UCU members voted overwhelmingly for strike action last year and they did again this year.
What bad bosses don’t realise is that every time they force this then it just increases the strength of the workers. Nina Doran, UCU secretary to the UCU liaison committee at City of Liverpool College, told us that “the support for action is increasing, despite the anti-trade union actions and intimidating tactics of a leadership who do not listen to UCU members.
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