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
AT A recent meeting with European trade unions, Greek comrades outlined the drastic changes to employment law rammed through by the right-wing government led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Described as “the biggest shake-up of working life in decades” the government proposals have been met with strikes and demonstrations as MPs voted through reforms.
The government has faced fierce resistance over the changes, with opposition parties and unions arguing that the reforms roll back long-established workers’ rights and accusing the government of exploiting Covid lockdowns.
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
Barred from returning home, a group of Greek Brigaders came to Britain and founded the League for Democracy in Greece – a movement that carried the flame of anti-fascist resistance from the 1930s through the cold war and beyond. ALI BASSAM ZAHID tells the story
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


