Trade union issues

Issues for workers and our trade unions - opposing victimisation, fighting for better pay and conditions, health & safety, rank-and-file organising, and more.

Industrial news in brief: train cleaners; Sports Direct; Tube; Riverboats; Argos

Train cleaners ballot Cleaners working for Southern and Southeastern railways will be balloted by the RMT in two separate disputes over pay and working conditions. The cleaners are employed by two different cleaning contractors — Wettons on Southeastern and Churchill on Southern. The ballot closes on 21 September. Sports Direct Working conditions in Sports Direct have hit the headlines again after the Guardian reported that warehouse workers were being asked to touch ″happy or sad emoji faces″ to indicate their satisfaction with working conditions. The touch pad faces are apparently linked to...

Workers' Control, Not Immigration Controls

A 2006 pamphlet from the No-One Is Illegal Campaign, setting out the labour-movement case against immigration controls. Click here to download the PDF.

Workers' direct action gets the goods: sacked Crossrail worker reinstated

Construction workers scored a big win against contractors operating on the Crossrail transport project in central London, after a sacked worker was reinstated within hours of a demo at Crossrail's Oxford Street site. The worker, who began work on Monday 9 February, raised concerns over safety standards on the site. Despite being told he would have work for three years, he was summarily sacked on Friday 13 February. A demonstration organised by the Blacklist Support Group (which was instrumental to winning the reinstatement of electrician Frank Morris, sacked from another Crossrail site in 2012...

The Monthly Survey

Articles: John Major's "beef war" (Alan Gilbert) Towards a summer of discontent? Rail and post go into battle (Tom Wills) Deep divisions in Israel Germany's workers are fighting back (Rhodri Evans) Socialist Labour Party: Little controversy, no orientation, no hope (Martin Thomas) The new left in Unison (Sleeper) Download PDF

Survey: education, diary of a tubeworker & labour news

Student debt explodes: HE, FE (Daisy Forest, Ed Whitby) Out Proud and Organising (Daisy Forest) Diary of a tubeworker: Phew, what a sell out! Troops used against firefighters dispute (Chris Jones) The rail sell out Strike against casual labour Defeated council plans library closure To download PDF click here

Ritzy cinema workers' strike hots up

On 20 July workers at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton were on strike again as part of their Living Wage campaign. The strike had been timed to disrupt a live screening of the new Monty Python musical, the kind of screening that normally draws packed audiences and big profits. For the first time in the dispute, the bosses decided to try and keep the cinema running during industrial action, drafting in managers from elsewhere to fill in for strikers. A large, noisy crowd - perhaps fifty strikers and well over a hundred supporters - gathered at the entrances to cinema, waving flags, dancing to music...

Bad lessons from Japan

In a recent report the TUC tells us that championing human resource management can be the saving of trade unions. Part one Part two

Tube union ballots for strikes

London Underground union RMT has begun balloting for strikes to stop a management cuts plan that will lead to the closure of every ticket office on London Underground and the loss of nearly 1,000 jobs. The ballot, which opened on 3 December, will close on 10 January. A mass meeting of around 200 RMT members on 26 November discussed a campaign of sustained industrial action, including creative forms of 'action short of strikes' as well as strikes. Janine Booth, RMT Executive member for the London Transport region, told the rally: "Our action will not be a token protest to show our opposition to...

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