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.

Tres Cosas strikers win

Outsourced workers at Uni of London have won sick pay and holiday terms of very-near equivalence with directly-employed staff after a long campaign and a two-day strike (27 and 28 November 2013). Massive victory for 3 Cosas campaign, workers' self-organisation, and militant industrial action. Two demands down, one to go (plus union recognition)! Tres Cosas campaign blog Photos and reports from the strikes .

From the picket line: "3 Cosas" workers strike at University of London

Outsourced workers at the University of London are striking for equal rights and union recognition. Their "3 Cosas" ("3 Things") campaign has fought for parity of sick pay, holiday entitlement, and pension rights between outsourced and directly employed staff. They are striking on 27 and 28 November for these demands, against potential job losses resulting from the closure of Garden Halls, and for recognition of their union, IWGB. A demonstration is planned at 6pm on Wednesday 27 November at Senate House (see here for details), and picketing from 6am on Thursday 28 November (see here for more)...

Organising academics as workers

Academics love nothing more than having a moan about the terrible state of the neo-liberal university. We tend to be slightly less enthusiastic when it comes to getting up from our desks and doing something about it. This has begun to change, however, as pockets of resistance have begun to emerge at several different British universities in the last few years. An excellent discussion among Marxist academics at the 2013 conference of the "Historical Materialism" journal pointed to various different forums in which ‘knowledge workers’ might and should resist privatisation. From building...

New leaflet for the Defend Bob Carnegie campaign

Victimised Australian trade unionist Bob Carnegie returns to court on 4 February 2014, as Abigroup bring a civil case against him and two unions (the CFMEU and ETU). Click here to download a campaign leaflet about Bob's case. Visit the campaign website here , and the campaign Facebook page here .

More lessons from Grangemouth

The recent debacle surrounding the dispute at the Ineos petrochemicals plant at Grangemouth in Scotland could represent a significant defeat for the trade union movement. It certainly is a debilitating setback and an embarrassing climbdown. It raises some very worrying questions for socialists. Shortly after launching an aggressive “leverage” campaign against Ineos, with 100% support from the stewards and just weeks after a massive vote of over 90% in favour of strike action against the employer, the workforce and their union, Unite, accepted a humiliating package of cuts and attacks on the...

3 Cosas, independent unions, and transforming the labour movement

Earlier this summer, Max Watson, Chair of London Met Unison, and on the National Executive Council, wrote on his blog an article entitled “IWGB: Two small unions?” . Max documents the behaviour of the IWGB (Independent Workers union of Great Britain) trade union at London Met – claiming poaching, duplicity, and more. He goes on to draw parallels with a collection of workers and campaign I am heavily involved with at the University of London, based at Senate House in Bloomsbury (I am the Youth Officer of the Unison branch, and an IWGB member). The campaign is called "Tres Cosas” (“three things”...

"The fundamental element was our confidence in the working class"

Mike Treen, the National Director of the Unite union in New Zealand (no connection to the British union of the same name) spoke to Solidarity about their drives to organise precarious workers in the fast food and service industries. The “Supersize My Pay” campaign in the mid-2000s established Unite in the fast food industry. We won agreements with the major chains — Restaurant Brands (which owns Pizza Hut, KFC, and others), then McDonald’s, and finally Burger King. It was a long and exhausting struggle. We realised that, given the competitive nature of the fast food industry, we needed an...

Dozens arrested at anti-fracking protests

Update A number of activists, including Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, were arrested on protests at the Balcombe site. As of 4.50pm on 19 August, the No Dash for Gas Twitter feed was reporting that 19 activists had been arrested, "with more to be confirmed". Activists also protested at Cuadrillo's Sheffield headquarters, and the central London offices of Bell Pottinger, the PR firm used by Cuadrillo. For updates, see the No Dash for Gas website. This report, of a workshop at the "Reclaim The Power" camp, was written before the 19 August protests. Hundreds of activists flocked to the "Reclaim...

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