On the face of it, the government all but telling everyone to panic-buy fuel looks like a massive blunder. Spokespeople for both the petrol industry and the AA have said as much, and in most circumstances creating a nationwide fuel shortage out of nothing is a pretty stupid thing to do. But I don’t think [...]
It’s no secret that things haven’t been great for the trade union movement in recent years, but sometimes it’s easy to forget quite how bad things are until you realise that so many apparently intelligent people in public life don’t even have the faintest idea of what they are or how they function. This was [...]
Paul Kenny is right. The Tories will be rubbing their hands with glee at the current spat between Labour and the unions. But they won’t be doing so simply because Ed Balls’ now-notorious speech to the Fabian Conference is a sign that Labour support the government’s cuts agenda – while neither the speech itself nor [...]
H/t to Socialist Unity for this. Tails off a bit towards the end, but there’s a lot to enjoy here. Highlights include Serwotka correcting Maude on the inaccuracies in his claims about pensions, explicitly accusing him of lying about the numbers of civil servants who went on strike, and Maude trying and miserably failing to [...]
It’s pretty much certain that tomorrow’s strikes – which I’ll be taking part in – are going to be seriously disruptive for a lot of people. I’m sorry about that. I wish it didn’t have to be that way, and I’m pretty sure everyone else taking action feels the same way. Unfortunately it’s pretty much [...]
Steve Hedley – the London organiser for the RMT – has won his appeal, after being wrongly convicted of assaulting a TFL manager on a picket line. Earlier this year I interviewed Steve at a picket line at Finsbury Park station. Having been to quite a few pickets in my time, it was unusual to [...]
It’s hip, it’s fun, it’s the new craze everyone’s talking about, it’s…Strike Bingo! Easy to play whenever strikes are discussed in the news! All you need is a keen eye for politics and current affairs and a national media with an overt bias against organised labour – it couldn’t be easier! So sharpen your pencils, [...]
On June 30th, around 1,000,000 people in the UK will go on strike. This means that most people will also know someone who is going on strike – teachers, civil servants, lecturers, council workers, etc. However, it also means that 64,000,000 people won’t be going on strike, but many will want to support it somehow. [...]
In recent weeks, as public sector strikes over pension reforms loom large, there’s been a growing call for tougher strike laws – specifically, for some kind of minimum threshold in strike ballots for them to be valid. The Telegraph were talking approvingly about it last week, but it’s been kicking around for some time – [...]
Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has just provided yet more evidence that he is, in fact, an odious little shit. In a speech to a union conference, he warned that if widespread public sector strikes take place (which seems likely), the government would enact new anti-strike legislation. This is part of the speech obtained by the [...]
