TUC and pay – time to grasp the nettle
[WORKERS, SEP 2014]
We need to destroy the pay freeze and put wages centre stage of the real relationship between workers and employers. Yet few want to talk about the obstacles to doing that...
...[more]
Composing British unity
[WORKERS, SEP 2014]
Scottish composer Eddie McGuire speaks up for the unity of British culture...
...[more]
The real Trojan horse
[WORKERS, SEP 2014]
Why are we so passive in the face of attempts by millionaires and zealots to pervert proper education?
...[more]
Who will claim this century?
[WORKERS, SEP 2014]
Part 1 of our feature on class, published in July, showed that the concept is central to making sense out of both our day-to-day experiences and in the world at large. In Part 2, we argue that action as a class rings the death knell of the disastrous economic, political and social system of capitalism...
...[more]
1707: The Treaty of Union
[WORKERS, SEP 2014]
When Scotland and England united in 1707, it set the scene for progress throughout Britain...
...[more]
Government renews rail franchise chaos
[WORKERS, JUL 2014]
The franchise to run the heavily used Thameslink service for seven years has gone to a company partly owned by French state railway operator SNCF...
...[more]
Scotland’s false flag
[WORKERS, JUL 2014]
The 18 September referendum is all about stopping the move for Britain’s independence from the EU...
...[more]
Which class wants supremacy?
[WORKERS, JUL 2014]
In a two-part analysis of class in the 21st century, Workers dismisses the notion that class is dead. The idea of class is central to making sense both out of our day-to-day experiences and of the world at large, and argues that action as a class can end the disastrous economic, political and social system of capitalism...
...[more]
Eurovision’s orchestrated abuse
[WORKERS, JUL 2014]
All harmless fun? There’s another side to the Eurovision song contest, and it’s not pretty...
...[more]
Pharmaceuticals: success breeds insecurity
[WORKERS, JUN 2014]
There could be no clearer case than Pfizer to show just how predatory and rotten is the international finance capitalist system. It will kill what is left of our productive industry and starve us in its prison until we break free...
...[more]
Government threat to cut wages further still
[WORKERS, JUN 2014]
Workers in local government are to be balloted for strikes, with 10 July as the date set for action. But no thought has been given to any variety of ideas and activity that could challenge the employer or harness members’ ingenuity...
...[more]
Bill Ash, 1917 – 2014
[WORKERS, JUN 2014]
Two friends of Bill Ash, who died last month aged 96, share some memories of the Party’s first editor...
...[more]
1921: The ‘Poplarism’ struggle
[WORKERS, JUN 2014]
The detested Poor Law Act of 1834 was not just a feature of the Victorian era. It was still in use well into the 20th century...
...[more]
May Day - a time to celebrate the working class
[WORKERS, MAY 2014]
Only the working class has the ability, the will and the organisational ability to stop imperialism. It has done it before, and it must do it again...
...[more]
Britain needs coal. Why can't it be British?*
[WORKERS, MAY 2014]
Britain’s coal industry is to be reduced to one deep pit and a handful of opencast mines. While the government drags its feet and the opposition remains silent, it falls to organised labour to put energy security on the agenda...
...[more]
School-based struggle
[WORKERS, MAY 2014]
Teachers will have to develop their school-based organisations into fortresses if they are to win...
...[more]
Victory in Europe: 8 May 1945
[WORKERS, MAY 2014]
The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the Second World War in Europe, which ended with the defeat of fascism. The balance of class forces shifted away from capitalism for a few post-war decades...
...[more]
Nothing easy about QE
[WORKERS, MAY 2014]
We were sold “quantitative easing” – QE – as a way of stimulating growth. Not so. And it will end in tears...
...[more]
We can win on wages
[WORKERS, APR 2014]
Ironically, the government has done unions a good turn through its directives on public sector pay...
...[more]
Crossrail: an asset only if Londoners reclaim it
[WORKERS, APR 2014]
Londoners could decide they want to live in a city run wholly for its people, with all their skills, talents and inventiveness...
...[more]
Qatar: the new threat of super-feudalism
[WORKERS, APR 2014]
Qatar’s foreign workers are modern-day slaves. It is funding reaction around the world. And it is buying up chunks of Britain. Worried? You should be...
...[more]
1834: The way to the workhouse
[WORKERS, APR 2014]
When landowners found that using the poor rate to supplement employers’ below-subsistence wages too expensive, they found another solution...
...[more]
A victory for London, a victory for unions
[WORKERS, MAR 2014]
February's tube strike was the opening skirmish in a struggle to defend London Underground transport services in the face of a full frontal attack on the rail unions...
...[more]
Why Britain needs its chemical industry
[WORKERS, MAR 2014]
Too often dismissed as irrelevant or denigrated as harmful, in fact the chemical industry is an essential part of British manufacturing...
...[more]
The SNP's stab in the back for the pound
[WORKERS, MAR 2014]
Among the expressions of togetherness and shared experience between British workers is something we use every day – our currency. And the pound’s stability is under threat from the SNP and its supporters...
...[more]
1795: The road to Speenhamland
[WORKERS, MAR 2014]
The end of the 18th century saw a new system that encouraged employers to pay below-subsistence wages. It was called after an area in Berkshire...
...[more]
If you use the NHS, watch out for the EU
[WORKERS, FEB 2014]
In theory our health service is safe from the European Union. In theory...
...[more]
Politicians and wages
[WORKERS, FEB 2014]
Why do people think the minimum wage is there to provide a safety net?
...[more]
The crisis hasn’t gone away – it’s still growing
[WORKERS, FEB 2014]
The financial turmoil since 2007 is a crisis in the making similar to pre-1914, which marked the end of the first period of capitalist globalisation...
...[more]
Race: a way out of confusion and distortion
[WORKERS, FEB 2014]
The word “race”, as applied to variation among human beings, never had any scientific justification. Now it has become an indiscriminate label to cover ignorance...
...[more]
The young, our future
[WORKERS, FEB 2014]
The greatest challenge to public health in Britain is the wellbeing of children and young people...
...[more]
How speculators ruined Scotland
[WORKERS, FEB 2014]
This month we review two books, one about Scotland’s past, the other about its possible future...
...[more]
The fight for the arts
[WORKERS, JAN 2014]
As in health and education, the steady erosion of the culture sector damages us all...
...[more]
‘Living wage’ - a fiasco
[WORKERS, JAN 2014]
A tiny increase on an already tiny amount...why are we in awe of the “living wage”?
...[more]
Aerospace: vital for Britain
[WORKERS, JAN 2014]
With finance capital dominating and distorting the economy, what’s left of British industry becomes ever more important...
...[more]
Nelson Mandela: 1918–2013
[WORKERS, JAN 2014]
Western eulogies to Nelson Mandela are trying to airbrush out of history the man who never renounced the revolutionary fight...
...[more]
Rail unions resist the EU’s plans to hand control over to private companies
[WORKERS, DEC 2013]
The Action for Rail campaign is targeting a European Union measure which, if introduced, would force the rest of Europe to adopt much of the failed fragmentation and privatisation that has plagued Britain – and also stop a future government from renationalising rail...
...[more]
They call it free movement of labour. They mean the enslavement of labour
[WORKERS, DEC 2013]
The European Union loves it. Employers love it. No wonder. The free movement of labour threatens to undermine all our working class achievements...
...[more]
Smash and grab in the high street as US vulture funds sink their talons into the Co-op
[WORKERS, DEC 2013]
In less than 18 months the Co-op banking group has gone from being the largest mutually owned bank in Britain to being taken over by three US hedge funds...
...[more]
More than a loan – the Anglo-American Agreement of 1945
[WORKERS, DEC 2013]
Our ruling class has a track record of not protecting Britain’s national interest. One typical episode occurred at the end of the Second World War...
...[more]
The Battle for Britain: workers take steps to defeat separatism and build unity
[WORKERS, NOV 2013]
Next year’s referendum can become an opportunity for the British working class to rebuild and revitalise our country...
...[more]
Who's counting? Not the government...
[WORKERS, NOV 2013]
After more than two centuries, capitalism has decided it doesn’t really need to know what’s going on in Britain – and that the census should go...
...[more]
Why we need an EU referendum now
[WORKERS, NOV 2013]
Almost the entire political establishment, from coalition and Labour leaders to the TUC, may all unite to hold back the tide of opinion demanding a referendum. We must stop them...
...[more]
Against economic liberalism, but still in thrall to dogma
[WORKERS, NOV 2013]
A report for the UN makes trenchant criticisms of the kind of economics espoused by the banker-driven economies of the west – but the Stiglitz Report is constrained by its desire to stay within capitalism and a system of private profit...
...[more]
Are people valued?
[WORKERS, NOV 2013]
When care hospitals closed, promises were made to patients – and broken...
...[more]
The next mis-selling scandal: why most of today’s students may never clear their debts
[WORKERS, OCT 2013]
As a new university year begins, many students are arriving for their courses having signed up unwittingly to a lifetime of debt. Meanwhile, the promised land of higher graduate earnings may turn out to be a mirage...
...[more]
Teachers rally as strike days loom
[WORKERS, OCT 2013]
Industrial action in schools in England starts this month as teachers fight for pay, pensions, working conditions and jobs...about – real organisation, real democracy, real strength, real challenges...
...[more]
Cuba’s example strengthens a continent
[WORKERS, OCT 2013]
There was a time when Central and South America were seen as America’s back yard. No longer...
...[more]
Is London our capital – or simply a plaything for the world’s “elites”?
[WORKERS, OCT 2013]
Our capital city is becoming a safe haven for the rich of the world, somewhere to stash ill-gotten gains. Meanwhile, the inhabitants are being socially cleansed, priced out by soaring rents and forced out by deliberate government policies...
...[more]
Gibraltar: a piece of Spain that hasn’t always been a colony
[WORKERS, OCT 2013]
Spain imposes restrictions...Britain sends warships – and all a mere 2.6 square miles of rock, a legacy of imperialism...
...[more]
The issues that the TUC and the trade unions can no longer duck
[WORKERS, SEP 2013]
As the TUC prepares for its 145th annual get-together, we look at the real issues facing the Congress that many in the movement prefer not to talk about – real organisation, real democracy, real strength, real challenges...
...[more]
Only health service workers can be the custodians of quality
[WORKERS, SEP 2013]
Monitor, the Care Quality Commission, NHS Litigation Authority or the National Commissioning Board in all its iterations can’t inspect quality in the NHS at a distance...
...[more]
Why nuclear has got to be part of Britain’s energy mix
[WORKERS, SEP 2013]
If Britain is to stay an advanced and industrialised country with any level of proper civilisation, it needs a proper energy policy, with the planning to back it up. And it needs all the power sources it can find – including nuclear...
...[more]
The early 1800s: national workers’ organisation arrives
[WORKERS, SEP 2013]
Deemed not respectable enough by the labour movement’s later historians – they dismissed “Luddites” from their accounts...
...[more]
Britain in the Middle East: a history of warmongering and of war
[WORKERS, JUL 2013]
The US is training Syrian “rebels” in Jordan and itself has 20,000 troops there. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are pouring arms into Syria in an attempt to topple the government. The threat of war is real...
...[more]
Heard of the EU Plant Variety Agency? If it hasn’t tested your seeds, you can’t grow them
[WORKERS, JUL 2013]
The EU has proposed a whole new set of legislation amounting to 70 enormous legal texts governing the European Union’s food chain. If you like gardening, or work in horticulture or forestry, watch out...
...[more]
Britain, a country under attack
[WORKERS, JUL 2013]
Capitalism’s institutions are in permanent decline – time for the working class to assert its ascendancy...
...[more]
The Battle of Kursk – preparation, production and bravery
[WORKERS, JUL 2013]
Seventy years ago, the Soviet Union’s Red Army - in a colossal tank battle - smashed Nazi Germany’s last major offensive operation, changing the balance of forces in the world...
...[more]
Secret trade talks to sell Europe’s nations to the multinationals
[WORKERS, JUN 2013]
Free trade agreements are the new battering rams designed to break down countries’ ability to defend their own industries. Now the EU is negotiating – in secret – the biggest one of all, with the US. And thanks to the last Labour government, we effectively have no say about it...
...[more]
Playing poker with power
[WORKERS, JUN 2013]
Multinational companies and government ideologues are playing a cynical game over energy supplies. Are we the poor saps in the middle?
...[more]
Our future: face up to the challenge
[WORKERS, JUN 2013]
Nothing induces stress more than the slump that capitalism has plunged Britain into. And nothing eases stress better than the commitment to make a revolution...
...[more]
Scotland: No to break-up
[WORKERS, JUN 2013]
This month we review two books that put the SNP’s plans to break up Britain under the spotlight – and find these plans full of flaws...
...[more]
Do it yourself, and do it in the workplace: the way to rebuild our unions
[WORKERS, MAY 2013]
Membership of our trade unions has more than halved since the peak of over 13 million in 1979. Many reasons have been put forward to explain this fact and many attempts have been made to reverse the decline. Yet, in the land that gave birth to trade unions, the decline continues. But it can be reversed...
...[more]
Who benefits from benefits?
[WORKERS, MAY 2013]
We need to break out from a benefits system that subsidises poverty-pay employers and greedy landlords – and props up capitalism...
...[more]
Trade imbalances and the eurozone debacle
[WORKERS, MAY 2013]
A book shows how countries must accept stagnant growth and unemployment levels of 20 per cent or more indefinitely – or leave the euro.
...[more]
Capitalism’s ruthlessness in Africa as it sucks the continent dry of resources.
[WORKERS, MAY 2013]
Defeated militarily and no longer able to extract wealth from Africa in the old colonial way, imperialism has turned to new forms of holding on to power: trade agreements, buying up resources, and aid are all tools of control...
...[more]
Energy paralysis: government action – and inaction – has put our power supply in peril
[WORKERS, APR 2013]
It’s not rocket science, just simple mathematics: Britain is closing power stations faster than new ones are being built. The result is a dangerous reliance on Middle Eastern gas, and a looming threat of power cuts...
...[more]
We’re not going to reform the state – we have to take it for ourselves
[WORKERS, APR 2013]
We instinctively recognise the state as the tool for ruling class power. Yet at the same time we see it as providing the answer to our problems...
...[more]
NHS workers: take responsibility
[WORKERS, APR 2013]
How is it that we need a public inquiry to remind us that patients come first – and that the organised working class in the NHS left it to relatives and carers to force one?
...[more]
Africa: how a mighty continent bled dry by capitalism asserted its independence
[WORKERS, APR 2013]
Capitalists like to refer to Africa as a hopeless case, unable to advance politically or socially. But a glance at its history shows how capitalist colonisation distorted its economies and sucked out its natural resources...
...[more]
Sacrifices that truly are in vain
[WORKERS, APR 2013]
This month, we look at a fascinating book about how wars are justified, and a failed attempt to do something for Gordon Brown’s tattered reputation...
...[more]
Our NHS – we need more planning and integration, not chaos
[WORKERS, MAR 2013]
The organisation of health services has become a chaotic battleground, with the government seeking to set hospital trust against hospital trust, locality against locality. It is up to the working class to ensure that the NHS remains not just public and free, but national as well...
...[more]
Teachers: fight for pay where we work
[WORKERS, MAR 2013]
Teacher unions have yet to learn the lesson that real strength starts in the school...
...[more]
Britain is one nation, not three
[WORKERS, MAR 2013]
With Scotland gearing up for an independence referendum, it’s time to remember why we need to stay together as a united people – and why our enemies want to divide us...
...[more]
Socialism and finance: lessons from the Soviet Union about securing real progress
[WORKERS, MAR 2013]
The 1930s saw mass unemployment sweep across the world – though not in the Soviet Union, which planned its economy and took the concepts of credit and finance seriously...
...[more]
A farewell to the EU – and how industry starved to death
[WORKERS, MAR 2013]
This month we look at two books – one short and one longer – that grapple with the two key issues facing Britain today: the European Union, and industry...
...[more]
What future for young people?
[WORKERS, FEB 2013]
What future for young people? We need to shape and change the future – what we have is death but what we want is life, hence the next generation taking responsibility...
...[more]
A victory in the battle for nursing education – but the attack continues
[WORKERS, FEB 2013]
The attack on the NHS takes many forms, and a lot hinges on our ability to choose fights wisely and make sure we win...
...[more]
Save libraries – essential for civilisation
[WORKERS, FEB 2013]
Under capitalism, libraries in the 21st century have, like every other indication of civilisation, been called into question...
...[more]
1948–1960: Britain’s war in Malaya
[WORKERS, FEB 2013]
When Japan withdrew from Malaya after the end of the Second World War, Britain resumed imperial control of its former colony...
...[more]
Pay, pensions and conditions: the battle for education
[WORKERS, JAN 2013]
Teachers returning to their schools after the Christmas break face an unparalleled assault on their unions, their professionalism, the service they work in...
...[more]
Debt and cuts: running out of excuses, running out of time
[WORKERS, JAN 2013]
Chancellor George Osborne presented the Autumn Statement. Like all his predecessors, he has little idea what causes economic crises or what to do about them...
...[more]
CONGRESS 2012
[WORKERS, JAN 2013]
Our country is under attack. Every single institution is in decline. The only growth is in unemployment, poverty and war. There is a crisis – of thought, and of deed.
...[more]
Safety issues grow as scramble for North Sea oil and gas gathers pace
[WORKERS, JAN 2013]
Helicopters returning to base or ditching in the sea – no wonder there are concerns that corners might be cut in the dash to reap profit from the North Sea...
...[more]
A tale of two eras – but the same plot
[WORKERS, JAN 2013]
If you compare eighteenth-century British capitalism with today’s, there are clear similarities. Most noticeably a tendency to tyranny...
...[more]
The NHS: its life in our hands
[WORKERS, DEC 2012]
If we are to save the NHS we need collectively to regain the kind of confidence which was crucial to the establishment of the service in the dark days of the Second World War.
...[more]
If you want to improve your pay, you have to fight for it
[WORKERS, DEC 2012]
How can the idea of the ‘living wage’ be a winning philosophy, based as it is on charitable statisticians and the voluntary agreement of employers?
...[more]
Economic sanctions – just another way of waging war
[WORKERS, DEC 2012]
The use of sanctions by one power against another to achieve political objectives is not new. But the manner and intensity with which they are being applied in the Persian Gulf by the US, the EU, Australia, NATO and its despot allies certainly is.
...[more]
The bankruptcy of devolutionary thought
[WORKERS, DEC 2012]
This month, a new book that tries to put the case for devolution but ends up showing, unintentionally, how ridiculous the idea is. Plus how the West lost its way in Afghanistan.
...[more]
Debt: capitalism’s final solution
[WORKERS, NOV 2012]
All moribund capitalism can come up with now is to take away everything workers have. And it’s turning on young people – using credit to bind them into a lifetime of repayments...
...[more]
Bring back publicly owned rail
[WORKERS, NOV 2012]
The government is now on the back foot over transport. Even Daily Telegraph readers want renationalisation. There’s a golden opportunity to reverse the madness of privatisation...
...[more]
The European Union – war on Europe’s peoples
[WORKERS, NOV 2012]
The European Union wants to shackle the nations of Europe in order to maximise profits. Immersed in crisis, it seeks to control every aspect of social and economic life...
...[more]
Exposing the myth of the ‘Arab Spring’
[WORKERS, NOV 2012]
A foreign correspondent has used his background and first-hand information to build a compelling picture of uprising hijacked by Islamist reaction...
...[more]
Why we must reclaim our trade unions
[WORKERS, OCT 2012]
Instead of a tiny percentage of stewards, branch officers, activists, we must return the ownership of the union to the members...
...[more]
The fight for Britain’s independence
[WORKERS, OCT 2012]
The European Union and its friends here are attacking our nation, our finances and our manufacturing...
...[more]
Universities in crisis as cuts start to bite
[WORKERS, OCT 2012]
Tuition fees were welcomed by some universities, which saw them as compensating for government cuts – not the brightest of moves...
...[more]
The market isn’t working, the system isn’t working
[WORKERS, OCT 2012]
A new book by eminent economist Joseph Stiglitz dissects the reasons for the failure of free-market capitalism...
...[more]
Gove challenged over exam coercion
[WORKERS, OCT 2012]
As WORKERS went to press a legal challenge was being launched against exam regulator Ofqual for its refusal to re-grade GCSE English papers in England.
...[more]
How capitalism relegated Rangers
[WORKERS, SEP 2012]
Tragedy has followed farce as one of the most prestigious names in Scottish football has fallen victim to capitalist greed...
...[more]
Trade unions: collective action is the keystone of strength
[WORKERS, SEP 2012]
With the TUC Congress convening in Brighton this month, there are encouraging signs of a possible renaissance in recruitment. But the government is gearing up for yet another legal assault on trade unions...
...[more]
International law violated as NATO and its allies seek to dismember Syria
[WORKERS, SEP 2012]
It’s become a tried and tested formula: find some wealthy foreign exiles with absolutely nothing in common with the people of the country they have left, build them into opposition heroes, then impose them on the country...
...[more]
For genuine economic development
[WORKERS, SEP 2012]
In the name of infrastructure, capitalists are to be enriched and our pensions funds looted. But there is another way...
...[more]
1833 – 1838: The Tolpuddle Martyrs
[WORKERS, SEP 2012]
The Tolpuddle Martyrs were transported for resisting starvation wages and forming a trade union...
...[more]
The Olympics: a city hijacked
[WORKERS, JULY 2012]
It was supposed to be London that won the Games. But the capital has been the biggest loser...
...[more]
The disaster zone: why the euro can only make things worse
[WORKERS, JULY 2012]
They can’t say they weren’t warned. Any number of economists lined up before the euro was launched to predict how it would strangle economic growth. And it has...
...[more]
A national industrial strategy – bring industry back to Britain
[WORKERS, JULY 2012]
Current British governments are not prepared to defend or restore our manufacturing capacity. A key step must be to devise an industrial policy for Britain...
...[more]
1862: The Hartley Calamity – a pit disaster remembered
[WORKERS, JULY 2012]
A hundred and fifty years on, the accident at the Hester Pit, Hartley, which killed 204 men and boys is not forgotten...
...[more]
Separatism shunned, EU condemned
[WORKERS, JULY 2012]
The Scottish TUC came alive with discussion on the European Union – despite attempts to avoid the debate...
...[more]
McAdemies: franchising state schools
[WORKERS, JUNE 2012]
This government has both an ideological and a commercial commitment to privatisation of public services in Britain...
...[more]
The truth behind the pension fund ‘deficits’
[WORKERS, JUNE 2012]
The combination of quantitative easing and government accountancy rules is forcing up supposed pension fund deficits, closing schemes that are in fact perfectly viable...
...[more]
UCU: defeat the lies, fight for quality
[WORKERS, JUNE 2012]
The annual congress of the University and College Union in Manchester meets at a crucial time for further and higher education in Britain...
...[more]
Ireland’s choice: bow down before the European Union, or declare that enough’s enough
[WORKERS, JUNE 2012]
The Irish government was elected in February 2011 on a wave of popular discontent with the way in which the Irish economy was being managed in favour of banks. Now it now wishes to pass into law a treaty to allow a body outside Ireland, one which is not accountable to the Irish people, to control all Irish revenue and expenditure...
...[more]
1861–1865: British workers and the American civil war
[WORKERS, JUNE 2012]
Despite having no representation in parliament, the British working class were able to restrain the pro-slavery leanings of the ruling class...
...[more]
There are no white knights: we have to fight for pay ourselves
[WORKERS, MAY 2012]
People seem to shy away from talking about pay – and even more from fighting for it. Yet pay, or lack of it, is what unites us as workers. It is currently a source of weakness, but it could become one of our strengths...
...[more]
EU seeks (again) to de-skill professions
[WORKERS, MAY 2012]
Not content with the outcome of its 2005 Directive on recognition of professional qualifications, the European Commission is back on the warpath...
...[more]
Together, but sovereign: how Latin America and the Caribbean are forging their own future
[WORKERS, MAY 2012]
While the European Union set about destroying the independence of nations, and the US attempted to do the same in Central and South America, a new debate was beginning. It centred on integration and cooperation – but on the basis of national sovereignty...
...[more]
The Industrial Revolution and the transformation of Britain
[WORKERS, MAY 2012]
Britain was the first country to industrialise. That was before our rulers turned against manufacture...
...[more]
Trade unions – dead or alive?
[WORKERS, APR 2012]
It is time to forget the fads and the political play fighting. Get back to the workplace...
...[more]
Building bosses fail to impose contract
[WORKERS, APR 2012]
Construction workers have won a major victory in their fight to keep their national agreements. Winning future battles requires an honest assessment of strengths and weaknesses...
...[more]
The affluent South East? Take a closer look – the real world is rather different
[WORKERS, APR 2012]
A case study of one London borough exposes the lie peddled by politicians – usually seeking to divide us – that the north is poor and the south is rich...
...[more]
The Falkland Islands: a long way from being British
[WORKERS, APR 2012]
Though lying only 300 miles from Argentina and 8,000 miles from Britain, the Falkland Islands remain a remote imperial relic...
...[more]
How capitalism created a housing crisis
[WORKERS, MAR 2012]
First they pump up housing prices, then they price people out of the homes they live in...
...[more]
Debt, trade imbalance, fake economic miracle. Yes, it’s happened before. In Germany
[WORKERS, MAR 2012]
Forget about the self-serving squeals coming from Berlin: Germany has been directly and indirectly responsible for the mess the eurozone now finds itself in. And, it turns out, this is an issue on which the country has some form, around 80 years ago...
...[more]
Syria: stop the intervention!
[WORKERS, MAR 2012]
With weapons pouring across borders into Syria to arm the opposition to Assad, the stage is being set for sectarian violence and invasion...
...[more]
More than just a game
[WORKERS, MAR 2012]
Many people don’t take video games seriously, not least the government. But the industry employs thousands in Britain...
...[more]
A hundred and forty years of miners’ history
[WORKERS, MAR 2012]
This month, a look back at the history of the Durham Miners’ Gala, plus a Cambridge academic’s criticism of free-market capitalism...
...[more]
Alarm signals as foreign state enterprises line up to take over Britain’s transport
[WORKERS, FEB 2012]
Fed up with poor service and soaring fares, increasing numbers in Britain are calling for the railways to be re-nationalised. And astonishingly, that’s what is happening. Except not in the way any worker in Britain would want...
...[more]
Guerrilla struggle: the way forward for the fight on pensions
[WORKERS, FEB 2012]
If the resistance to the government’s plans for public sector pensions is to thrive, it must be based on what each section of workers wants and their ability to wage a protracted war based on their own needs and strengths. It is not, and never was, about one solution for everyone...
...[more]
The deadly cost of “free movement”
[WORKERS, FEB 2012]
Obsessed by its Single Market, the European Union has been forcing us to accept onto Britain’s health registers doctors and nurses who can’t speak English...
...[more]
1914: The road to catastrophe
[WORKERS, FEB 2012]
The First World War was not a surprise. The events and forces that led to it had been festering for decades...
...[more]
Pensions: a nation in struggle
[WORKERS, JAN 2012]
The unprecedented national stoppage of 30 November was the best possible riposte to the Coalition’s economic statement of 29 November. Two million workers striking, marching, providing emergency cover or showing solidarity with striking colleagues was a great uplift to the people of Britain.
...[more]
The fight for work in Britain’s cultural industries
[WORKERS, JAN 2012]
The festive season and the holidays have again brought home to many of us just how much the arts can enhance our lives – let’s keep it that way!
...[more]
Running out of power
[WORKERS, JAN 2012]
Along with protecting our territorial integrity, securing energy supplies must be the top priority of any government. But it hasn’t been for nearly 30 years, with disastrous results...
...[more]
Two graveyards of imperialist ambition
[WORKERS, JAN 2012]
To start off the New Year, two books on different aspects of war, separated by more than fifty years...
...[more]
Pensions: they don’t just want our money – they want our organisation destroyed
[WORKERS, DEC 2011]
To claim that this attack on public sector pensions is being launched just to pay for the banking crisis is a very superficial argument and borders on sloganeering. The greater goal is the destruction of the public sector...
...[more]
Who needs elections any more? Just let Brussels choose your government
[WORKERS, DEC 2011]
Capitalists never like to waste a crisis, and the eurozone debacle is seen as an opportunity to move even closer to a federal Europe. Step by step, the europhiles are trying to draw us into their net...
...[more]
Britain: What next for workers?
[WORKERS, DEC 2011]
Where do workers stand against the backdrop of the first 20 months of this coalition government?
...[more]
Exposing the lies created by Kruschev
[WORKERS, DEC 2011]
In an infamous secret speech to the congress of the Soviet communist party in 1956, Nikita Kruschev trashed Stalin’s reputation – in order to boost his own. A new book from an American academic exposes the lies...
...[more]
How we could fix the economy
[WORKERS, DEC 2011]
We’re not broke. We’re not at the mercy of foreign investors. And the working class could rebuild Britain – but first it has to force its way into the driving seat...
...[more]
Construction: 'sparks' to start a prairie fire as contractors seek to axe agreement?
[WORKERS, NOV 2011]
Seven big construction companies have decided to play it tough. They plan to tear up nationally agreed conditions and pay, and have said they will sack their workforces and re-employ on new terms on 7 December. But workers in the industry are rising to the challenge...
...[more]
Undermined: our aerospace industry
[WORKERS, NOV 2011]
The recent announcement of around 3,000 job losses at BAE Systems throws into even deeper doubt the much-promised revival of the manufacturing sector in Britain and the policies espoused by successive governments.
...[more]
The European Union and the great biofuels disaster
[WORKERS, NOV 2011]
Why have food prices been soaring? According to the World Bank, three-quarters of the 140 per cent rise in global food prices between 2002 and 2008 was due to biofuels: the replacement of food crops with plants grown for fuel...
...[more]
Protection for investors, not for the people
[WORKERS, NOV 2011]
European governments – including Britain – have paved the way for the European Union to negotiate trade deals that could see governments being sued by corporations...
...[more]
1926: The General Strike, and why it should not be mindlessly imitated
[WORKERS, NOV 2011]
At a time when some are calling for a General Strike we need to get clearer about what happened last time there was one in Britain...
...[more]
Health and safety: put on your hard hat – and get ready for harder times
[WORKERS, OCT 2011]
Blown-up stories of “health and safety gone mad” are providing a useful cover to a government intent on rolling back decades of progress. Nothing, certainly not workers’ lives, can be allowed to get in the way of a good profit...
...[more]
NATO – the hidden history of capitalism’s military wing
[WORKERS, OCT 2011]
As NATO makes a grab for Libya’s oil and reconstruction contracts in an unholy alliance with Islamists and spies, it’s worth looking at where it has come from to be what it is today...
...[more]
Capitalism: killing us all with its greed and stupidity
[WORKERS, OCT 2011]
The world is becoming increasingly dangerous, with our rulers resorting to wars to protect themselves. They say they are fighting dictators, but all they are interested in is propping up the dictatorship of capital...
...[more]
1941: The battle for Moscow
[WORKERS, OCT 2011]
Seventy years ago the world held its breath as Nazi troops came up to the gates of the Soviet Union’s capital city...
...[more]
Bombardier – the death of British train manufacturing?
[WORKERS, SEPT 2011]
The government's decision to go to Germany for the carriages for the new Thameslink trains manufacture puts our own industry in jeopardy...
...[more]
TUC 2011: Dump all diversions!
[WORKERS, SEPT 2011]
As delegates prepare for the Trades Union Congress in London this month, they need to recognise that workplace power is the only solution...
...[more]
Debt, the only thing capitalism gives us
[WORKERS, SEPT 2011]
In the name of balancing the public purse we are witnessing the dismantling of the welfare state. What we need is the rebuilding of our industry...
...[more]
The City: purveyor of tax havens to the world
[WORKERS, SEPT 2011]
A new book shows how tax havens undermine the rules, systems and institutions that promote the public good...
...[more]
Pensions attack: institutionalised looting
[WORKERS, JULY 2011]
The writing is on the wall. The government wants us to pay more, get less, and work longer – and preferably die before we retire...
...[more]
Demand an end to Britain’s warmongering
[WORKERS, JULY 2011]
As capitalism in dire straits makes its grab for North Africa, we say end the destruction abroad and at home...
...[more]
Caring for profit
[WORKERS, JULY 2011]
There's nothing new about privatisation and asset-stripping. But capitalism has broken new ground with the threat to tens of thousands of nursing home residents...
...[more]
Destruction of social care
[WORKERS, JULY 2011]
In a move paralleling the attack on the NHS, an assault has been launched on social care...
...[more]
1952 to 1956: The Mau Mau rebellion
[WORKERS, JULY 2011]
Boxes containing thousands of incriminating documents from the Kenyan colonial service show the barbarity with which the British Empire sought – vainly – to cling on to power in East Africa...
...[more]
Don’t break up Britain – rebuild it!
[WORKERS, JUNE 2011]
SNP talk about independence masks the true aim: to sell out Scotland to the European Union
...[more]
Why Libya is under attack
[WORKERS, JUNE 2011]
Libya is outside US–British influence, and does not obey their orders...
...[more]
The NHS: fighting inside, fighting to win
[WORKERS, JUNE 2011]
For those working in the NHS, our best chance of entering the field in our best shape is the battle for pay...
...[more]
When only capitalism counts...
[WORKERS, JUNE 2011]
The world’s four biggest accountancy firms have each been fined millions of dollars in the US. In the EU, they do what they want...
...[more]
The rise and rise of the corporate state: the bankers’ dream of eternal rule
[WORKERS, JUNE 2011]
Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” It’s that – rather than numbers of blackshirted thugs on the streets – that defined fascism then, and does so now...
...[more]
The Highland Clearances
[WORKERS, JUNE 2011]
The destruction of the old Highland society took with it not only a class opposing the rise of the bourgeoisie – the feudal Scottish clan leaders – but also trampled on the rights and well-being of tenant farmers trying to eke out a living...
...[more]
EU directive undermines nursing
[WORKERS, MAY 2011]
Nurses from the European Union are being allowed to register in Britain without meeting the same high requirements that apply to British nurses...
...[more]
Thirty years of attacks on social housing – no wonder there’s a crisis
[WORKERS, MAY 2011]
The odds against moving into affordable housing have never been so highly stacked, particularly for the young. But that’s ignored by those who see housing as a source of profit not as a basic human need...
...[more]
Cuba – the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ means democracy for the workers
[WORKERS, MAY 2011]
Two decades after the crisis that followed the collapse of Cuba’s main trading partner, the Soviet Union, the working class is still in control on the Caribbean island...
...[more]
The profit-lined road to motorway madness
[WORKERS, MAY 2011]
The devastation of the rail network that began in the 1960s was not an accident. It was a conscious decision to move away from a state-owned industry to private profit. And led by a transport minister whose family ran a road-construction company...
...[more]
Planned by Labour, adopted by the Coalition: the next pensions scam
[WORKERS, APR 2011]
With our retirements under attack from employers and governments, we have to make the demand for the complete transformation to a system of state pensions in conjunction with a thoroughgoing restructure of Britain – for an industrial revolution…
...[more]
No to the Alternative Vote!
[WORKERS, APR 2011]
They wouldn’t let us vote on the Lisbon Treaty. They won’t let us vote on EU membership. Now they want to change the electoral system to keep themselves in power…
...[more]
The calculated ruin of the NHS
[WORKERS, APR 2011]
When they talk of a health market they mean health chaos. That, and a nice little earner for someone. We should begin by understanding what is being proposed…
...[more]
1956: Britain, France and the Suez Canal crisis
[WORKERS, APR 2011]
As Britain and France attack Libya with no-fly zones and military interference, it is instructive to remember the disastrous consequences of an earlier attempt by these two countries to intervene in another Middle Eastern country...Egypt
...[more]
Blow to Britain as Pfizer closes Kent labs
[WORKERS, MAR 2011]
Last month the largest pharmaceutical company in the world decided its profits needed a boost – by closing one of Britain’s premier research institutes…
...[more]
Tax doesn’t have to be taxing – if you are the ruling class
[WORKERS, MAR 2011]
Benjamin Franklin is often quoted on tax: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” That isn’t true for the capitalist class.
...[more]
Mode 4: How to bring skilled workers into Britain despite an immigration ‘cap’
[WORKERS, MAR 2011]
Secrecy and spin are the means for pushing forward a trade policy that is formulated to benefit City of London financiers. That’s no surprise, given that the policy involves undermining workers with cheap graduate labour from outside the EU.
...[more]
The facts behind the BA dispute
[WORKERS, MAR 2011]
Another ballot shows overwhelming support from cabin crew at BA for a strike. A member tells Workers why…
...[more]
1871: The 72 days of the Paris Commune
[WORKERS, MAR 2011]
The first jolt to the ruling classes’ arrogant belief that only they are fit to govern came in 1871 with the uprising of the Paris Commune…
...[more]
Vultures and vandals: the EU and the NHS
[WORKERS, FEB 2011]
The combination of EU competition law and one small paragraph in the government’s health bill will open up the NHS to private competition…
...[more]
The pensions scam: the excuses get more and more bizarre
[WORKERS, FEB 2011]
There is no pensions crisis in Britain – other than the consequences of the last 30-year or more attack on workers and our industries made by successive governments…
...[more]
What Britain needs to survive: a new, second industrial revolution
[WORKERS, FEB 2011]
The chaos being wrought by this government – the latest in a line of destructive governments – has its roots in centuries of bitter hatred against the working class. Survival will require workers to develop their own strategy for Britain…
...[more]
1863: The First International
[WORKERS, FEB 2011]
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) – sometimes called The First International – united a variety of different political groups and trade union organisations
...[more]
West Burton: engineering construction workers dig in as employers seek changes
[WORKERS, JAN 2011]
As the looming crisis about Britain’s ability to produce enough power develops, the workers building the power stations are in a crucial position to exert working class control. The employers, of course, have other ideas…
...[more]
Higher education – a minority government trying to exert its power and failing
[WORKERS, JAN 2011]
The trebling of student fees took place without any of the normal trappings of parliamentary oversight: no Green Paper, no White Paper, no committee scrutiny. All it took was a tiny amendment to legislation introduced by Labour…
...[more]
Ireland’s boom and bust
[WORKERS, JAN 2011]
With the EU in control, things can only get worse. Ireland’s great need is to revisit the principles of 1916: unfettered control of the country’s destiny in the hands of its people…
...[more]
Songs of struggle: Paul Robeson remembered
[WORKERS, JAN 2011]
A new CD and a new play touring Britain in January and February recall the life of one of the finest basses of all time – the communist and fighter Paul Robeson…
...[more]
Higher education: the revolt begins…
[WORKERS, DEC 2010]
The assault on our universities brought tens of thousands out on the streets of London in November. And resistance is set to intensify – which it needs to.
...[more]
Needed – a national plan to rebuild Britain!
[WORKERS, DEC 2010]
Manufacturing is still the lifeblood of Britain. It not only contributes more to GDP than financial services, it is the key to our renewal…
...[more]
Who owns our schools?
[WORKERS, DEC 2010]
Started under Labour, continued under this government, the academies programme is handing over the education of our children to dubious organisations…
...[more]
The 1810s: The Luddites act against destitution
[WORKERS, DEC 2010]
Much maligned, almost a byword for backwardness, the Luddites were in fact fighting for their livelihoods and self-respect at a time when trade unions were virtually illegal…
...[more]
For a 21st-century industrial revolution!
[WORKERS, NOV 2010]
While Britain cowers at the prospect of over a million consciously created job losses, the direct result of the diktat of the government’s public sector funding cuts, workers should consider the true state of Britain’s economy, how fragile and crippled Britain really is under the rule of finance capital...
...[more]
Making the workers pay
[WORKERS, NOV 2010]
Faced with the calamitous results of their own capitalist policies, capitalist governments have only one strategy – as shown in the spending review...
...[more]
The transport battleground: on the rails and in the air
[WORKERS, NOV 2010]
British transport workers are showing a determination and persistence not unlike the French on pensions, but applied across a wide range of issues affecting their services...
...[more]
Welcome to the university marketplace
[WORKERS, NOV 2010]
The Browne report into the funding of higher education was commissioned by Labour. No wonder the good of society doesn’t seem to figure in it...
...[more]
1950: The outbreak of the Korean War
[WORKERS, NOV 2010]
It is sixty years since the outbreak of the Korean War – a conflict which saw the United States and its allies – including Britain – committing troops to the aim of holding back the spread of communism...
...[more]
The real cause of the 'pensions crisis': ageing capitalism, not an ageing population
[WORKERS, OCT 2010]
The rise in cost of public and private sector final salary pension schemes between 1990 and 2010 has very little to do with people living for a few years longer
...[more]
When ambulance workers drove a coach and horses through government pay policy
[WORKERS, OCT 2010]
A long and bitter struggle in the winter of 1989-1990 laid the foundations for the current transformation of ambulance workers into paramedics
...[more]
Science hit as capitalism flounders
[WORKERS, OCT 2010]
The scientific establishment is united against plans to cut back research spending. It would do well to understand the politics behind the cuts
...[more]
Locking countries into capitalist dependency: the EU’s Free Trade Agreements
[WORKERS, OCT 2010]
'Development' policies developed by the IMF and other financial institutions are just another weapon to attack the peoples of the world. But there are alternatives for countries that choose to exercise their sovereignty
...[more]
Tales from the front line: financial reporters on the crisis
[WORKERS, OCT 2010]
Two books, one from either side of the Atlantic, tell the sorry tale of what happens when governments are in thrall to finance capital
...[more]
TUC: Back to the workplace
[WORKERS, SEPT 2010]
Grand policies and posturing will not save the labour movement from the current onslaught. Only one strategy will work: workplace organisation
...[more]
Coalition set to destroy public healthcare
[WORKERS, SEPT 2010]
They said they would defend the NHS. They lied. But then, that’s what parliamentary democracy is all about
...[more]
Under attack – but schools frustrate Coalition academy plans
[WORKERS, SEPT 2010]
Education Secretary Michael Gove thought he would have more than a thousand schools straining to become independent of local control. After all, it was merely an acceleration of Labour policy. But the teaching profession has taught him a lesson
...[more]
Unions in illegality: the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800
[WORKERS, SEPT 2010]
Capitalists and workers are engaged in a constant battle to exert influence and control over pay and conditions as the two classes contend in the sphere of work and industry. This is as true now as it was at the birth of our class several centuries ago
...[more]
Just one policy: make us pay…
[WORKERS, JULY 2010]
Despite the news that the budgetary shortfall is less than expected, the government is accelerating its attack on Britain…
...[more]
…but there’s money to buy finance firms
[WORKERS, JULY 2010]
On 7 May the Prime Minister delivered a speech in Milton Keynes, declaring the national debt to be £1.4 trillion with interest payments of £70 billion a year.
...[more]
Call this democracy?
[WORKERS, JULY 2010]
The state of British politics is almost a joke. But it’s gone beyond satire. There’s something rotten in Britain. It’s the whiff of fascism, and it’s coming from the state…
...[more]
The same old refrain: attack the working class
[WORKERS, JULY 2010]
The main capitalist political parties all agree that there must be massive cuts in public spending.Their common demand in 2010 echoes unmistakably what happened in the public spending debt crises of 1921 and 1931…
...[more]
Cuito Cuanavale – the story behind the battle that became Africa’s Stalingrad
[WORKERS, JULY 2010]
The epic story of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola in 1987/89 is little known in Britain. But the events leading up to it show how small yet decisive actions by workers can bring about massive changes in the world…
...[more]
Unite against the anti-strike laws!
[WORKERS, JUNE 2010]
Recent court decisions, backed up by silence from the parliamentary parties, has all but made the right to strike an illegal act…
...[more]
Free trade deal set to hit British workers
[WORKERS, JUNE 2010]
The ConDem coalition has promised a referendum on significant changes to the way the EU operates. It can start with one on the proposal for a trade deal with India…
...[more]
Mobility of labour: why the conspiracy of silence?
[WORKERS, JUNE 2010]
With the anti-trade union laws as the backdrop, capitalism has deployed its favoured method of attack to devastating effect: unemployment, intensified by the exporting of jobs and the importing of labour…
...[more]
How Argentina escaped the clutches of the IMF
[WORKERS, JUNE 2010]
When Argentina ran into a debt crisis like Greece, its first response was to borrow money from the IMF and others, promising “austerity” packages of cuts. Then it took a different direction…
...[more]
The price of failing to take responsibility
[WORKERS, MAY 2010]
What is going wrong in this country? There’s food for thought in the Francis Report into the litany of neglect at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust…
...[more]
Of course the free market isn’t efficient. Why would it be?
[WORKERS, MAY 2010]
Workers reviews two books this month that explode two American myths: first that Wall Street knows what it's doing; and secondly, the so-called power of positive thinking...
...[more]
An extract from our history
[WORKERS, MAY 2010]
The CPBML is shortly to publish an account of its history. Here, we present a preview of the ideas that motivated its founding…
...[more]
Gilt-edged insecurity: workers and quantitative easing
[WORKERS, APRIL 2010]
A defensive “no to the cuts” campaign that lacks a strategy capable of taking us on to the offensive will not do the job. We need to understand the government’s borrowing scam and the politics behind it…
...[more]
A manifesto for libraries
[WORKERS, APRIL 2010]
Librarians are up against a philistine government whose tactic seems to be death by a thousand reviews. But the professionals are resisting…
...[more]
The struggle against the ‘Great Powers’
[WORKERS, APRIL 2010]
The General Assembly of the United Nations has now become an organising area against imperialism…
...[more]
They say defence, they mean war
[WORKERS, MARCH 2010]
In the government’s Green Paper, “Adaptability & Partnership: Issues for the Strategic Defence Review”, the Defence Secretary admits in his Foreword that “There is no external direct threat to the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom.” Yet, in the same paragraph, he insists, “Our ability to project force to counter threats will remain crucial to our national security.”
...[more]
The spirit of Lindsey lives on…
[WORKERS, MARCH 2010]
February has proved to be a lively month in the engineering construction industry, demonstrating that neither the issues nor the workers will simply go away, despite attempts by “friends” and enemies.
...[more]
Energy supply: mind the gap
[WORKERS, MARCH 2010]
Whichever way you look at it, within seven years Britain will face a shortfall between the power it needs and its ability to supply it…
...[more]
The day the Army was sent to the streets of Glasgow
[WORKERS, MARCH 2010]
It began with the reasonable demand for a 40-hour week, led to a demonstration by 35,000 workers at Glasgow’s City Chambers – and howitzers around the city centre…
...[more]
Engineering construction: underpayment at Staythorpe sparks renewed calls for action
[WORKERS, FEBRUARY 2010]
Construction workers are, once again, at the forefront of challenging our thinking and taking the fight to the opposition, both in and outside our own class. Opposition comes in many guises and in today’s climate its most debilitating manifestation is the idea that there is no alternative to accepting whatever capitalism throws at us.
...[more]
Haiti puts the spotlight on the politics of aid
[WORKERS, FEBRUARY 2010]
The TUC has its own Aid for Haiti appeal. But where will the money go? The history of its involvement in South America does not bode well for the future…
...[more]
The German takeover of Europe’s – and Britain’s – rail services
[WORKERS, FEBRUARY 2010]
Taking full advantage of the liberalisation of Europe’s international passenger services, Deutsche Bahn is moving into Britain. Armed with massive opportunities to exploit workers across Europe, it’s looking for profits, at the expense of workers…
...[more]
Vocational education under attack
[WORKERS, FEBRUARY 2010]
Programmes frozen, budgets cut, young people excluded. Now responsibility for vocational training is to be handed to local government, with little evidence that it is prepared…
...[more]
The cartel from hell: IG Farben and Hitler’s Nazis
[WORKERS, FEBRUARY 2010]
Hitler needed a chemicals company to provide the raw material for his war. Enter IG Farben, the largest chemicals cartel in the world…
...[more]
The Earth’s climate changes. It always has done. But there’s no future without power…
[WORKERS, JANUARY 2010]
Using the excuse of global warming, the European Union is trying to shut down many of Britain’s coal-fired power stations, and stop new ones being built. But the evidence is not as hard as it seems. Could it be that politicians have their own agenda, more related to power than to the environment?
...[more]
The wages of credit
[WORKERS, JANUARY 2010]
Instead of fighting for pay and industry, we’ve been queuing up for loans…
...[more]
Stalingrad: the battle that saved the world
[WORKERS, JANUARY 2010]
At the end of January 1943, the German armies that had tried to smash the Soviet Union’s third-largest industrial centre surrendered in ignominy…
...[more]
Rail: the failure of privatisation
[WORKERS, JANUARY 2010]
As European railways are broken up under EU diktat and parcelled out to greedy privateers, in Britain there are faint signs that the reverse is beginning to happen…
...[more]
Who will be running our schools? The academies – another lethal legacy of Labour
[WORKERS, JANUARY 2010]
The Labour government may be finished, but it has not given up on its drive to strip Britain’s schools of all semblance of democratic control. Any price is worth paying, it reckons, to create its new academies. Even handing the control of the new state-funded schools over to religious fundamentalists…
...[more]