During the current cost of living crisis, many groups of public sector workers, such as teachers, university lecturers, postal workers and significant sections of National Health Service workers, have taken industrial action.1 The entry of health workers into the waves… Continue Reading
The Conservative administration of Rishi Sunak, the fourth Tory prime minister in as many years, appeared to be limping into oblivion as our autumn issue went to press.1 A piece by the chief political commentator at the Financial Times compares… Continue Reading
“The past is never dead. It is not even past.” William Faulkner. The strong verbal opposition from union leaders to the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill (now Act) 2023 is a good moment to survey the resistance—industrial, legal, and political—to… Continue Reading
What has been happening in France since January 2023 comes closest—in terms of its breadth and duration—to a revolutionary situation in an advanced capitalist country in decades.1 In addition to the objective factors, such as the deepening contradictions of capitalism… Continue Reading
As a part of our ongoing coverage of the emerging strike movement in Britain, Charlie Kimber, editor of the weekly newspaper Socialist Worker, explores recent developments, asking what changed in 2022 and what has stayed the same. His analysis draws… Continue Reading
In the summer of 2022, strikes by workers suddenly returned to centre stage.1 Three high profile national disputes catapulted industrial action, picket lines and national union leaders into the public arena. The first nationwide strikes on the railways since 1993,… Continue Reading
The role of trade unions and organised labour in preventing catastrophic climate change is a burgeoning field of research.1 Many academic contributions investigate climate policy issues but leave aside discussion of workers’ action.2 In contrast, this article focuses on past… Continue Reading
A pandemic is first of all a public health crisis. But when containing the infection requires a dramatic reduction in social contact, it rapidly becomes a workplace issue. Under normal circumstances, each day millions of people are concentrated in often… Continue Reading
The year just passed marks the beginning of a new global cycle of revolt. The signs were there by spring.1 By April the Algerian and Sudanese militaries felt obliged to remove the leaders of each country, respectively Abdelaziz Bouteflika and… Continue Reading
Along with Mark O’Brien and several other authors in this journal, I am anxious to understand what lay behind the dramatic drop in UK strike activity from the late 1970s to the early 1990s and the extremely low level ever… Continue Reading