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
My article “What has happened to the British Labour Movement, and what does it mean for the left in the Unions?”1 has attracted two critical responses in this journal.2 I am grateful to the authors of these papers for their… Continue Reading
Mark O’Brien’s article in issue 157 of International Socialism, “What has Happened to the British Labour Movement and What Does it Mean for the Left in the Unions?”, adds to the debates in this journal over the last number of… Continue Reading
In February to March 2018, tens of thousands of university workers in the University and College Union (UCU) at 65 institutions in higher education took 14 days of strike action, in what was the biggest universities strike ever. The strike… Continue Reading
Making sense of the continuing low level of strike activity in the UK takes on greater urgency with the publication of provisional figures for 2017. These show record lows—by some margin—for two of the three main indicators: number of strikes… Continue Reading
From the early summer to the early winter of 2017 several industrial action campaigns were making the news, both nationally and at more regional and local levels. Rail workers employed by Mersey Rail, Northern Rail and Southern Rail were mounting… Continue Reading
Towards the end of the 1980s and early 1990s strikes, riots and demonstrations forced 19 one-party states in Africa to institutionalise a democratic opposition. But the headlong rush into neo-liberalism and continued structural adjustment policies somewhat de-֊legitimised the ‘birth of… Continue Reading
A review of Hao Ren, Eli Friedman and Zhongjin Li (editors), China on Strike: Narratives of Workers’ Resistance (Haymarket, 2016),£15.99 China on Strike: Narratives of Workers’ Resistance is an exciting and illuminating book focused on the labour struggles waged by… Continue Reading
When I wrote “Why Are There So Few Strikes?”1 I expected that it would generate some discussion. I was not prepared, though, for the huge number of words and length of time taken up by responses. In addition to numerous… Continue Reading
The Conservative government’s Trade Union Act 2016—in particular the strike balloting threshold provisions—represents the most radical tightening of the rules on industrial action and trade union organisation since the Margaret Thatcher era of the 1980s.1 Notwithstanding the series of significant… Continue Reading