Want to start the New Year with some global solidarity? Our friends at LabourStart are running an e-action with the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) on behalf of Nermin Al-Sharif,…Read more…
Sir Lynton Crosby? Two countries, one strategy – weakening unions to make attacks on workers easier
In the New Year’s Honours List, David Cameron’s Australian attack dog Lynton Crosby is expected to receive a knighthood for his services to the Conservative Party. But his assistance has…Read more…
Somalia’s unions will not be cowed by violence
Yesterday, Omar Faruk Osman, the leader of our sister organisation in Somalia – the Federation of Somali Trade Unions (FESTU) – was the subject of an assassination attempt (thankfully…Read more…
Turkish unions protest for peace
While many trade unionists in the west are relaxing due to the gains of trade unionism (like holidays), workers in other parts of the world are still struggling for what we consider essential. Like…Read more…
Unions pressing Cambodia for decent workers’ rights
The TUC is joining Cambodian and global unions to press the Cambodian government to give workers the rights they are due under ILO conventions. And in particular, we want the Cambodian government to…Read more…
Workers in Chattanooga choose a union
The first workers at a foreign owned car assembly plant in the southern USA have won collective bargaining rights. It’s the latest stage in the attempt by the mighty UAW, in association with…Read more…
Responsibility Deal – Gone but not mourned.
The Government has now admitted that the “Responsibility Deal” which they set up in 2010 to deal with health issues is to be quietly left to disappear. In the words of the Government spin doctors,…Read more…
Workplace safety enforcement in freefall
I have just read a paper that was produced a couple of months ago on health and safety inspections conducted by Local Authorities. They inspect the majority of workplaces, including most offices,…Read more…
Work and Well-being – How to get involved
In the past year or so far more employers in the UK have been introducing “well-being” schemes in the workplace. This follows a trend that we have seen in the USA where 70% of Fortune 200 companies…Read more…
China persecutes activists to prevent its own reforms from succeeding
The government of China has engaged in a nasty and bizarre campaign of repression against labour activists, just as its own reforms threatened to do some good. A few days ago, Zeng Feiyang, Director…Read more…
Speaking up for trade union rights on Human Rights Day
Thousands of trade unionists around the world have lost their lives standing up for workers’ rights and social justice. Countless others have suffered, and continue to suffer persecution and denial…Read more…
Votes at 16 Voted Down
Last night MPs rejected an attempt by the House of Lords to give 16 and 17-year-olds a vote in the planned referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. The amendment put forward in the Lords…Read more…
If you #heartunions join our week of action against the trade union bill
The campaign against the trade union bill is at a critical stage. The parliamentary process has moved into the House of Lords, where we have our best chances of defeating it or getting changes pushed…Read more…
#VotesAt16: Giving young people a greater say on their future
Today the House of Commons will be placed in the ironic position of being asked by the Government to reject a democratic reform proposed by the unelected House of Lords. And the TUC is backing the…Read more…
Are you a Non Safe Festive Worker?
Christmas parties at work are a great chance to let our hair down, and to see a different side of the people we spend more time with than our own families. But they can also wreck the work…Read more…
Guatemala: where a union leader’s life costs just $195
I spoke today at #LatinAmerica15, the annual conference devoted to solidarity with our colleagues in South and Central America and the Caribbean. I was talking about Guatemala, in the company of Noé…Read more…
Broad alliance must raise the alarm on new Immigration Bill
The Immigration Bill is due to go through the Report stage and Third Reading in the House of Commons this Tuesday on 1st December. The Bill has emerged from the Public Bill Committee – to which the…Read more…
Become a film mogul & let everyone know how bravery took on apartheid
I’ve just left the launch of an exciting project to inform a new generation about a little-known element of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Grassroots film-makers Barefoot…Read more…
The NHS funding squeeze must stop: A physiotherapist’s view
I have worked in the NHS for 19 years as a physiotherapist specializing in working with children. There have been some good and bad changes over this period of time, but none have had such a negative…Read more…
This is a full-scale attack on the NHS, the junior doctor contract is just the start
Let’s be crystal clear (something the Secretary of State for Health has been consistent in failing to do), the junior doctors’ contract dispute is about much more than the terms and conditions…Read more…