Fashion and Ethics

Sweatshop labour – you’ve probably heard about it. Primark do a marvellous line in it. Chronically low wages, cramped and dangerous working conditions, punishingly long hours, and continual exposure to physical and psychological abuse from the new shiny high-street corporate empire. You know about it and I know about it. Unfortunately, aside from a few throw away [...]

Report on Huddersfield Anti-Cuts Demo

From The Socialist newspaper, 15 September 2010 Mood Of Defiance In Huddersfield Kirklees Save Our services trade union protest against cuts , photo Huddersfield Socialist Party (Click to enlarge) OVER 300 angry, defiant marchers took to the streets of Huddersfield in a joint trade union demo against cuts and job losses on 11 September. Unison, [...]

Breaking News : Mervyn King States The Obvious

It’s taken him 3 years but Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, has finally realised what everybody else always thought was blindingly obvious – the financial crisis was not brought about by excessive public spending, rather by the ignorance and amorality of financiers and regulators. In a speech to the TUC, which the RMT [...]

Vigilante Man

The late, great Woody Guthrie‘s “Vigilante Man” accompanied by some excellent footage from a 1975 documentary called “Brother Can You Spare Me a Dime”. The clip includes footage from the Bonus Riots of 1932, San Franscisco General Strike 1934, Republic Steel Strike 1937, General Motors Labor Strike 1937, and so is an interesting and important part of [...]

Fighting the Cuts in Kirklees

BBC‘s ‘Facing the Cuts’ survey showed that Kirklees and Leeds Councils had amongst the highest proposed job cuts in England. And with proposed ‘free schools’ around the corner and the selling of large sections of Kirklees PCT to private companies or ‘social enterprises’, it really does feel like Kirklees Council is on the frontline in [...]

Trade Unions and Organising

Andy Newman and Jerry Hicks have both recently published articles around the UNITE General Secretary election, and the future of Trade Unionism in Britain more broadly, and it is encouraging to see they both raise the idea of the ‘organising model‘ as opposed to the ‘service model‘ that predominates the thinking of Trade Union leaderships [...]