The Workers United
QUICK plug for a new blog from my old pal Miles Barter. The Workers United, as the name implies, covers trade union issues from an activist viewpoint. Being a journo himself, Miles is aware of the need for frequent updates to keep the punters interested. And although he is an NUJer, he seems intent on [...]
Public sector strikes: when industrial relations is not a game
TOO many of those directly engaged in industrial relations regard it as all a bit of a laugh. As a journalist who has covered numerous disputes ever since the 1980s, I know plenty of union officials and employer reps who get a kick out of showing what a clever clogs they can be across the [...]
‘Made in Dagenham’: why now?
ON PAPER, the idea of getting a director famed for whimsically amusing if intellectually undemanding comedy pictures to make a film about a group of women workers engaged in class struggle at the point of production seems like a non-starter. Yet hardcore Trot friends who have seen ‘Made in Dagenham’, the latest offering from Nigel [...]
East Germany and the 1984-85 miners’ strike
‘EAST German communists’ gave the National Union of Mineworkers ‘substantial sums of money in hard currency’ during the miners’ strike of 1984-85, the Daily Telegraph reports today. I get the impression that readers are supposed to be shocked. Interestingly, the article doesn’t carry a by-line, which is unsurprising, because it singularly fails to live up [...]
BA cabin crew: not Scargillites of the skies
SOMETHING intuitively doesn’t quite stack up about Willie Walsh’s efforts to brand British Airways cabin crew unreconstructed throwbacks to the glory years of class struggle. Everybody knows the real industrial militants of the period were hairy-arsed engineering workers in blue overalls, ready to down tools and converge on Saltley Gate at the drop of a [...]
Unions in politics: in defence of Unite
IT’S not the sort of thing I would necessarily mention if I was having a organic beer made only from sustainable malt, hops and yeast with George Monbiot. But yes, I am regular business flyer. If I was faced with disruption to a long-planned trip on account of the strike at British Airways this weekend, I would [...]
Labour, Unite and the BA strike
LORD Adonis says the British Airways strike is ‘deplorable’, and Gordon Brown says the British Airways strike is ‘deplorable’. Adonis calls the impending walkout ‘totally unjustified’, but Brown holds back and simply designates it ‘unjustified’. Woooah! Did you see that? The prime minister failed to use an adverb of degree. Labour leadership split! Hold the [...]
Tibet vs Iraq: good and bad occupations?
IT MUST take a considerable degree of doublethink simultaneously to oppose the US-led occupation of Iraq and support the Chinese occupation of Tibet. That doesn’t stop some on the left giving it a go, of course. The idea of a right to self-determination is common coinage for liberals and socialists alike. If Iraq deserves that [...]
International bastards league: new political parlour game
IMAGINE a scale that runs from one to ten and measures every independent polity in the world in terms of niceness and nastiness. At one we have Sweden and Norway, because they are permanently cuddly and welfare statey and social democratic, even when the centre-right gets in. Singapore occupies the half way point with a [...]
British Airways cabin crew: right to strike
LIBBIE Escolme Schmidt – speaking as the author of a book documenting the too, too glamorous time she spent as a 1960s trolley dolly, you understand – thinks that striking British Airways cabin crew are ‘a disgrace to their profession’, and gets space in Britain’s biggest-circulation quality newspaper to tell them as much. One line [...]
