Tactics of resistance: occupations and sit-ins
In part one of a series looking at differing tactics for winning battles in the workplace, Bob Carter explains workplace occupations and how to make them successful.
Poland’s feminist uprising
Women in Poland are making their own cause for hope by taking the streets. rs21 spoke with several feminist activists in Polish union Inicjatywa Pracownicza about the recent wave of feminist strikes and protests.
The power of tenants’ organising
There is a renewed surge of tenants’ organising, but opinions are split on the best way to build power. What kind of organisation can hit back against landlords?
Back Paul Holmes for UNISON general secretary
UNISON members need to turn the page on a decade of inaction in the face of Tory austerity. Paul Holmes’ rank-and-file candidacy is a chance to put this argument front and centre
Building power in a crisis
Covid-19 is a medical crisis, but also a social one. Amid the devastating social impacts of the crisis, we’re also seeing determined new initiatives of resistance.
Neoliberal ‘Omnibus Law’ sparks rebellion in Indonesia
Indonesia’s neoliberal regime is using the pandemic to attack workers’ rights and environmental protections. Workers and students have other ideas.
‘I can’t fathom how bad it’s going to get’
The Covid-19 pandemic is combining with further government attacks on the health service to push the NHS, and its workforce, into unprecedented crisis.
Obituary: Mike Cooley, architect and bee
Brian Parkin pays tribue to Mike Cooley, a modest and inspiring trade union leader with a lifelong vision of a liberated technology, redirected to serving human need.
Video: Fighting back and building power during the Covid crisis
Three separate activists draw lessons from fights to defend working-class lives and livelihoods inside and outside the workplace.
Class struggle against Covid
We are facing a second wave of Covid-19 due to the reckless drive for profit of the capitalist class. Mass action from below is the key to stopping the virus – and remaking society in the interests of the majority.
What a way to make a living – A former mental health care worker
A former care worker details her experiences in residential mental healthcare.
‘The fight of our lives’ | Interview with Marian Mayer
Marian Mayer, candidate for Vice President of UCU, spoke to rs21 about the fightback in the higher and further education sectors
Post-war to post-industrial Scotland
Successive British governments have restructured the Scottish economy in damaging ways. Now we need a radical plan for a de-carbonised and independent Scotland.
Thousands march in first move of NHS pay battle
A wave of actions by NHS workers opens the door for a major struggle against austerity and poverty pay
Nurses strike back against attack on pay
Nurses and health workers are fighting back on pay – and kicking off a battle to defend our health and care services
A chance to change our unions?
rs21 members in Unite discuss the significance of the coming General Secretary election, what workers need from a candidate and how we can use the process to campaign for the unions we need.
NHS workers facing redundancy in a pandemic
While Matt Hancock was clapping for NHS workers, plans were going ahead to make a large group of them redundant.
Zero Covid-19: what we can do
Current UK Government strategy, unchecked, would mean thousands of avoidable deaths in the coming months. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Fighting for the NHS: victory in Wales
The Tories may clap, but they had brought the NHS to its knees before Covid-19. The campaign to save an A&E in South Wales shows how communities can defeat cuts and role back austerity.
Anti-racism and rebuilding union strength
Liverpool dockers fought a valiant campaign in the 1990s to defend their jobs from an anti-union crackdown. Now they are rebuilding their union with fighting and internationalist traditions.
50 years after the Equal Pay Act
Money can’t buy you love – but it does pay the bills. Fifty years after the Equal Pay Act, women are still fighting for equal pay. What lessons we can now learn from the Covid-19 pandemic?
Johnson’s 1 June plans in tatters – how do we build our strength?
Rob Owen argues that the NEU has won a convincing, but not complete, victory over the government and addresses how we develop workplace organisation in the coming weeks.
Educators meet the challenge
Education workers have shown creativity and determination in embracing virtual organising methods to strengthen their opposition to the government’s wider reopening of schools.
Video: Not safe to return to school or work
The government is trying to force people back to unsafe schools and workplaces. Parents, school students and workers are resisting.
Why schools can’t ‘reopen’ until safe
Rob Owen explains why teachers, not ministers, must be central to judging how and when it’s safe to return.
Report: ‘They were human, not heroes’ – International Workers’ Memorial Day 2020
28 April is International Workers’ Memorial Day. In 2020, people across the country and the world mourned those who died of coronavirus due to the lack of PPE in their workplaces.
Overdue! A just transition for Scotland
As convergent crises confront the North Sea oil and gas industry with its rapid demise, the need for a just transition for Scottish workers is more urgent than ever.
Remember the dead – fight like hell for the living!
Turn International Workers’ Memorial Day on Tuesday 28 April into a powerful cry of grief and rage. The government hasn’t called a day of national mourning – we must make our own.
Postal workers in the COVID-19 crisis
Postal workers have been let down again by the suspension of strike action, and by the inadequate protection from coronavirus. The example of workers who have walked out on safety grounds should be generalised.