Next steps in the fight for safe schools
The government’s retreat on school closures won’t last forever. Education workers need to go on the offensive.
NEU: preparing for the fight of our lives
Supporting teachers to refuse unsafe work is the NEU’s immediate and overwhelming priority, but we also need to learn the lessons from last June and ballot for strike action.
‘Rewards in heaven won’t pay the bills’: priests strike in Norway
‘Rewards in heaven won’t pay the bills’: Norwegian priests are on strike over the Christmas period over a threatened pay cut at the Church or Norway.
Retail tales of festive frenzy
For many bookshop workers, Christmas is a season of stress and exploitation – but it could also be the perfect time to put pressure on management.
Scotland: education workers move towards strike action
Workers at all levels of Scotland’s education system are preparing to fight for workplace safety and job security.
‘We have a right to stop’: interview with a socialist nurse
Whereas the first wave of Covid-19 was an occasion for government-sponsored jingoism, the second wave is seeing health workers abandoned and left to manage the unmanageable.
Unemployment and class power: the example of Portugal
Worker organising in Britain will have to change to take account of rising mass unemployment. We can learn from how workers in Southern Europe faced the wave of austerity after the last economic crisis.
The exception as the rule: Toronto’s social reproduction organising
In Toronto, community organisers are battling Covid in the shadow of colonial racial capitalism.
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.
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
Covid on campus: rent strike at Bristol university
Universities have brought students back to expensive accommodation and subjected them to inhumane living conditions, with Covid-19 still a risk on campus. rs21 spoke to Connor Nicol, a first-year student involved in organising the Bristol University rent strike.
‘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: Popular Uprisings from Belarus to Lebanon
Mass movements around the world are continuing to upset the status quo. We were joined by activists from Belarus and Lebanon to learn more about the struggles unfolding in both states.
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.
‘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
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
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.
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.
Rent strike in the Covid conjuncture?
As the knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic make it impossible for many workers to pay rent while meeting their own basic needs, Allan Struthers examines the prospects for large-scale rent strikes in Britain
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.
Strikes in the time of coronavirus
How can workers respond to the unfolding coronavirus crisis, without forfeiting our collective power? A UCU member reflects. Originally published on Notes from Below.
Organising in response to COVID-19
As criticism of the UK government’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic mounts, rs21 members highlight the flourishing grassroots responses that aim to provide support and to demand more effective action from government and employers
Acting on COVID-19
With cases of the pandemic rising rapidly, we cannot rely on government or business to put health before profits. rs21 members have produced a set of actions and demands to campaign around and a summary of the safety legislation can allow workers to take action or leave work.
Film review: The Plan that Came from the Bottom Up
Steve Sprung’s retelling of the story of the Lucas Plan provides an inspiring lesson in how workers might build a sustainable future for all, writes Zareen Taj.
A crucial week for the university strikes
With negotiations reportedly going well, but the current wave of strikes ending alongside the climate strikes on Friday, rs21 members explain why this is a crucial week and explore some of the debates among strikers.
Solidarity needs rebuilding, urgently
The university strikes provide an opportunity to relearn traditions of collective solidarity which strengthen both the strikers and those giving solidarity.