Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century
 
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workplace organising

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.

NHS workers demonstrating over pay

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.

Unite banner on TUC demo

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.

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.

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.

Rows of orange chairs in an empty classroom.

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.

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.

Women, Work and ‘Directly Confronting Capitalist Power’

Sue Ferguson discusses socialist-feminism, capitalist childhoods and social struggles today. While conducted weeks previously, this interview goes online amidst a pandemic, exposing and aggravating a crisis of social reproduction.

Interview: Dealing with the mess

Junior Doctor Stacey Williams speaks about the prospects for organising to defend lives and the NHS through the coronavirus crisis.

Call centre

What a way to make a living | A former call centre worker

A former temporary employee with an educational charity reports on her time in the customer services call centre.

British Steel: workers’ rights disregarded

The return of a Tory MP from Redcar, whose steel plant closed in 2017, is a symptom of a feeling of abandonment in many former industrial communities. Brian Parkin looks at the prospect for resistance in what remains of the British steel industry

What a way to make a living | A PhD student and part-time tutor

David Evans writes for the What a Way to Make a Living series on the pitfalls of precarious working as a PhD student teaching part-time in a university.

What a way to make a living | Artistic ‘freedom’

Liz Forster’s article from 2018 takes a close look at the precarious working conditions of the arts.

TUC march

Workers’ and union rights in #GE2019

The Labour and Tory manifestos could hardly be more different when it comes to workers’ individual and collective rights, but there are also important implications for what happens after the election – whatever the result.

A group of artworkers stand with a banner outdoors on the Southbank in London

What a way to make a living | An art worker in the climate movement

Katherine Hearst, art worker and climate activist reflects on the links between precarity and the climate crisis.

A waiter carrying a large tray of beverages

What a way to make a living | An agency worker in the hospitality industry

A former agency worker recounts their experiences in the hospitality industry.

Review | Sorry We Missed You

Colin Revolting reviews director Ken Loach’s latest film, which centres on the family of two workers in the gig economy

What a way to make a living | The Royal Mail sorting office

In the latest instalment of our What a way to make a living series, Daniel Freeborn tells us about the daily grind at a Royal Mail sorting office.

We rise again! Antiracism and industrial action at Royal Mail

Ikenna Azụbụike Ọnwụnabọnze reports on the antiracist action of Royal Mail workers in the Bootle and Seaforth Delivery Office and reflects on the necessity of collective action as the CWU announced the result of its ballot for a strike action yesterday. 

Raising the rate of resistance

Educators in the sixth form sector prepare for 3 days of strike action over funding and pay beginning Thursday 17 October.

Video: Support Thomas Cook workers

Ian Allinson interviews Thomas Cook workers and argues that a stronger movement would not allow thousands of jobs to go without a fight.

An empty bar with brown wooden furniture

What a way to make a living | Aye, there’s the pub

In the first piece in the series What a way to make a living, Jozef Doyle gives an insight on the day to day experience of working in a pub.

Royal Mail workers hold up signs saying 'yes' in preparation for industrial action

Royal Mail workers get ready for ‘the fight of their lives’

Ikenna Azụbụike Ọnwụnabọnze reports on the struggle of Royal Mail workers and the Communication Workers Union to protect the four pillars agreement.

100 days of protests in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has now seen 100 days of protests. Colin Sparks explains about how the movement is organised, and the role of socialists, workers and migrants within it.

Workers at a call centre in Poland.

What a way to make a living | Introduction

Meet our new article series, What a way to make a living, which will explore the lived realities of work and exploitation under modern capitalism

Immigration White Paper: We treat #PatientsNotPassports

The government published its delayed Immigration White Paper yesterday. Here a doctor tells us about the damage current immigration policies is already causing patients.

Artistic ‘freedom’: a snapshot from working in the arts

A recent demonstration of precarious workers made Liz Forster see her own experience as a zero-hour worker differently.

Working-class strategy #HM2018

In the superb final session at the 2018 Historical Materialism Conference, Katy Fox-Hodess and Amanda Armstrong discussed how the left should relate to workers with different sorts of potential power and strengthen connections with struggles against oppression and imperialism: the structural power of workers such as dockers does not exist in isolation from the wider […]

Notes From Below: Workers’ Inquiries #HM2018

Ian Allinson reports from Historical Materialism conference on the Notes From Below project