The Great Unrest: Organising the Rank and File 1910-1914
In this timely commemorative article, Dave Stockton looks at the lessons from the great working class struggles before World War One. Part two will follow next month. We have just marked the 100th...
View ArticleThe Great Unrest: How militant miners created a movement of the rank and file
In part two of this commemorative article, Dave Stockton looks at how the miners built the first rank and file trade union movement in the UK. In Part one of this article, we looked at the work of...
View ArticlePentonville Five: when dockers fought the law and won
Forty years ago, four London dockers were arrested and held in north London’s Pentonville Prison. The next morning a fifth was arrested outside while protesting at their arrest. Yet within five days...
View Article1926: How the TUC betrayed the General Strike
The 1926 General Strike is rich in lessons for today. Dave Stockton looks at how the ruling class prepared for it while the unions leaders did not. In the mid-1920s the Miners Federation of Great...
View ArticleFighting for the right to strike
Jeremy Dewar recounts how the anti-union laws shackled the unions and calls for defiance There is no legal right to strike in Britain. This simple statement can come as a surprise to many British trade...
View ArticleThe British General Strike of 1926 – Part Two
In Workers Power 367 we saw how the Communist Part of Great Britain (CPGB) initiated the powerful rank and file Minority Movement, but became ever more uncritical supporters of the union leaders when...
View ArticleMargaret Thatcher Dies – celebrate, agitate, organise!
Dave Stockton writes an obituary to one of the most hated prime ministers in British history Any expression of sorrow for the death of Margaret Thatcher or praise for her qualities or achievements...
View Article125th Anniversary of the Matchworkers’ Strike
On the 125th anniversary of the matchwomen’s strike in the East End of London, Joy Macready examines the strike’s origins and how it sparked the “New Unionism” movement “Born in slums, driven to work...
View ArticleMiners’ strike 30 years on: ‘We’re the women of the working class’
Originally published in Workers Power 284 in March 2004, edited by Rebecca Anderson WITH NOT just their own futures at stake, but also the future of the entire working class, the women of the pit...
View Article30th anniversary: the Battle of Orgreave
Thirty years ago in the Yorkshire coalfield, thousands of striking miners and their supporters faced an army of riot police intent on smashing the union and demoralising the pickets. Chris Clough looks...
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