Workers at union-busting transnationals like Amazon today are continuing the Tolpuddle Martyrs' heroic struggles for human rights and liberty, union GMB said yesterday.
On the 180th anniversary of the six Dorset labourers' conviction for "administering an illegal oath," GMB said it was pushing for it to be made a crime for firms like Amazon to stop workers forming unions.
On March 17 1834, James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, James Loveless, Thomas Standfield and John Standfield were found guilty of forming a union and later sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia.
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
As the labour movement meets to remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs, MICK WHELAN, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, says it’s an appropriate moment to remind the Labour government to listen to the trade unions a little more
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR



