TUC general secretary PAUL NOWAK speaks to the Morning Star’s Berny Torre about the increasing frustration the trade union movement feels at a government that promised change, but has been too slow to bring it about
Why the trade union link still matters to the Labour Party
The Labour Party emerged out of the trade union movement and that link is of continuing importance and great relevance today, writes MICK WHELAN
Keir Hardie (1856-1915) - British Labour leader and politician, born in Scotland; the first parliamentary leader of the Labour Party
DIANE ABBOTT exposes the misconceptions, rumours and downright lies perpetrated around immigration issues
With 12,000 fewer teachers since 2010 and dwindling resources, Scotland’s schools desperately need investment to support diverse learners rather than empty promises from politicians, writes ANDREA BRADLEY
Reversing outsourcing is the pre-election promise the government must honour, says Unison general secretary CHRISTINA McANEA
EMAN ABU ZAYED reminisces about the perilous time her family and neighbours endured in northern Gaza and how they were forced, in fear of their lives, to flee south
The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER
ON a couple of bitterly cold winter days back in 1900 – Monday and Tuesday February 26-27 – a group of men in heavy woollen suits, coats, and scarves met at the Congregational Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street, in central London, just around the corner from what is now Aslef’s head office, to set up the Labour Representation Committee.
The 129 delegates present represented a broad range of working-class and left-wing opinion – from trade union activists to the Independent Labour Party, Social Democratic Federation and Fabian Society.
They were all disenchanted with the Liberal Party and approved a plan, proposed by Keir Hardie, to get ordinary people into Parliament to “promote legislation in the direct interests of labour” – meaning working-class men and women impatient for better pay and working conditions, proper holidays, decent pensions, and unemployment benefit.
The Labour Representation Committee was formed at the end of the Victorian era, when millions of men worked in mills and mines and factories and shipyards.
More from this author
On the eve of the 157th Trades Union Congress, MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, celebrates victory in his campaign to get dignity for drivers at work
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
Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN writes for the Morning Star on the eve of the TUC in Brighton, about the pay offer from the DfT, relations with the Labour government, and the union’s motion at Congress calling for the renationalisation of rail freight
MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ trade union, writes for the Morning Star as union activists prepare to march through Durham today in a display of working-class solidarity at the 138th Durham Miners’ Gala
