Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
The strike that changed the nature of Labour politics
JOHN FOSTER looks at how the 1919 general strike which began in the Clydeside shipyards ignited a Britain-wide struggle
Troops on guard at a bus station; each bus had a police escort during the strike
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
ONE HUNDRED years ago, on January 27 1919, workers in Scotland struck work to secure a 40-hour week. The strike was called by the Scottish Trade Union Congress, Glasgow Trades and Labour Council — then one of the biggest in Britain with 200 delegates — and the Clyde Workers Committee representing the shop stewards’ movement.
It was a political strike. It demanded action by the government to limit hours of work — and thereby to create more jobs and halt the return of mass unemployment. Millions of men were being discharged from the army and tens of thousands of women from the munitions factories.
The longer-term objective was to protect the bargaining power which trade unionists had built up during the full employment of the war years and particularly the power of the shop stewards’ movement.
More from this author
Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
JOHN FOSTER examines how the late SNP leader shifted the party leftwards and upwards, bringing Scottish independence to the forefront while fundamentally failing to address deeper issues of class and corporate capture
Ahead of a TUC special Congress next weekend to fight Conservative anti-strike laws, JOHN FOSTER looks back to 1969 and 1972 when similar proposals were defeated through class solidarity and painstaking organising work
JOHN FOSTER recommends the down-to-earth realism of a political memoir that navigates the surreality of Scottish politics
