WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Lessons from the global South
JOHN GRAVERSGAARD recommends a study of trade union organising that brings together exemplary lessons from the Uk and Kenya
TASKED: The newly elected National Domestic Workers Council in Nairobi, Kenya, 2015
[IDWF/Vicky Kanyoka/flickr/CC] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
Trade Union Studies in UK and Kenya,
Nigel Flanagan and Shiraz Durrani, Vita/Manifesto, £26.25
SHIRAZ DURRANI has written extensively on the class struggle in Kenya and Nigel Flanagan on organising workers in trade unions. Durrani is Kenyan and Flanagan British and in this book they bring together perspectives and analyses on barriers to trade union organising, and highlight exemplary lessons from the global South and global North.
Flanagan takes an activist perspective and makes a critique of the failures of traditional methods used by union officials. Flanagan’s message is that workers don’t need missionaries and gurus using top-down management-style leadership, with officer-controlled projects and a low level of membership engagement.
“The ideas of solidarity, unity and collective action are more easily understood than the gurus and the bureaucrats believe,” he says. The key is to see members as resources and not as passive actors. He asserts: “No sustained trade union growth has been led by officers.”
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