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
Matt Wrack: How to rebuild the fire and rescue service
The FBU general secretary, currently running for another term, speaks to Ben Chacko about what's needed to reverse 14 years of cuts – and decades of neoliberal deregulation
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, speaks to the media, next to the Grenfell Memorial Wall in west London
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
MATT WRACK is running for re-election as general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. First elected in 2005, when Tony Blair was PM, he’s now on his eighth prime minister and recently completed a year as president of the TUC. But he’s still up for the fight.
“There’s still a lot to do,” he tells the Morning Star as ballots begin to land on firefighters’ doormats. “We’ve been through some tough times under all those prime ministers, we’ve come through it in one piece, and we have plans to try to rebuild the fire service, make Labour deliver on workers’ rights and repeal anti-union legislation. I think I’m the best person to see that through.”
Fourteen years of Tory cuts have hit the fire and rescue service hard. Response times are at their highest in 30 years. There are 12,000 fewer firefighters than in 2010 — a decline of a fifth.
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Morning Star editor Ben Chacko speaks to JON FARLEY – the retired headteacher whose arrest in Leeds exposes the grim absurdity of the Palestine Action ban
