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
For rail, minimum service levels could be deadly
Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN warns that any attempt to run trains with a skeleton crew due to the outrageous stipulations of the Tories’ anti-strike Bill could easily lead to a disastrous loss of life
CLARITY AND RESOLVE: Railworkers on a picket line at Euston station in London in September 2023, second from right, Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan
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
I HAVE spent most of my adult life working in Britain’s railway industry. And I have spent all my adult life as a member of a trade union. I joined the railway as a guard in 1984 — joining the NUR which, a few years later, when it merged with the National Union of Seamen, became RMT — and then, when I became a train driver, driving freight and passenger services, I joined Aslef, the train drivers’ trade union.
As a railwayman — as a guard, as a driver, and as a union rep — I have always been acutely aware that the railway is a safety-critical industry.
Because when things go wrong — with the technology, the infrastructure, the signalling or the rolling stock — people get hurt and sometimes people die.
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
