BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further

AT the very moment he was getting one of the world’s most prestigious awards — a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” — Reverend William Barber, co-leader of the New Poor People’s Campaign, was getting arrested in Chicago’s Loop while demanding McDonald’s workers get $15 an hour and the right to unionise.
Somehow, it seemed fitting: Barber has been campaigning for workers’ rights and civil rights from the day he started Moral Mondays in North Carolina years ago to oppose the anti-worker, anti-minority, white supremacist actions of the Republican-dominated state legislature.
Now he’s got nationwide recognition of a higher order — and $625,000 over five years to plough into the campaign, if he wants — for that drive.

The US could imminently return to the Wild West days of widespread and sometimes violent corporate repression of workers, says MARK GRUENBERG


