Trade unions
As Frances O’Grady prepares to give the first speech by a woman TUC general secretary to its annual Congress, Red Pepper spoke to her about the challenges facing the trade union movement today
The OUR Walmart campaign has been shaking up labour organising in the US. As they prepared for their current strike, Alex Wood spent a month with the people behind a new kind of fightback
GMB union organiser Rob Macey puts the workers' side of the argument
Davy Jones, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown, gives his view of a dispute that has caused huge debate among Green Party members in the city and across the country
Local Labour councillor Edward Davie says Red Pepper’s recent article on Lambeth’s ‘co-operative council’ was disappointing. Below, council trade unionist Jon Rogers responds
Union organiser Ewa Jasiewicz looks at the increasing precarity of migrant and agency workers – and how they are fighting back
Richard Goulding looks at how Unite’s community union membership is working. Below, community activists and others respond
Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert Ramelson, by Roger Seifert and Tom Sibley, reviewed by Mary Davis
Gregor Gall analyses the 30 November strikes. With a response by Heather Wakefield
As the Tories and their pals in the press ratchet up the anti-strike rhetoric, Red Pepper knocks down some of the myths they throw at the unions
Canadian trade unionists Michael Hurley and Sam Gindin propose new strategies for a labour movement facing new challenges
Ed Miliband's speech had little to say on the unions. Hilary Wainwright urges the Labour leader to embrace a newly political trade unionism
Red Pepper interviews union leaders Len McCluskey of Unite and Mark Serwotka of PCS
Unions must rise to the challenge of the cuts by empowering local branches and developing wider civil society resistance says Huw Beynon
Amanda Tattersall explores how community organisations and unions can work together
Strikes and other action must be controlled by workers themselves argues Tom Denning
Amrit Wilson shares memories of Grunwick strike leader Jayaben Desai
Made in Dagenham didn’t tell the whole story. John Bohanna takes up the tale, with pictures by Carlos Guarita
Clare Williams explains the thinking behind an innovative, union-led alliance
Javier Navascués on the impact of Spain's general strike
The coalition has announced a 'Freedom Bill' to dismantle restrictions on liberties imposed over recent decades. But will it stop at the workplace? asks Keith Ewing
The Deepwater Horizon oil disaster was as much a disaster for workers as for the planet, writes David Whyte. Reconnecting life and work to the environment must be part of our response
The BBC has barely been out of the headlines in recent months, not least since the publication of its major strategy review. Siobhan McGuirk asked trade unionists and industry figures what they think needs to change at the corporation
Tim Hunt looks at what role workers' co-operatives could play in bringing about social change
The Prisme packaging factory in Dundee was perhaps the first in the country to be occupied and to successfully take production under workers control. David Whyte visits the factory a year after the occupation
With public sector spending cuts the new orthodoxy, the trade union movement needs to mobilise a stronger counter-attack, argues Heather Wakefield of public sector union Unison
Chris Baugh explains how the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union and other UK trade unions are beginning to respond to the urgency of climate change with an agenda of 'just transition'
Kate Ferguson interviews Ian Terry, a 23-year-old wind turbine worker involved in the occupation of the Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight
When the Trades Union Congress meets in Liverpool this September, it does so as a venerable institution of 141 years standing. But what relevance to the contemporary world of work and worker representation does it now have? By Gregor Gall
The collapse in votes for mainstream parties, coupled with increasing outbreaks of strike action - official and unofficial - signifies growing political unrest in Britain. But how far will the rebellion spread? Peter Lazenby reports
How do you save money, improve services, involve the unions and strengthen democratic control at the same time? In Newcastle, they have come up with an alternative to privatisation that achieves all these objectives, as Hilary Wainwright reports
Hilary Wainwright on the vital role women played in the miners' struggle
In the introductory chapter to Shafted: The Media, the Miners' Strike and the Aftermath, Granville Williams revisits the way the media covered the strike
Twenty-five years after the start of the year-long miners' strike against pit closures, fewer than half of the jobs lost in mining areas have been replaced. Huw Beynon reports on the common experience of Durham and south Wales, two of the coalfields that were worst hit by the closure programme
A ten-step guide to workplace organisation from scratch. By Patrick Smith
In trying to push through a reform package that the Guardian has called a 'Blairite revolution', the National Union of Students' Labour leadership is putting the NUS on a path to self-destruction, says executive member Hind Hassan
In 2004 the Fire Brigades Union disaffiliated from the Labour Party. FBU general secretary Matt Wrack explains what it has meant for the union politically
Campaigners are exposing the conditions that predominantly women workers suffer in Kenya to bring cheap cut flowers to western Europe, writes Siobhan McGuirk
Giulio Marcon and Duccio Zola survey the resistance to privatisation across Europe, highlighting the role of pan-European trade union initiatives and a growing alliance between social movements and the unions
The number of trade unionists killed, arrested or 'just' dismissed in the pursuit of their members rights has increased alarmingly over the past year, according to a survey by the International Trade Union Confederation. Italian labour journalist Vittorio Longhi, interviews ITUC general secretary Guy Ryder about this and other issues facing the international trade union movement
When a campaign in support of contract cleaners at Canary Wharf shamed Barclays Bank into announcing a living wage for all its London workers, it marked an effective new alliance between trade unions and the wider community. Jane Wills on a labour movement success story
Construction has a fatality rate five times the all-industry average, and causes by far the highest number of deaths of any industry, write Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte.
For those who think that trade unions are simply a reminder of a Britain that no longer exists, the recent sight of striking TGWU members outside the Houses of Parliament should be enough to set them straight.
Ann Suddick of Women Against Pit Closures recalls the miners' strike and its lessons for today's global justice campaigners.
With the campaign against Gordon Brown's job cuts in the civil service gathering momentum, 2005 is set to be a big year for the PCS trade union. PCS leader Mark Serwotka talks to Chris Leach
GMB leader Kevin Curran tells Hilary Wainwright why his trade union will no longer write Labour a blank cheque
Guest editor Natfhe general-secretary Paul Mackney introduces this month's Red Pepper features
Dave Whyte reports on the hidden human costs of sub-contracting in the construction and engineering industries
"A triumph of democracy over fear,' declared Spain's new prime minister Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero, after Spanish voters defied conservative predictions that the Madrid bombings would drive them to support the government.
To most Westminster pundits, the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union's opening of its political fund to organisations other than Labour and the union's consequent expulsion by the party are a sideshow.
It gives an annual snapshot of what's on the minds of Britain's trade unionists, and the agenda for this year's TUC conference shows a union movement widely at odds with its Labour government.
Guest editor NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear begins Red Pepper's trade union special with a celebration of the uniquely holistic approach to workplace, cultural and consumer activism of the Battersea and Wandsworth TUC. And the BWTUC's Geoff Martin describes how his organisation developed the Left Field at Glastonbury.
Trade unionists have lambasted "red tape whingers" and attacked British industry's focus on cheap labour and low investment, in a report responding to a government study on UK competitiveness.
