strikes

Stop work to stop the cuts? Why striking against the cuts makes sense on June 30 and beyond.

Striking back: In-depth centrefold feature on strike action, including an illustrated timeline of strikes in Britain and a graph plotting falling strike days against rising inequality.

Victory against Office Angels: Direct action solidarity wins a temp's stolen wages.

This year's war: From Iraq to Libya - where there's oil there's 'humanitarian intervention'.

Plus: Your basic rights at work, Stokes Croft after the riots and your letters on the Southern Cross healthcare debacle, Slutwalks and more!

Due to popular demand, the pdf download is now as single pages (no spreads), so it can be printed out legibly on a normal A4 printer.

High-res version here.

1. Labour call in the International Monetary fund (IMF), marking the end of the post-war setttlement and the beginning of rising inequality. This came despite several years of the TUC agreeing to hold down pay.

2. Workers respond with a wave of strikes, many of them unofficial. These culminate in the ‘Winter of discontent’ in 1978/9.

3. Thatcher’s Tory government smashes the workers’ movement, leading to a dramatic fall in strike days and a corresponding rise in inequality.

AROUND 2,000 workers at the Maruti Suzuki car plant in Manesar, India have been taking unofficial strike action demanding the recognition of a new union formed by workers in the plant. Around 1,000 other workers from other workplaces have been rallying outside the plant in solidarity.

Meanwhile a committee of representatives from workers’ organisations in the Gurgaon-Manesar region has been formed to support the strike, and has declared its intention to join the strike if their demands are not met.

“If the issues are not resolved immediately, then a similar strike can happen in other factories in the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt,” AITUC Gurgaon District Secretary Harjeet Grover, who is also the General Secretary of HMSI Employees Union, told the Indian press.

1888 - The Matchgirls Strike: Successful strike against poor working conditions in a match factory, including 14-hour work days, poor pay, excessive fines, and the severe health complications of working with white phosphorus.

1901 - Taff Vale dispute: Strikers employ sabotage tactics to prevent scabs working, and the company sues the union for damages - and wins. This would lead to the formation of the Labour Party.