On Sunday 28 November at 12 noon, Sheffield food delivery couriers from the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) are protesting outside of Sheffield Town Hall to demand that Stuart delivery cancels a planned pay cut of nearly 25%. Having previously been promised a postponement to the cuts in October 2021, couriers are set
Tag: Trade Unions
IWGB Solidarity Squad welcomes allies to the fight for precarious and frontline workers
Yesterday, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) launched its Solidarity Squad: a network of allies and supporters of its mission to end exploitation and advocate for precarious and migrant workers as trade union leaders. Maritza Castillo Calle, vice-president (IWGB) said: “The pandemic amplified many existing inequalities and patterns of discrimination so our work,
Cleaners win back stolen wages after protesting in London Elizabeth Hotel lobby
Cleaners at London Elizabeth Hotel have won back £4,733 furlough wages they were denied by outsourced cleaning company Pridegreen after protesting on 2 October. One cleaner, Miluska, was denied five months wages by the company while it continued to claim public money from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). On 2nd October, cleaners staged a
Cleaners protest outside London Elizabeth Hotel over withheld furlough wages
Last Saturday, cleaners from the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) protested outside of the London Elizabeth Hotel in Hyde Park after the London Elizabeth Hotel and outsourced company PRIDEGREEN repeatedly failed to pay them their furlough wages. One cleaner, Mildre was forced to resign in May 2021 due to the lack of payment.
Pamphlet Extract: Workers’ struggles in the lockdown
The Angry Workers of the World has launched a new pamphlet today taking a concerted look at the current crisis and asking: What can working class people do about it? In this extract from the full report, discussion turns to examples of grassroots workplace resistance amid a stifling failure to act by union “leaderships”. Unions
Precarious workers demand campus shutdown and furlough with COVID-19 declared ‘Major Incident’ in London
With Covid-19 declared a ‘major incident’ in London, precarious workers are still being compelled to provide cleaning and security services in non-essential buildings, while many doing essential work remain on zero-hours contracts without adequate financial support if they have to self-isolate. The Universitity of London branch of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB)
Don’t join, Organise: On the limits of employment law
Following Boris Johnson’s burbling mess of an address yesterday there’s been a renewed interest in health and safety legislation, our right to stay away from dangerous working environments, and the importance of joining a union. All good stuff, but as any trade union activist will tell you, a law is not always much protection without collective power.
Coronavirus and your right to stay away from work
On Sunday evening, Boris Johnson declared that it was time for the people of England to get back to work. In a characteristically unclear statement, the millionaire PM said: “We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to
History: The rise and fall of the Knights of Labor
Stephen Parfitt looks at the legendary US workers’ organisation from its founding in 1869 to its collapse in the 1890s and considers what lessons can be drawn by modern militants. May 4th, 1886: anarchists lead a protest in Haymarket Square, Chicago, against the violence of police against workers on strike around the city. They do
Portugal: The dockers’ struggle
Pedro Friere takes a deep dive into the background of dockworker strikes in Portugal, which kicked off spectacularly in November with casualised workers taking action in Setúbal and overtime bans linked to proposed pay cuts holding across most of the country’s major ports. In Portugal, this past year has been a year of intermittent dockworker strikes,