There are many stories of friendship during the miners’ strike. The importance of this was in part the sense – in the middle of extraordinary hostility from multiple directions – that they weren’t alone. The long-term, mutual and egalitarian relationships signalled by the word ‘friendship’ during the miners’ strike should be embedded in our organising, anticipating the type of world we want to make.
Teach outs help us remember what a university could be: Katherine Weikert on the value of teach outs in strike action.
On day 7 of the 8-day UCU strike action over pay, pensions, and poor working conditions, Grace Redhead and Matt Griffin discuss precarity, inequality, outsourcing, and picket line solidarity at UCL
Sixty universities across the UK are taking part in the current UCU strike action over pay, pensions, and poor working conditions. On day 4 of the 8-day strike, six staff members taking part give us the view from picket lines across the country.
On Sunday 5th May 2019, Glasgow’s annual May Day demonstration marked the final and largest centenary event commemorating the events of 1919. Commemoration of the Battle of George Square has interested diverse groups of researchers, activists and institutions. Its politics are negotiated between conflicting claims grounded in assertions of authenticity, familial connection and intellectual authority. Respect for tradition meets the desire to create a ‘usable past’ fit for the second decade of the 21st century. How do these conflicting ideologies wrestle to find meaning and relevance in the city’s radical past?
How do responses to the USS pension dispute echo Victorian complaints about the ‘servant problem’? Phil Hedges explores, with some help from E. P. Thompson.
