Last September the Trade Union Left Forum asked, will this Government guarantee the right to union representation for workers? (The full article can be read at www.tuleftforum.com/will-government-guarantee-right-union-representation-workers/). Judging by yesterday’s press statement by the Minister for jobs, enterprise, and innovation, Richard Bruton, on legislating for reform of the Industrial Relations Act (2001), the answer has to be a resounding and disappointing but not surprising No. The minister’s statement added very little to what he had already stated, and what was leaked to the media before Christmas. The Fine Gael minister has been clear that any legislation brought forward in this […]
Apr
22
Raising Our Expectations
Jane McAlevey challenges the Left to stop lamenting its disappointments in the working class and address our own failures. Taken from Portside Labor Sam Gindin Looking back to the defeat of the labor movement since the early 1980s, three lessons seem especially important. First, any gains made under capitalism are temporary; they can be reversed. Second, the kind of unionism we developed in that earlier period of gains was inherently limited; it left us in a poor position to respond to the subsequent attacks. Third, absent new forms of working class organization and practices, fatalism takes over and worker expectations […]
Mar
31
Struggle and conflict will rebuild the movement
The TULF is committed to building a fighting trade union movement capable of enhancing the lives of union members and pushing for a better and more equitable society for working class. This will only be achieved when the movement takes on a number of principles based on the reality of class struggle today. There are now examples from across the globe of Unions that are growing and winning on the basis of militancy and class solidarity. The Unions engaged in this kind of struggle are getting gains for their members and the communities they serve, and workers are responding to […]
Feb
19
Defend public wealth: resist privatisation
“We have to get beyond sectoral interests and look at the common good, to defend the very idea of social ownership as an alternative to the anarchy and chaos of corporate monopoly capitalism.”—Extract from the TULF’s pamphlet Robbing the People’s Wealth. This January the Trade Union Left Forum met in the TEEU offices and agreed to launch a campaign in defence of public wealth and opposition to privatisation. Members and activists from a range of unions, public and private-sector, shared their experiences of the scale of privatisation that is under way and the loss to the public of valuable assets […]
Feb
07
A Communist Vision of Trade Unions: A Review
Review of Toni Gilpin, “Left by Themselves: A History of the United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers Union, 1938-1955” Volumes I and II (Ph.D dss., Yale University, 1992) From 1947 until 1955, Local 236 of the United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers Union (FE) at the International Harvester company’s plant in Louisville, Kentucky, exemplified a union run according to the Communist vision of trade unionism. One of its officers, an African-American, James Wright, who subsequently served as an organizer for the United Electrical Workers (UE) and still later as a regional director of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), called the […]
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