In places where existing trade unions fail to organise workers, new unions will often emerge to fill the gap. And those new unions will sometimes be the subject of state repression as a result. This…
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the decision by the Communist International to launch an armed uprising in Germany. The uprising, which took place in October that year, was a dismal failure. It also…
While Republican politicians are queuing up to take on Donald Trump for the party’s nomination next year, there’s hardly anything going on in the other camp. Unless he falls ill or changes his mind, Joe…
On the last day of June, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) released its annual “Global Rights Index”. It presented a bleak picture of a world where workers’ rights are routinely trampled upon. And according…
In 1924 a rebellion against Bolshevik rule broke out in western Georgia. The opening shots were fired in the manganese mining town of Chiatura, which had for years stood at the centre of working class…
Last week, on a visit to Washington, D.C., I spent some time in two new museums and walked away wondering why we don’t have museums like that in the U.K. The first was the National…
Six months ago, a woman trade union leader from Cambodia was on her way home from Melbourne, where she attended the world congress of the International Trade Union Confederation. Chhim Sithar, the leader of Labor…
Six months ago, news broke that Belgian police had arrested the newly-elected general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) as part of the “Qatargate” scandal. The government of Qatar was accused of paying…
I’ve just come back from an international conference that could not have happened thirty years ago. And it’s a conference that might also prove impossible to hold in just a few short years. LabourStart’s Global…
As a company based in Sweden, which is home to some of the world’s most powerful unions, you would think that IKEA would be an employer that understood the importance of workers’ rights. And if…