March For A New Deal For Working People

NPC Campaign! Bulletin

Please find a link to the May 2018 issue of the National Pensioners Convention's Campaign! Bulletin here. 

They have also produced a print friendly version which reduces the amount of ink needed if you want to print the document. This can be found here.

McStrike - They're Not Loving It

McDonald’s workers in Manchester are going on strike on International Workers Day (1 May 2018). They are standing up for a living wage of £10 an hour, guaranteed hours and for their right to a union to be respected. They need your support. Please attend their demonstration and picket to show that Manchester backs the workers.

When: 
      Midnight picket at 00:01, 1 May 2018
      Morning Picket at 07:00–08:00, 1 May 2018
Where:
      McDonald's, 36/38 Oxford Road, Manchester M1 5EJ
What:
      Picket and Demonstration - attend the McStrike picket.

The workers in Manchester will be picketing the store at midnight as the strike starts and in the morning. Please click 'Going' on the Facebook event to show you will be attending at either time.

Read the article on the Socialist Resistance website.

Public meeting: lessons from the sacked 47

The 47 councillors gave Liverpool an alternative to Thatcher's austerity. 

Labour in 2018 can oppose the Cameron/May austerity - if they dare.

Liverpool 47 website here.

Workers Memorial Day, Preston - 28 April

Stand Up To Racism - Manchester demo

Liverpool May Day 2018

Manchester May Day 2018

Guest Speaker: John McDonnell MP - see comment below.

Salford May Day 2018

Women Workers - Fellowship Is Life

The famous poster of the National
Federation of Women Workers

In recent weeks, there has - quite rightly - been much celebration of the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, and the fact that it wasn't granted by the Establishment, but was earned only after hard-fought and at times costly and painful battle. On International Women's Day, we should remember another struggle that women faced 100 years ago.

It wasn't only in the world of politics that women faced resistance: organised labour in the UK often did not welcome women workers. Some trade unions resisted accepting women members entirely, while others left the decision up to local branches. The historic London matchgirls strike of 1888 had been pivotal in improving dangerous working conditions in that industry but had not led to any general acceptance of women as union members.

The all-women National Federation of Women Workers was formed in 1906 and was led by the inspirational Scottish suffragist and trade unionist, Mary Macarthur. She recognised the relationship between the low wages that women received and their lack of collective organisation. While the union was set up to address that problem, it was never intended to be permanently separate from the mainstream, male-dominated union movement of the time. 

The NFWW represented its members like any other union, but its long-term aim was to break down gender barriers where they existed in the labour movement. Accordingly, they willingly passed over their own members to any union or branch that decided to open its ranks to women members, and in 1921 it merged with the National Union of General Workers (now the GMB). 

The struggle for the right of women workers to be organised in trade unions was as important as the battle for the vote, although it has scarcely been mentioned in any the recent celebrations. For Mary Macarthur, suffrage and union organisation were not separate issues. This is a struggle that deserves to be more than a footnote in our history.

The quotation on the poster is from William Morris:

"Forsooth, brethren, fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell; 

fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death; 

and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them."