Optare, a Leeds-based supplier to some of Britain’s biggest bus and coach companies, strike. TfL Dial-a-Ride workers to strike. London Underground power workers settle their dispute for more talks. Catering workers to walk out on East Midlands trains. Tyne and Wear metro strike suspended.
Photographs by nine of the world’s leading photographers emerged from a Magnum project to document contemporary British manufacturing. The exhibition of their work, Open for Business, is a fascinating look at the world of work, writes Lesley McGorrigan
The news that Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port is to move to a four-day week, albeit with no cut in basic working hours, highlights the predicament facing the UK motor industry. The industry appeared to have recovered from the worst of the recession.
The workers at Vestas on the Isle of Wight have not won yet. But even without winning, they have done more for environmental politics in this country than a hundred conferences.
Unofficial strikes, occupations and rank and file action - we need to learn from the new struggles by trade unionists and non-unionised workers alike, argues Charlie Kimber.
The irrationality of capitalism was starkly exposed in April when, despite massively increasing its profits for the first three months of the year, the manufacturing company Vestas announced that it was to shed 1,900 jobs.
The global car industry has been rocked by the recession, thousands of jobs have gone and many thousands more are threatened. Kevin Devine reports on how bosses' attempts to save their profits will affect the workers on the "devil's carousel".
The occupation at former Ford plant Visteon wasn't planned. We came down here to get our personal belongings after we heard that we had all been sacked with immediate effect.
Three decades of the neoliberal project have wrought significant changes to British society, all with New Labour's unabashed aim of making Britain "the most business friendly environment in Europe".
