19.03.2018 / News /

Guardian praises UVW

Article in the Guardian today discussing the current state of the union movement and suggesting the likes of the “ambitiously named” United Voices of the World (UVW), and IWGB, and other inspiring disputes from the bigger unions such as BECTU and BFAWU, might help “capture the public imagination” and save the union movmemt from “irrelevancy”.

“…Some radically different ideas are taking shape, thanks to a new breed of small, nitty-gritty organisations that work at the frontiers of precarious employment, and often have backstories involving frustration with the big unions’ lumbering ways…

….They may collectively have no more than a couple of thousand members, but these unions’ operations are fast, loud, and agile, and the faces of the people who keep everything together are admirably diverse. By contrast, the big unions can appear to be just waiting for a Labour government to come along and somehow make things alright. Is the work simply beyond them of reinventing their movement for new times so as to renew its liberating purpose? Are they holding back for fear of threats to their power? These questions require attention, before an iron rule kicks in: that complacency usually invites the slow sunset of irrelevance.”

https://amp.theguardian.com/…/new-breed-trade-union-rmt-uni…