The Combination Act of 1799 - passed under the Govt of William Pitt the Younger as a response to Jacobin activity & the fear that workers would strike during a conflict - prohibited trade unions & collective bargaining by British workers.
Throughout the 1790s, the war against France was presented as an ideological struggle between French republicanism vs. British monarchism, with the British government seeking to mobilise public opinion in support of the war.
The Pitt government waged a vigorous propaganda campaign, contrasting the 'ordered' society of Britain dominated by the aristocracy & the gentry, with the "anarchy" of the French revolution. Pitt's Govt always sought to associate British "radicals" with the revolution in France.
Like the current Govt, the Pitt Govt drastically reduced civil liberties. It created a nationwide spy network with ordinary people being encouraged to denounce any "radicals" in their midst, & fermented a "popular conservative movement" that rallied in defence of King & Country.
The 1799 Combination Act drove labour organisations underground & toward militancy, with Unions subject to often severe repression.
Sympathy for the plight of the workers led to Unions being decriminalised when the Combination Act was repealed in 1824.
In response to a series of strikes that followed Union decriminalisation, the 1825 Combinations of Workmen Act decriminalised trade unions, but severely restricted their activity, prohibiting collective bargaining for better terms & conditions, & suppressing the right to strike.
Following the 1825 Combinations of Workmen Act, growing numbers of workers joined Unions in their efforts to achieve better wages & working conditions.
Generally much less radical but more permanent trade unions were established from the 1850s onwards.
The London Trades Council, uniting London's trade unionists, was founded in 1860, & the Sheffield Outrages (a series of explosions & murders by a group of trade unionist militants carried out in 1860s Sheffield) spurred the establishment of the Trades Union Congress in 1868.
The legal status of trade unions was established by the 1867 Royal Commission on Trade Unions, which despite hostility to the idea of legalising trade unions, agreed that the establishment of Unions was to the advantage of both employers & employees.
Unions were fully legalised with the adoption of the Trade Union Act 1871 - although the 1871 Criminal Law Amendment Act (fully repealed by the Trade Union & Labour Relations Act 1974) made picketing illegal.
Between 1862 & 1875, the average wage increased by 40%.
Americans who care about democracy, justice & the planet have to come together to prevent another Trump administration, which would attempt to introduce the regressive, antidemocratic & dangerously irresponsible policies laid out in the Heritage Foundation's #Project2025
Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the nominee.
Before outlining some essential information about Harris, I'll quickly summarise the process be for choosing the Democratic nominee as described by Newsweek.
In a statement emailed to Newsweek, Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Jaime Harrison said that the party would "undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November."
Professor of History & Public Policy at Duke University & author of the terrifying award-winning bestseller 'Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America', Nancy MacLean, recently discussed #Project2025.
Law professor & social critic Kimberlé Crenshaw interviewed MacLean about what the prescriptions in the Heritage Foundation’s #Project2025 mean for parents, public schools, & for multiracial democracy.
CRENSHAW: These wars on curricula are not new, of course; they go far back in our history. What folks might not know is that the Heritage Foundation, the main convenor of #Project2025, cut its teeth on curricular wars in the 1970s.
'The Republican blueprint for power contains the seeds of its own demise. It is not too late to stop the descent of the American political order into tyranny, oligarchy or anarchy', writes Timothy Snyder.
Pete Buttigieg is an American politician and former naval officer who is serving as the 19th United States secretary of transportation. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020, which earned him the nickname "Mayor Pete".
Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Oxford, attending the latter on a Rhodes Scholarship. From 2009 to 2017, he was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant.
Hitler survived assassination attempts. We know what that led to. Reagan & Thatcher survived assassination attempts. They gave us neoliberalism. Trump survived. He's chosen JD Vance as his running mate. If elected, America will become a dystopian free-market kleptocracy.
The 0.01% is gearing up to all but destroy US democracy.
Leading the charge & donating tens of millions of dollars to Trump's campaign are Silicon Valley's libertarian Tech billionaire extremists, led by Peter Thiel & Elon Musk - two of the most dangerous men on earth.
What's unfolding right now is like something from a dystopian sci-fi novel.
Except it's not fiction - it's real.
And it's a fucking nightmare assault on truth, fairness, equality, minorities, women's right, the environment & humanity, which democracy will struggle to survive.
"What first made Reform UK's white, privately educated multimillionaires Farage, Tice & Rupert Lowe oppose DEI?"
'Diversity Equity Inclusion' is a framework which promotes the fair treatment & full participation of ALL people, but particularly underrepresented groups...
Many people know that the term ‘DEI’ is being weaponized as a racist dog whistle (a coded, deniable bit of language that allows people to communicate ideas that would be too offensive if done explicitly).
There’s nothing new about using racist dog whistles. But the way DEI is used to play into racist sentiments is uniquely powerful, & may well be much more potent than other culture war terms.