WCH E5: Workmates - organising with agency workers on London Underground
An interview with Andy Littlechild, a rail track charge hand and rail workers' union official, about Workmates: a fighting organisation of permanent and agency contract workers on London Underground in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The post-war strike wave in East, West, and Southern Africa
Submitted by Mike Harman on Mar 2 2018 20:20
From the end of the Second World War until the mid-'60s there was a wave of strikes in British East and West Africa, French West Africa, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The history of this class struggle has been neglected by both mainstream historians and most revolutionary tendencies based in Europe and the US.
The 1945 Nigerian General Strike
In 1945 a general strike involving tens of thousands of workers began with railway workers, then spread to other nationalised industries including dock and civil service workers, with workers at private firms supporting the strike and refusing to cross picket lines. Estimates of involvement range between 42,000 to 200,000 workers making it one of the largest strikes in colonial Africa up until that point.
Strikes in Ghana, 1961
In September 1961, a wildcat strike broke out amongst the railway works of Takoradi-Sekondi, spreading quickly to Accra and Kumasi and lasting seventeen days, cutting short president Kwame Nkrumah's holiday in the USSR.
The East African Railway Strike, 1959-60: labour’s challenge of inter-territorialism
David Hyde examines a pivotal working-class struggle which erupted within East Africa’s transport system near the end of the colonial period. Though this was arguably the most important working-class struggle to occur during the decolonisation process within Britain’s African colonies, it has been rarely acknowledged and barely attended to.
India: Students occupy Vishwavidyalaya metro station to protests against fare hike
Submitted by Mike Harman on Jan 19 2018 11:10
Students from Delhi University occupied gate 3 of the Vishwavidyalaya metro station yesterday to protest against a fare hike, vowing to stay until the hike was reversed by the transit authorities or central government.
Hundreds refuse to cross picket line in wildcat Crossrail strike
Submitted by Ed on Dec 14 2017 13:18
More than 200 workers at the flagship rail construction project have downed tools today in solidarity with more colleagues who have been sacked and locked out.
World War I struggles in Switzerland
Submitted by Steven. on Nov 11 2017 18:37
An informative account of the wave of working class struggles which took place during and immediately following World War I in Switzerland, by Christian Koller.
Rail workers are striking for passenger rights but no-one’s talking about that
Submitted by QQ on Nov 9 2017 11:19
Train conductors, represented by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), are on their second day of coordinated strikes on multiple services.
Does India need a bullet train?
Submitted by Huck Finn on Oct 5 2017 11:39
On September 14, 2017, construction of India’s first bullet train, a much-lauded bilateral project between India and Japan, finally got underway. Although now being used by Narendra Modi’s BJP to further a nationalist agenda, ten years ago, senior BJP leader VK Malhotra slammed a railway budget that initially proposed the idea for high speed rail (HSR), for neglecting infrastructure and safety requirements as well as exposing the existing infrastructure to greater risks.
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