Joe Thorne
Post strikes suspended: this deal is no deal! Resume action!
Joe Thorne from the Commune examines the CWU's decision to call off postal workers industrial action in order for "negotiations" to occur, and calls for postal workers to take the struggle into their own hands.
At the top of the CWU-Royal Mail agreement is a header. “Final Draft – 5 November 2009 —- 1.10AM” (available as PDF attachment below). This innocuous line is emblematic of the CWU negotiating team’s strategy: it indicates that the text was agreed more than 7 hours after the strikes were called off.
The struggle at Visteon, the union and the development of class consciousness, 2009
Joe Thorne from The Commune analyses the Ford Visteon workers occupation and dispute, the role of the union, and draws lessons for workers in the future. The article was published on 5th May 2009.
Notes from the Enfield Visteon occupation rally
Comments and thoughts from the rally in support of the occupied Enfield Visteon plant on Saturday 4 April 2009.
At 2pm last Tuesday, 565 workers at three sites of Visteon, a car component manufacturer tied to Ford, were given six minutes notice of redundancy. They did not get their last week’s pay, though it turned out that the Friday before around four or five hundred quid had been deposited in each of their accounts in place of redundancy pay.
