Unite has overwhelming voted to re-examine its relationship with Labour and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has had her Unite membership suspended over her role in the Birmingham bin strike.
Labour Government condemned
The decision was taken following an emergency motion passed at the union’s policy conference in Brighton today that condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the Labour government for attacking the bin workers.
Birmingham council leader John Cotton and fellow Unite Birmingham councillors have also had their Unite membership suspended for their roles in effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up £8,000.
Rayner backed rogue council
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite is crystal clear it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette. Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”
Effective fire and rehire
The emergency condemned “Birmingham council for its threat to effectively fire and rehire, on pain of redundancy, the Unite Birmingham bin workers”. The Labour government is also condemned for its “support to the council and the commissioners, originally appointed by the Tories and maintained by Labour.”
It then commits the union if the redundancy process is forced through “Unite should discuss our relationship with Labour.”
Commissioners blocked deal
Birmingham’s government appointed commissioners, who, along with John Cotton, have never joined negotiations and have continually blocked deals to end the strike, answer directly to Angela Rayner.
Ms Rayner, Cotton and other the other Labour councillors have been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”. This will be followed by an investigation into their behaviour with a “view to expelling them from the union.”
In April, the secretary of state for local authorities toured Birmingham waste depots using strike breaking labour and insisted the strikers should accept a deal that would have seen their wages slashed.
The motion was voted on by 800 Unite delegates who represent sectors across the economy from automotive to the NHS.
Unite is the largest affiliated union to the Labour Party.
The strike was called by the trade unions and farmers groups against anti-workers labor codes and failures of the government to enact a legal support price for farm products.July 09, 2025 by Abdul Rahman
National strike against the “anti-worker” labor codes of the Modi government on July 9. Photo: CPI(M)
Millions took to the streets all over India on Wednesday, July 9, to observe a national strike call made by Central Trade Unions (CTU). They are striking against the anti-worker policies adopted by the ultra-right-wing government in the country.
CTU is a platform of all the major trade union federations in the country, spanning the ideological and political spectrum. It includes the Center for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and several others.
The strike was also supported by all the major groups of farmers, students, women, and various professional unions such as teachers, journalists, and IT employees in the country.
According to various estimates, more than 250 million workers and farmers – both in organized and unorganized sectors – directly participated in the strike and protests across the country.
Workers in other organized sectors such as ports, airports, and banking also participated alongside those in various public sectors.
The strike affected most of the industrial activities in the country, particularly industries related to mining.
In several places, workers blocked the movement of trains, blocked highways, and picketed factory gates to mobilize greater support. In some cases, such as the Kochi refinery in the southern state of Kerala, workers defied court orders and observed the strike.
A total shut down of all major business was observed in various states in the country such as Kerala, Tripura, Bihar, Jharkhand, and others.
Anti-worker labor codes must be withdrawn
The workers were demanding immediate withdrawal of the new labor codes enacted by the ultra-right-wing government led by Narendra Modi at the center in 2020. CTU claims the four new labor codes are anti-worker, depriving them of their basic rights, including the right to collective bargaining, which was won through a historic and painful worker’s struggle.
The other major demands include:
The end of the privatization and contractualization of jobs
A national minimum wage of Rs. 26,000 (USD 303)
Improvements in working conditions across all sectors for all kinds of workers
The strike also supported the demands raised by the country’s major farmers groups, led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), for a legal minimum support price for all farm produce, the waiving of loans for farmers, an end to all forced land acquisition, and better employment opportunities.
The strike was originally scheduled for May 19. It had to be postponed following the war-like situation in the region created after India attacked several locations inside neighboring Pakistan, accusing it of supporting armed groups who carried out attacks on tourists in Pahalgam.
Popular action defeats government lies
A central protest rally was held in the national capital Delhi. The protest was attended by all the constituents of CTU and SKM, the farmers collective which has extended support to the strike.
CPI(M) Politburo Member and CITU General Secretary Tapan Sen addresses a strike demonstration in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Photo: CPI (M)
Addressing the rally, Tapan Sen, general secretary of CITU and a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) polit bureau, claimed that the success of the strike demolishes the myths created by the Modi government about the so-called economic prosperity his government’s policies have created.
Strike demonstration in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Photo: CPI (M)
Most Indians today are struggling to find a decent source of livelihood and those who have one are struggling to protect it from the effects of the various wrongful and pro-corporate policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, Sen underlined.
The lies about India being the third or fourth largest economy in the world, propagated by the present government in the country and magnified by the complicit media, have been exposed by the sheer number of people who participated in today’s strike. It establishes the fact that under Modi’s decade-long rule the condition of the working classes in India has gone from bad to worse, Sen told the protesters gathered at the rally.
Photo: CPI(M)
Sen also warned the government against going ahead with the proposed trade deal with the US, claiming that would further compromise the interest of workers and farmers in India.
Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of the AITUC, claimed that the BJP used pro-government unions to divide the working classes in the country and falsely called the strike “illegal”.
“The attempts to divide the working class, so that the interest of its corporate bosses are protected, was defeated by the successful strike” Kaur declared. She noted that this was the fourth such strike since 2020 and more such strikes will happen in the future, with more intensity, if the government fails to correct its ways and take back the four draconian labor codes, and enact laws which really benefit the working classes of this country.
Heba Shakura mourns her son Islam Abu Mahdi who was killed in an Israeli army air strike, during his funeral at the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, April 28, 2025
STUC to call on British government to end arms sales to Israel and the Scottish government to end enterprise grants for weapons manufacturers
THE final session of this year’s STUC passed seven motions in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Gaza today.
After attempts at compositing the motions failed, each passed individually, meaning the STUC will now call on the British government to end arms sales to Israel and the Scottish government to ensure no more Scottish Enterprise grants are handed over to weapons manufacturers.
More than £3 million of Scottish government cash has been handed over to manufacturers such as BAE Systems, Leonardo and Raytheon since 2023, while the firms continue to supply the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote told delegates: “We cannot be bystanders, we cannot walk by on the other side as we witness what is now widely accepted as a genocide. “The ICJ has ruled there is a plausible case, and Amnesty International have now confirmed that.“Fifty-eight years of illegal occupation, decades of settlement building, an ethnic cleansing, Israel’s Gaza onslaught has killed at least 60,000 people since 2023, and the Lancet has estimated the real figure could be 180,000 dead.
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Join the traditional march from Clerkenwell Green, which will bring together countless international workers’ organisations in a statement against the far right
THE history of London May Day is rooted in the call for an eight-hour day by the Second International in 1890, and is marked by working-class activism and evolving political agendas. Several attempts to detach May Day from the labour movement, rejecting its roots in class struggle, have failed. May Day marches in Britain and London continue to be held annually.
One hundred and thirty four years later, on Thursday May 1 2025, London May Day marchers will assemble in Clerkenwell Green and march to Trafalgar Square led by the Big Red Band, where a rally will be held bringing together thousands of workers from many different unions and communities. Traditional, maybe, but more importantly, a gesture of class assertion, an assembly of trade unionists uniting on a working day, joining up with working-class organisations assembling in support of this year’s theme, Yes to Workers Rights, No to the Far Right.
Ismara Vargas Walter, Cuban ambassador to Britain, will address assembled crowds on the steps of the Marx Memorial Library where the march will assemble and then march to Trafalgar Square to hear speakers at the rally including Eddie Dempsey, recently elected RMT general secretary, Jackie Peckham (deputy general secretary of the NASUWT), Dr Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to Britain, Tubisam Ahmed from Unite, a striking worker and representatives from community organisations.Many different organisations will be welcomed by trade unionists on the march, including representatives from Tamil, Kashmiri, Turkish and Kurdish, Cypriot, Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi communities and groups and many others too.
People take part in the National march for Palestine in central London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, August 3, 2024
TRADE unionists across Britain are to take part in a TUC-backed workplace day of action for Palestine next Thursday.
Workers are calling on the government to ban all arms exports, immediately recognise the state of Palestine, ban the trade in goods from illegal Israeli settlements and ensure Palestinians can access humanitarian aid.
After thousands of people took part in workplace days of action last year, workers are again being encouraged to organise acts of solidarity, which could include a two-minute silence, a stall outside their workplace, a bake sale or simply wearing the colours of the Palestinian flag.
Heba Shakura mourns her son Islam Abu Mahdi who was killed in an Israeli army air strike, during his funeral at the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, April 28, 2025
