Rona Proudfoot describes the Valentine’s letters written for striking posties in Glasgow. I have recently joined a union and found myself part of the growing group from all walks of life who are volunteering their time on picket lines in support of striking workers. Although I’m new to this, some of my companions have been […]
Enas Magzoub finds that local authority decisions in transport and education have increased the burden on underpaid workers. More than half a million workers across the country have taken part in industrial action so far this year. Many are striking while facing the particular difficulties affecting rural Scotland. For instance, privately-owned and unregulated bus providers, […]
Peter Frase, New York, February 2023 My last visit to Scotland coincided with May Day 2022, and it’s always a pleasure for an American socialist to experience the workers’ day in another country. Despite having its origins in the 19th Century US labor movement, May Day in the States has long had the status of […]
Paul Malgrati, Villars-sur-Ollon, March 2023 France is being stirred by the most significant general strike since the beginning of the twenty-first century. On 7th March, French syndicats claimed more than 3.5 million protesters nationwide, with between 30 percent and 50 percent of striking workers in the education, energy, civil service, and transport sectors. This was […]
Esmond Sage surveilles the situation of renter and tenent organising in the silver city and explores the radical hearth of Union Street. Living Rent in Aberdeen has a new lease of life (if that expression can be used for a tenants’ union). The tenants’ movement isn’t new here, of course. There’s a history here that […]
James Barrowman reviews a recent exhibition in Dundee, leading us back through the factory gates. The Cooper Gallery’s show Consider Labour is the first major exhibition of work by the late filmmaker Harun Farocki in Scotland, and places Dundee within the international network of cities that have hosted the ‘Labour in a Single Shot’ workshop […]
Charlotte Lauder compares two malign media influences with their roots in Tayside. In Succession, the transatlantic TV show that depicts the Machiavellian manoeuvrings of New York City media mogul Logan Roy and his power-hungry family, the city of Dundee holds a special significance. As the place of Roy’s birth, it is central to the character’s […]
When Ellie McDonald’s uncle organised a union at Dundee’s media powerhouse, the bosses blacklisted the family. It never kept them down. In Dundee in the 1930s, unemployment was as familiar as the smell of jute which permeated the city. Among endemic poverty and lack of opportunity, my granny held a far-sighted belief in being well-educated. […]
Emma Òr attended the counter-demo to a rally at a hotel in Erskine. ‘Refugees are welcome here’ and ‘Nazi scum off our streets’ were the chants outside the Muthu Glasgow River Hotel in Erskine on Sunday 5th February to drown out Patriotic Alternative’s (PA) anti-refugee rally. Members of PA, currently the largest far-right movement in […]
Pinar Aksu reviews the reality that awaits people seeking asylum and refuge in Scotland. At the start of the pandemic and lockdown, when everything seemed unsure, people seeking asylum and refuge were evicted from their homes across Glasgow and placed in hotel accommodation. They were only informed on the day of the move and were […]