How the Tories Tried to Make Strikes Impossible

By: Karl Hansen

For decades, Tory governments have undermined workers’ right to strike – to build a more equal society, we need to unshackle our trade unions.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) giving a speech 22 May 1980. (Mike Lawn / Evening Standard / Getty Images)

Small

It’s hard to put into context the struggles of the Left—and the wider socialist movement—across the West, without understanding the decline of trade unions. The vanguard of working-class organisation at the start of the twentieth century, and later the bulwark upon which the post-war welfare state was built, trade unions have withered away in recent […]

Medium

It’s hard to put into context the struggles of the Left—and the wider socialist movement—across the West, without understanding the decline of trade unions. The vanguard of working-class organisation at the start of the twentieth century, and later the bulwark upon which the post-war welfare state was built, trade unions have withered away in recent […]

Large

It’s hard to put into context the struggles of the Left—and the wider socialist movement—across the West, without understanding the decline of trade unions. The vanguard of working-class organisation at the start of the twentieth century, and later the bulwark upon which the post-war welfare state was built, trade unions have withered away in recent […]

It’s hard to put into context the struggles of the Left—and the wider socialist movement—across the West, without understanding the decline of trade unions. The vanguard of working-class organisation at the start of the twentieth century, and later the bulwark upon which the post-war welfare state was built, trade unions have withered away in recent […]

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