Sign-In
Cart
A State of Struggle
Paperback
Series: Class Work Unions, Book 8
Publisher Price: $40.00
ISBN13: 9781907464843
Publisher: Manifesto Press
Published: Nov 1 2025
Pages: 332
Weight: 0.87
Height: 0.69 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English
The main purpose of this account is to demonstrate the potential to build our trade unions into organisations that can genuinely defend their members' interests, and those of the wider working class in this period of capitalist decline.
Building the type of militant trade union movement that aims at 'the emancipation of the downtrodden millions' can no longer be understood as an aspiration for the future but as an imperative and urgent necessity for today.
Trade unions are capable of playing the most positive role in the class struggle. If equipped with a militant perspective, programme and leadership, they are uniquely placed to unify other sections and elements of the working class: the unorganised within our communities together with social movements in the wider struggle for the socialist transformation of society.
But long experience tells us trade union leaders are also capable of playing the most divisive, backward and treacherous role.
So, what has all this to do with this contribution which is an 'activist's history' of a British trade union representing a relatively small and specific sector of the organised working class, mainly, if not exclusively, civil service workers?
If this contribution has one principal, over-arching and inter-connecting theme, it is this - the struggle between militant and collaborationist trade unionism.
And this is an issue of the most pressing concern and relevance to activists of all unions, and especially so for socialists and communists struggling to transform their unions, and society too.
These events and issues have the sharpest contemporary relevance as Keir Starmer's Labour government embarks on yet another programme of attacks on our class which, unless opposed, will result in a qualitative intensification of the 'race to the bottom'.
The price of union inaction or collaboration will be severe. The destruction of the welfare state is at an advanced stage and the assault will continue.Therefore, this contribution is not just concerned with providing an industrial, political and historical analysis of past events but is intended as a guide to action in current and coming struggles.
Also discussed are the influence of socialist ideas and activism, the conflict between left and right - particularly the struggle to defeat the 'Moderate' right-wing bureaucracy, the building of an effective United Front and broad lefts, and the role of socialist organisations and parties. Other themes include the union's relations with the wider labour and trade union movement and its demand for united union campaigning, including coordinated industrial action to defend public services and public sector workers' terms, conditions and rights. The inter-connection between industrial and political campaigning is considered, including the union's interventions on wider class issues like anti-racism, national self-determination, and the form of political representation.The destructive role of left sectarianism which exists, to a greater or lesser extent, in any workers' organisation, is also addressed, not 'theoretically' but by examining actual events and issues.
The book concludes with a brief consideration of potential directions for the British trade union movement and the many challenges, dangers and opportunities it faces in the current period of ever-deepening crises
Also in
Labor
Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register
Larson, Ann
Hardcover
Handbook for the Revolution: Building a More Perfect Union for the Twenty-First Century
Palmer, Derrick
Hardcover
WorkKeys Study Guide and Practice Test Questions: ACT WorkKeys Exam Prep and Review Book with Applied Mathematics, Locating Information, and Reading f
Trivium Exam Prep Team
Paperback
Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do
Terkel, Studs
Paperback
Trade Up: Why the Future Belongs to Skilled Trades and How Career Education is Transforming the Workforce
Burr, Riley
Altmire, Jason
Paperback
Fast Food Nation 25th Anniversary Edition: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
Schlosser, Eric
Paperback
Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone
Jaffe, Sarah
Paperback
The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged and Underpaid
Clinton, Chelsea
Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, Anna
Hardcover
The Real Domestic Product: How Birth Control Built Equality (and Why the Future of the Economy and the Planet Depends on It)
Gregory, Elizabeth
Hardcover
We Are the Union: How Worker-To-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big
Blanc, Eric
Paperback
Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World
Brisack, Jaz
Paperback
Influencer Creep: How Optimization, Authenticity, and Self-Branding Transform Creative Culture
Bishop, Sophie
Paperback
Class Warfare in Black Atlanta: Grassroots Struggles, Power, and Repression under Gentrification
Wood, Augustus
Paperback
Scaling Up Compensation: 5 Design Principles for Turning Your Largest Expense into a Strategic Advantage
Harnish, Verne
Ross, Sebastian
Paperback
The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy, Tenth Anniversary Edition
Berg, Maggie
Seeber, Barbara K.
Hardcover
Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century
Braverman, Harry
Paperback
Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter
Schor, Juliet
Hardcover
The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation
Frey, Carl Benedikt
Paperback
Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity
de Leon, Cedric
Paperback
The ROI of Human Capital: Measuring the Economic Value of Employee Performance
Fitz-Enz, Jac
Paperback
Entrevista de Trabajo: Como usar la entrevista de trabajo a tu favor para conseguir empleo.
Estrada, Gonzalo
Paperback
Help Wanted: How to Find and Keep Talent in a Forever-Tight Labor Market
Rubin, Jerry
Dawson, Steven L.
Hardcover
Pay the People!: Why Fair Pay Is Good for Business and Great for America
Driscoll, John
Pearl, Morris
The Patriotic Millionaires
Paperback
The Licensing Racket: How We Decide Who Is Allowed to Work, and Why It Goes Wrong
Allensworth, Rebecca Haw
Hardcover
Understanding Executive Compensation and Governance: A Practical Guide
Becker, Irving S.
Groeninger, Kurt
Hardcover
The Trafficker Next Door: How Household Employers Exploit Domestic Workers
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar
Hardcover
Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World
Brisack, Jaz
Hardcover
The Adaptation Advantage: Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work
Shipley, Chris
McGowan, Heather E.
Paperback
Unite and Win: The Workplace Organizer's Handbook
(Ewoc), Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee
Paperback
Handbook of U.S. Labor Statistics 2027: Employment, Earnings, Prices, Productivity, and Other Labor Data
Ryan, Mary Meghan
Hardcover
The Political Theologies of Populism: The Garveyites, the Klan, and the Wobblies, 1905-1930
Bossen, Colin
Paperback
Strike Back: Rediscovering Militant Tactics to Fight the Attacks on Public Employee Unions
Burns, Joe
Paperback
Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education, 3rd Edition
Becker, Gary S.
Paperback
Organizing Amazon: Building Worker Power Under Conditions of Fragmentation, Precarity and Regimentation
Vickers, Tom
Paperback
The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits
Ton, Zeynep
Hardcover
Show Up or Shut Up!: 7 Fights Worth Having With Your Union and How To Win Them
Linde, Renae C.
Paperback
Influencer Creep: How Optimization, Authenticity, and Self-Branding Transform Creative Culture
Bishop, Sophie
Hardcover
Leading Unionized Workforces in the Age of AI: Managing Skilled and Unskilled Labor in a Changing World
Gilewski, Nick E.
Paperback
Tax the Rich!: How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer
Payne, Erica
Patriotic Millionaires, The
Pearl, Morris
Paperback
The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone's Work
Ton, Zeynep
Hardcover
Fighting for the American Dream: From Blue-Collar Kid to Maverick Economist, the Battle to Defend Working Families
Whalen, Charles J.
Hardcover
Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity
de Leon, Cedric
Hardcover
Wild Wild East: Exiled Americans, Enslaved Indians and the Systemic Abuse of the H-1B Visa Programme
Thakur, Tanul
Hardcover
All Work Is Cultural Work: Diasporic Haitian Women, Paid Labor, and Cultural Citizenship
Carney, Nikita
Paperback
The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It
Weil, David
Paperback
Reassembling the UAW: Insurgency, Contention, and the Struggle for Unionism in the American South
Walker, Abe
Paperback
The Human Interface: How Workers Can Step Into the Tech Conversation--And Lead It
Negrón, Wilneida
Hardcover
The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival
Goodhart, Charles
Pradhan, Manoj
Hardcover
Making the Cut: Hiring Decisions, Bias, and the Consequences of Nonstandard, Mismatched, and Precarious Employment
Pedulla, David
Paperback
The Mine Next Door: Turning Points in Corporate Social Responsibility Communicative Practice
O'Connor, Amy
Paperback
The Master-Servant Doctrine: How Old Legal Rules Haunt the Modern Workplace
Tippett, Elizabeth Chika
Paperback
Undelivered: From the Great Postal Strike of 1970 to the Manufactured Crisis of the U.S. Postal Service
Rubio, Philip F.
Paperback
On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane
Guendelsberger, Emily
Paperback
Getting Me Cheap: How Low-Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty
Dodson, Lisa
Freeman, Amanda
Hardcover
Indian Business, Economic Development, and the Jobs Dilemma in the Twenty-First Century
D'Costa, Anthony P.
Hardcover
The Creation of Value by Living Labour: A Normative and Empirical Study - Vol. 1
Cheng, Enfu
Paperback
The Union Member's Complete Guide 2nd Edition: Everytbing You Need to Know About Working Union
Mauer, Michael
Paperback
Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor Along British and Colonial Indian Railways Volume 24
Armstrong-Price, Mattie
Paperback
We Are the Union: How Worker-To-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big
Blanc, Eric
Hardcover
Building a Better World, 4th Edition: An Introduction to the Labour Movement in Canada
Savage, Larry
Ross, Stephanie
Paperback
Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Slavery
Fogel, Robert William
Engerman, Stanley L.
Paperback
Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South
Whayne, Jeannie
Paperback
The Trafficker Next Door: How Household Employers Exploit Domestic Workers
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar
Paperback
Why We Must Work: Economic Freedom, Fulfilling Work, and Workplace Democracy
Wisman, Jon D.
Paperback
Legalized Inequalities: Immigration and Race in the Low-Wage Workplace
Campos-Medina, Patricia
Griffith, Kati L.
Gleeson, Shannon
Paperback
Working in the 21st Century: An Oral History of American Work in a Time of Social and Economic Transformation
Larson, Mark
Hardcover
Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldun: Book One, Chapter Five, Making a Living
Ibn Khaldun, Abd Al-Rahman
Paperback
The Conflict Resolution Toolbox: Models and Maps for Analyzing, Diagnosing, and Resolving Conflict
Furlong, Gary T.
Hardcover
The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement
Kraus, Neil
Paperback
Take Back the Power: The Fall and Rise and Fall of Nyc's Transport Workers Union Local 100, 1975-2009
Kagan, Marc
Hardcover
Barriers of Belief: How Religion Shapes Muslim Labour Market Inequality in the Uk, Canada and Australia
Khattab, Nabil
Hardcover
Proving Safety: wicked problems, legal risk management and the tyranny of metrics
Smith, Greg
Paperback
The Creation of Value by Living Labour: A Normative and Empirical Study - Vol. 2
Cheng, Enfu
Paperback
Maurice Sugar: Law, Labor, and the Left in Detroit, 1912-1950: Law, Labor, and the Left in Detroit, 1912-1950
Johnson, Christopher H.
Paperback