The Rank and File's Next Step

Across the country, from universities and hospitals to warehouses and call centres, workers are fighting an offensive by a government and employers determined to protect their profits by driving down our pay, pensions and conditions.

This pamphlet is addressed to the activists in the workplaces, on the picket lines and in the streets whose fight against the cost of living crisis has prompted the biggest upsurge of industrial action since the 1980s. But despite the courage and determination of union members, nowhere has pay kept pace with inflation. Our unions have been exposed as totally unequal to the task of defending members, let alone fighting for real improvements.

This pamphlet presents an analysis of the state of the unions and a proposal to militants—the formation of a new rank and file movement to transform the unions in preparation for the battles to come.