Contributor

Polly Smythe

Polly Smythe is Novara Media’s labour movement correspondent.

https://twitter.com/pollysmythe

Articles

London Uber Drivers Are Drowning in Debt As TfL Delays Renewing Licences

Labour Delays Repeal of Anti-Trade Union Law Ahead of Austerity 2.0

No Justice, No Peas: Inside the Toby Carvery Union Drive

Taken for a Ride: Inside Uber’s New Race to the Bottom

27 January 2025

Labour Rewards Fire-And-Rehire Uni Boss With Plum Government Role

10 January 2025

Labour Said It Would Make Work Pay. Will It?

20 December 2024

Service Work Is Joyless at Christmas – And Online Deliveries Are Making It Worse

13 December 2024

How Private Rail Companies Are Trying to Slow Down Nationalisation

29 November 2024

More Than Half of UK Amazon Workers Have to Borrow Money to Make Ends Meet

18 November 2024

Vet Company Responds to Strikes By Simply Closing Branches

12 November 2024

Inside TikTok’s Mass Sacking

1 November 2024

Delivery Company Offers Workers Rights – But Only With a Pay Cut

Royal Mail-Owned Delivery Firm Faces Strike Action After Denying Workers Basic Rights

10 September 2024

Starmer Heckled As Trade Unions Oppose Labour’s New Austerity

4 September 2024

Six Companies Own 60% of UK Vets, and Workers Are Sick of It

Here’s How Labour and the Unions Could Take on Amazon

Football Fans Are Organising Against the Far Right

Uber and Deliveroo Drivers Are Fearing for Their Lives – And the Apps Couldn’t Care Less

Activists Block Foreign Office Over UK Arms Sales to Israel

Amazon Says GMB Leaflets Could Be a ‘Hazard’ Amid Union-Busting Allegations

Meet the Labour Candidates Lobbying for Oil, Gas and Arms Companies

Soaps Give Working Class Actors a Chance – And They’re Disappearing

‘Covid Rogue’ Among Labour’s Business Backers

Avanti West Coast Accidentally Asked Way Too Many People to Help Undermine a Strike

Amazon Is Holding Special Union-Busting Seminars for Workers

‘Jobs or the Environment’ Is a False Choice Deployed by the Right

Business Department Blockaded in Protest at Arms Exports to Israel

Red Cross Slashes Hundreds of Jobs As It Outsources Vital Wheelchair Service

Amazon Warehouse in Chaos Due to Union-Busting ‘Dirty Tricks’

Government Accused of ‘Cover Up’ of Its Deal With One of Britain’s Worst Train Companies

26 February 2024

‘I Want to Smack People in the Face’: Toxic Culture at Prestigious Legal Publisher Revealed

20 February 2024

Indian Port Workers Refuse to Handle Israeli Weapons

15 February 2024

‘No Love for Deliveroo’: Food Couriers in Massive Valentine’s Day Strike

30 January 2024

Avanti West Coast Launches ‘Vendetta’ Against Staff After Executives Joked About ‘Free Money’

15 January 2024

‘Free Money’: Executives at Failing Train Company Joke About Making Money at the Taxpayer’s Expense

13 December 2023

University Forced to Back Down After ‘Rogue’ Outsourcing Company Tries to Ban Protest

28 November 2023

Swedish Mechanics Are Fighting Tesla for Union Rights

16 November 2023

Revealed: Outsourcing Companies Are Lobbying Labour to Sell Out Public Services

2 November 2023

Minister Who Loves Free Speech Starts a Witch-Hunt Against Academics

26 October 2023

Arms Factory Blockaded As Calls for Practical Solidarity With Palestine Grow

16 October 2023

Palestinian Trade Unions Call for End to ‘Complicity’ in Israeli Crimes

11 October 2023

Amazon Workers Don’t Want to Unionise, Claims Policy Chief

27 September 2023

Free Travel Is Being Used to Make Outsourced Transport Staff Work Harder

14 September 2023

How Trade Unions Are Preparing for a Labour Government

12 September 2023

Mick Lynch Asks Unions to Step Up to Defy Anti-Strike Legislation

Network Rail Gives Bonuses to Scabs

Solicitor Brings ‘Unfair Dismissal’ Claim Against Law Firm Run by His Own Mother

Housing Charity Accused of Trying to ‘Get Around Law’ to Break Strike

Amazon Accused of Union-Busting at Striking UK Workplaces

Union-Busting Pub Landlords Pay Thousands in Compensation to Striking Workers

Charity Boss Apologises After ‘Enraged Rant’ at Union Reps

Striking Workers Say Homeless Charity Has Lost Its Way

Trade Union Leader Loses Appeal Against Sexual Abuse Scandal Dismissal

Universities Are Docking Lecturers’ Entire Pay for Not Marking a Few Exams

Apple’s ‘Union-Busting’ Tactics Have Come to the UK

Qatar’s Biggest Cheerleader Is Finally Challenging It on Workers’ Rights

‘Engines of History’: Traffic Warden Strike to Cause ‘Chaos’ at King’s Coronation

What’s Going on With the Industrial Dispute at UK Universities?

Meet the German Health Workers Who Beat Overwork and Saved Lives

28 February 2023

What We Learned at the Latest Round of the Spycops Inquiry

23 February 2023

Trade Union Leader Dismissed Following Report Into Sexual Harassment

22 February 2023

Trade Union Accused of Sitting on Report Into ‘Toxic’ Culture

9 February 2023

Damning Report Into Sexual Abuse Allegations at ‘Mafia-Like’ Trade Union

31 January 2023

Everything You Need to Know About the UK’s Biggest Strike-Day in a Decade

31 January 2023

What Actually is a General Strike and is the UK Going to Have One?

26 January 2023

Amazon Uses ‘Intimidation’ Against Historic First Legal UK Strike

19 January 2023

Targeted or Indefinite Action? Here’s What’s Next for the Uni Strikes

What Do the New Anti-Strike Laws Mean?

29 December 2022

By Fighting for Themselves, Trade Unionists Are Standing up for Everyone

15 December 2022

Labour Backs Plan to Use Army to Break NHS Strikes

13 December 2022

Trade Union General Secretary Accused of Taking Qatari Bribes to Ignore Human Rights Abuses

7 December 2022

Royal Mail is Using an App to Try and Break the Posties’ Strike

24 November 2022

How a Trade Union Leader Became Qatar’s Biggest Fan

18 November 2022

President of Unison Expelled From Labour Party

10 November 2022

Nurses Have Voted to Strike Across the UK for the First Time

3 November 2022

There’s Another Rail Strike You Haven’t Heard About

27 October 2022

A Mining Museum Has Threatened Workers Speaking Out About Strikes

18 October 2022

Inside the Fight for the UK’s First Formal Amazon Warehouse Strike

14 October 2022

The RSA Used ‘Intimidation Tactics’ Against Staff After Refusing Their Trade Union Request

12 October 2022

Delivery Riders Are Striking All Over the Place

Deliveroo Thinks France Has the ‘Most Progressive’ Gig Economy. Deliveroo Has Been Fined for Workers’ Rights Abuses in France

30 September 2022

Keir Starmer Is a Big Fan of This Union Leader. His Staff, Not so Much

15 September 2022

Were Unions Right to Cancel Strikes to Respect the Queen? We Asked Members

6 September 2022

These Workers Got a 44% Pay Rise. Here’s How

5 September 2022

Here Are the Strikes That Will Be Keeping Liz Truss up at Night

Port Workers in Felixstowe Are Striking at the Heart of the UK’s Supply Chains

Trouble’s Brewing: Man Claims He Was Kicked Out of BrewDog Bar Over Union Leaflet

Hundreds of Amazon Workers Stage Wildcat Strike Over ‘Kick in the Teeth’ Pay Offer

‘We’ve Never Seen Anything Like This’: RMT President Hails Public Support for Strikes

Britain’s Workplaces Aren’t Ready for Extreme Heat

The ‘Uber Leaks’ Were No Surprise to Long Suffering Private Hire Drivers

‘I’ll Have to Leave Edinburgh’: Sex Workers’ Fears After the City Bans Strip Clubs

A Prestigious London University Has Suspended Four Latinx Cleaners for Protesting Racist Pay, Falsely Accusing Them of Violence

14 December 2021

With Uber Paying Peanuts, Exploited Drivers Are Cancelling Rides

2 December 2021

Should Bosses Pay for Workers’ Travel Home Late at Night?

17 September 2021

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