IN AUGUST workers at Polyflor at Whitefields in Manchester went on strike over pay.

As reported in the Morning Star, the action by GMB members was a fight for pay justice against greedy bosses who were coining profits out of their labour.

But it was also much more. The factory was one of three in the north owned by the company. Two were not unionised. One was – the factory where workers struck.

The non-unionised workforce got a pitiful pay rise, imposed by a works council dominated by managers and chaired by a director. The unionised workers won a fairer increase.

The message was clear: that union organisation and action works. And that message was conveyed in the Morning Star, the only national, daily paper to do so.

The Polyflor workers’ struggle is one of many in north-west England covered recently by the Morning Star.

Manchester bus workers’ fought with strike action against the bosses’ most recent tactic against workers, “fire and rehire” – sacking workers and taking them back on lower wages and worsened conditions.
The workers won.

The strike was another of vital importance. The TUC estimates that more than two million workers are under attack through fire and rehire. The Manchester bus workers showed them – and other workers – that the employers’ tactic can be resisted and beaten.

We reported, and continue to report, on Rolls-Royce workers fighting for their jobs at Barnoldswick, where a Unite campaign gathered support across the region, and where the local community rallied around the strikers.

Lecturers at the University of Liverpool voted overwhelmingly for strike action against compulsory redundancies, saving dozens of jobs. The lecturers’ struggle was reported in the Morning Star. 

Today members of rail union RMT are continuing their fight for pay justice at Merseyrail – another struggle reported by the Morning Star.

Much of the media ignores workers’ struggles.

When they do cover them, the mainly Tory press vilifies workers and their unions. They’re “greedy,” “irresponsible” and “militant.” It’s the language of the Tories, the language of the real culprits of greed – unscrupulous, profiteering employers – slavishly repeated by the establishment media.

The Morning Star’s coverage of workers’ struggles represents the views of workers and their unions, from shop floor to general secretaries. The reports mentioned above are among dozens, hundreds, in the north-west and across Britain, carried by the Morning Star, spreading the news, rallying support.

And it’s not just industrial struggles that are reported in the pages on the Morning Star.

Palestine supporters in the north-west continue to picket and occupy the Israeli-owned Elbit Ferranti arms factory in Oldham. The activists have repeatedly brought the factory to a halt, stalling, at least temporarily, the flow of murderous drone aircraft to Israel, where they are used to kill Palestinians.

Coverage of the Palestine campaign in Oldham is just one example of reports and photos from actions in the north-west that are part of national and international campaigns. Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion protests staged in the north-west are among many others featured.

The Morning Star began life as the Daily Worker on January 1, 1930. For 91 years it has reported on, and supported, the struggles of working people. Predictions of our paper’s demise began on January 2, 1930, the day after the first issue appeared.
They were wrong.

The Morning Star is produced by a co-operative. Eleven national trade unions and one trade union region are represented on the management committee of the People’s Press Printing Society, representing a majority of organised workers in this country: Aslef, Community, CWU, FBU, GMB, NUM, NUM North East, POA, RMT, TSSA, Unite and Usdaw.

We have no big advertisers, no billionaire owners. Our readers and supporters are workers and their unions, people who share the core principles which are declared every day at the top of our front page: For Peace and Socialism. We’re proud of that.

Peter Lazenby is Morning Star northern reporter.