In trying to push through a reform package that the Guardian has called a ‘Blairite revolution’, the National Union of Students’ Labour leadership is putting the NUS on a path to self-destruction, says executive member Hind Hassan.

Paul Mason’s ‘Live Working or Die Fighting : how the working class went global’ “is not a programmatic statement for new forms of socialist organisation”, writes Terry Brotherstone, but it is “certainly relevant to those who want to participate in creating them.”

Any belief that Gordon Brown’s government is going to back workers rights took another blow as the government voted down a series of amendments to the Employment Bill that would have given limited rights to workers in industrial disputes, writes Simon Basketter.

There’s a right way and a wrong way for unions to confront job losses, argues Yuri Prasad, and this was highlighted last week by the crisis in the manufacturing industry.

You may have missed it amid talk of Brown’s bail-out, but the world day for decent work offers real answers to the causes of turmoil, argues John Hilary.

Chris Hickey considers New Labour’s year-on-year drive to keep public sector wages below the rate of inflation.

In 2004 the Fire Brigades Union disaffiliated from the Labour Party. FBU general secretary Matt Wrack explains what it has meant for the union politically.

Union leaders stifle growing militancy of London Underground workers..

Chris Marsden reports on the Trades Union Congress (TUC) at Brighton. He criticises the ‘entire union bureaucracy’ which, he states, ‘is opposed to any struggle that might threaten the fundamental interests of the major corporations or the Labour government.’

Robert Taylor mourns the demise of labour reporting and insists we still need to report on the world of work.

The time has come, says Jim Mortimer, when the present Labour government, following the example of earlier governments, should declare that public policy is in favour of collective bargaining between employers and workers

The governments attack on incapacity benefit is bad for the health of the sick says Carola Becker.

The Morning Star describe how Gordon Brown’s willingness to continually appease big business and shareholders- as evidenced by his recent speech at the CBI- rather than support the needs of working class people and trade union members, will lead to electoral disaster for New Labour.

The recent gains of employment rights for temporary workers are a step forward, says Tom Ramplin, but unionisation and organisation are essential to secure their rights

New Labour’s proposals for welfare reform still compare favourably with those of the tories – who can never understand what it means to be poor, sick and desperate, says Laurie Penny

For all its faults, New Labour’s introduction of a minimum wage benefited millions of people. Now, argues Matt Genner, more radical measures are called for if the party is to serve the workers of the nation and not the bosses- starting with a new national living wage.

Peter Taylor-Gooby considers changing public attitudes to poverty over the last few decades, which are increasingly sympathetic to David Cameron’s view that ‘social problems are often the consequences of the choices people make’.

The Government has made a point of walking all over the unions, who have responded by continuing to provide most of Labour’s funding, virtually unconditionally. The solution, writes Mark Steel, is a return to “old-fashioned” union methods.

As David Miliband hints at a possible leadership challenge to Gordon Brown, Richard Seymour deems him an unlikely candidate to reverse the current wave of popular revulsion against the government.

Tory MP David Davis has been hailed by liberals and leftists for his apparently principled stand in defence of civil liberties. In the first of a two-part essay, Chris Marsden examines what he really stands for.