Mobilizing solidarity in factory occupations:Activist responses to multinational plant closures

Factory occupations are rare and sporadic events which shed light on the processes associated with the collective mobilization of workers’ power. This article utilizes Kelly’s agential and Atzeni’s structural explanations of worker mobilization to examine two disputes which took place during Britain’s long experience of deindustrialization: the occupations of Caterpillar’s tractor factory in Uddingston, Scotland, during 1987 and Vestas’ wind turbine plant on the Isle of Wight during 2009. Each occupation shared the context of multinational divestment and collective workforce grievance based on a common perception that their plant was economically viable and vital to the local economy. However, contrasting sources of leadership mobilized this sentiment in each case: union stewards from within Caterpillar, socialist activists from outside at Vestas. The article concludes that an effective explanation of occupations must synthesize structural and agential factors, emphasizing the coalescing role of activist networks and workers’ perceptions of their labour’s social utility

Custodians of true Scottish nationalism: the long roots of Scottish Labour’s constitutional conflict

Ewan Gibbs explains how major alterations to the politics of class and nationhood have their origins in deindustrialization, and how these deep roots continue to have consequences in Scottish politics

Who’s ‘normal’? Class, culture and Labour politics in a fragmented Britain

Labour must reconnect with an economic analysis of class, for it is this that could in fact reunite the culturally polarised elements of a Labour electoral coalition

Who’s ‘normal’? Class, culture and Labour politics in a fragmented Britain

Labour must reconnect with an economic analysis of class, for it is this that could in fact reunite the culturally polarised elements of a Labour electoral coalition

Many Labour MPs have still to unequivocally reject 'roll-out' neoliberalism

Chuka Umunna recently defended the last Labour government against a left-wing critique that its modus operandi was fundamentally neoliberal. Ewan Gibbs and Sean Kippin argue this does not consider the nature of neoliberalism, particularly the distinction between its 'roll-back' and 'roll-out' variants. They argue that New Labour's approach was indeed of the latter type

Feminist institutionalism and women’s political leadership in Scotland: successes and failures

Jenny Morrison and Ewan Gibbs write that Scottish feminists’ experiences of organising in the Women’s Liberation Movement pointed to the importance of pragmatically working towards shared goals across traditional divisions. This emphasis on consensus decision-making has moulded a centre-left framing for Scottish women’s leadership that rejects both conservatism and left-wing radicalism

Remembering Auchengeich: the largest fatal accident in Scottish coal in the nationalised era

No abstract availabl

Remembering Auchengeich: the largest fatal accident in Scottish coal in the nationalised era

No abstract availabl

Remembering Scottish Communism

No abstract available

Who’s “Normal”?:Class, Culture and Labour Politics in a Fragmented Britain

Labour must reconnect with an economic analysis of class, for it is this that could in fact reunite the culturally polarised elements of a Labour electoral coalition