Slightly unfortunate naming here

Thirty-seven years later a new campaign has been launched, backed by a host of trade unions, including the UCU, PCS, CWU, RMT, NUJ and NUT, under the name Right to Work.

For \”right to work\” already has a meaning in American English.

It means being able to take a job without having to belong to a union: ie, no closed shops.

Not quite what these British unions quite mean by it really.

6 thoughts on “Slightly unfortunate naming here”

  1. The expression Right to Work has got an established meaning in the UK thanks to the big Right to Work marches of the 70’s ,the most celebrated being the one through Slough where Eton boys showed their natural superiority by jeering at the unemployed,a fact not lost on Paul Weller who lived nearby and wrote Eton Rifles about it.(Was Dave Cameron there then?)This level of significance attached to the term in the UK more than effaces some American usage.

  2. Just another reminder that attempting to analyse everything in terms of “rights” is an intellectually doomed ambition. Or, to be blunt, bloody stupid.

  3. The right to work does indeed have a long history, which includes the Soviet implementation of it in which “human parasites” who were deemed not to be taking proper advantage of this right were sent to forced labour camps.

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