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 responses so far ↓
1 DBC Reed // Jul 30, 2010 at 10:07 am
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 dearieme // Jul 30, 2010 at 10:16 am
Just another reminder that attempting to analyse everything in terms of “rights” is an intellectually doomed ambition. Or, to be blunt, bloody stupid.
3 Philip Walker // Jul 30, 2010 at 10:25 am
DBC: Cameron was born in ’66 and went to Eton when he was 13.
4 Tom P // Jul 30, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Actually the “Right to work” has a long history as a labour movement slogan. For example, the book “The right to be lazy”, which was in part a libertarian lefty response to it as a demand, came out in… errr… the 1880s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusal_of_work#Paul_Lafargue_and_The_Right_To_Be_Lazy
5 Peter Risdon // Jul 30, 2010 at 1:18 pm
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.
6 Paddy Pantsdown // Jul 30, 2010 at 4:30 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eton_Rifles
“In 1997 Iago Foxton, the son of The Jam bassist Bruce Foxton, entered Eton College as a new pupil.”
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