A State of Struggle

In his new book, 'A State of Struggle', John McInally "provides an account and analysis of the development of the union from a Marxist perspective within the context of the wider class struggle." Born in Glasgow in 1954, he joined the Militant Tendency in 1977 and became a trade union activist as the 'Winter of discontent' broke the post war industrial consensus.

Throughout a lifetime of activism, he sought a path for the union free from sectarianism and reformism.

McInally helped build a union at the forefront of class confrontations, engaging in sharp struggles against Thatcher and Blair's New Labour. His analysis is now vital given the rise of Reform UK, which aims to complete the Thatcher counter-revolution. The book is "not just concerned with providing an industrial, political and historical analysis of past events but is intended as a guide to action in current and coming struggles."

This book asks not just who to fight, but how to organise labour. It tells the story of public sector workers administering vital support to communities during forty years of austerity, whilst fighting for their own pay and conditions, and as at GCHQ where organising freedoms were denied. While focused on the PCS, its lessons are relevant to all unionists. McInally states "'the emancipation of the downtrodden millions' can no longer be understood as an aspiration for the future but as an imperative and urgent necessity for today."

Read and produced by Rochelle Anne Swanson

for Manifesto Press Co-operative Limited, 2026

Text edited by Elaine McFarland and Jim Whiston

with Marine Picard and Nick Wright

Dedicated to John Lindsay Macreadie

19 September 1946-22 December 2022

Socialist and Trade Unionist