Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

The unions failed to stand up for low paid women workers in the fight for equal pay in Scotland's councils - until they were finally shamed into action. So maybe a 'class action' is the way for women to fight for privacy at work - a joint action against rogue employers and any unions who refuse to protect their members?   Brave nurses just want the right to privacy Darlington nursing staff didn’t have views on ‘trans debate’, then a biologically male colleague used their changing room By  Janice Turner  - The Times On Wednesday Lisa Lockey cancelled her Unison membership. Starting as a teenage trainee nurse, she’d paid her union dues (latterly £11.50 a month) out of her modest salary for 33 years. But a public statement by the Unison president Steve North gave her no choice but to quit. Lockey, 51, is one of five Darlington nurses in dispute with their NHS trust over its policy of allowing a trans-identified male colleague to use female changing rooms. When the health sec...

Great interview with Bethany, one of the Darlington nurses who is challenging the local NHS decision to allow men to self-ID their way into women's single sex spaces including changing areas. Bethany was very measured, reasonable and articulate - just the sort of person you'd have in mind to be a local union rep! Astonishingly. the BBC interviewer never asked about the lack of trade union support for the nurses - surely the unions aren't in cahoots with the employer?

How are the rights of women being served by the unions campaigning against their right to single sex spaces at work? Women trade union members, women like the Darlington nurses, women like Sandie Peggie! Unison has a membership of more than 70% women!

This, by one of the Darlington nurses is heartbreaking (CW: CSA) Women should not have to tell these stories to get the basic dignity that is their right under workplace health and safety law. https://t.co/aVRr55dZlB — Maya Forstater (@MForstater) May 11, 2025 Maya Forstater from Sex Matters: "Women should not have to tell these stories to get the basic dignity that is their right under workplace health and safety law." The Darlington nurses are having a battle with the trade unions to get justice - as well as their NHS employer.

Abused as a child by a paedophile father, targeted by a voyeuristic, crossdressing colleague, punished by her NHS Trust employers, and rejected by her trade union They were all breaking the law Shame must change sides @wesstreeting do your job and enforce the SC ruling https://t.co/7Vx7MwKVi8 — Sonya Douglas (@SonyaDouglas) May 11, 2025 I don't know if the Darlington nurses are all in the same position. But if any of the nurses were refused representation because of a trade union's support for self-ID, they should sue the union involved. The likely candidates are the RCN and Unison.  

Broken mother who survived family annihilator Rab Thomson who slaughtered their two children and posed their bodies like angels praying for her to find says she is living in fear that he will be free soon as we reveal a thousand prisoners were freed but just 33 victims warned. pic.twitter.com/3SCbGcOY2U — marion scott (@ladymcbeth2) May 10, 2025 How is it possible this man could ever be released from prison? In 2008 Thomson murdered his seven-year-old son Ryan and his 25 year old daughter Michelle who had severe learning difficulties in the family home in Buckhaven, Fife, stabbing them no less than 26 times in a killing frenzy. Thomson killed the children in revenge after his wife June left him following 27 years of abuse from Thomson. Read Marion Scott's piece in the Sunday Post.