A summer of discontent?

In recent months various sectors of the working class have voted to take strike action, from airport and rail workers to council workers and firefighters, with one of the biggest strikes by council workers since the 1970’s taking place in July. As ever industrial action has led to a barrage of abuse from the press and other media as well as from politicians and other members of the bourgeoisie. On the one hand they accuse the strikers of doing exactly what Tony Blair recently accused them of - wrecking the economy - whilst on the other hand they play down the threat by saying this wave of strikes is nothing as compared with the 1970’s or 1980’s and that things are different now anyway because the economy is much stronger and can withstand their demands, and that the strikes in any case have been poorly supported. This apparent contradiction, that the working class is weak and on its last legs whilst at the same time holding honest capitalists to ransom with its greed, shows that every ideological argument will be used against workers once they start to try and defend themselves from attacks on their conditions, wages or safety. Far more dangerous, however, are the methods used by the unions to split up the working class and keep it weak.

The unions and their tactics

Much has been made about the leftward lurch in the leadership of some unions, most notably with Sir Ken Jackson losing his powerbase at Amicus to left-winger Derek Simpson. While this has been met with near hysteria by some capitalist commentators, Simpson is well and truly a New Labour member and has already stated that he is against withdrawing union support for Labour and maintains Amicus will continue to fund Blair. A big change there then. Meanwhile the leadership change has been predictably embraced by the left who have always argued that if the leadership of the unions could be forced to the left then the unions would miraculously stop their division of

the working class and act as a force against capitalism. This daydream dominates their press, although there is no historical evidence for it at all. The other hero of the Leftists is the Socialist Alliance’s Mark Serwotka. He fought a bitter legal battle to unseat the Blairite Barry Reamsbottom after the latter refused to accept he had lost the ballot of members. In his press conference after winning his legal case to be confirmed as the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka told reporters that strikes would only be used as “a last resort”. “I don’t seek confrontation. What I seek is a solution”. Leftists tout these characters as the “new Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon” even though they know that these ex-communists (i.e. ex-Stalinists) were the confidants of governments rather than defenders of the workers. What they do not learn is that all those who climb the greasy pole of the union bureaucracy can only do so by making themselves presentable to capitalism (however “left” they sound as they rise up, they all end by stuffing the workers they are supposed to represent). Serwotka and Simpson are already making the right noises to get themselves admitted to the corridors of power. This process which is repeated time after time with the rigidity of a law of science is not because the individuals fail but because the unions are themselves the organs of the state to manage the workforce.

Even the most militant ‘left wing’ leadership, such as the NUM’s under Scargill, still put the survival of the union above the survival of their members, isolating workers deliberately from the rest of the class, leaving them to struggle alone until they were defeated. It shouldn’t be forgotten either that Scargill has browbeaten an unhappy membership to pay him a whacking consultancy fee (ten grand a year) as honorary President on top of his NUM pension. Pity ex-miners never got the same benefits.

The unions now have plenty to worry about. Their numbers have halved since the 1970’s, and therefore their coffers are vastly reduced. Their support for Labour has been rewarded with a tightening of anti-working class laws rather than a repeal as some expected. The leaders of the big unions, such as Sir Ken himself, are really politicians. One of the reasons Blair is so gutted at Sir Ken’s departure is that he has been instrumental in aiding Labour in its bid to introduce the Euro. This, of course, produces problems. The further right Labour shifts - and it is one of the most reactionary anti-working class governments left or right for decades - the more a vacuum opens on the left. Somebody has to argue that capitalism could be nice otherwise everybody might see it for the rotten anti-human system it is and organise to fight against it. The stirrings of militancy in the working class always produces the problem of how it should be contained, and its hardly surprising that a few old-Labour hacks have been pushed to the fore to channel any anger safely. They’ll argue that the way forward is not for workers to fight for their own class interests but to involve themselves in this or that democratic battle, be it in the unions or the Labour Party, or to take over the executive of the union once the leadership battle has been ‘won’, or whatever other pointless fight they can divert workers into.

Public sector strikes

By conservative estimates, some 750 000 workers came out in the July public sector strike. There have been strikes on the London Underground, the railways, the post office, by airport staff and fuel tanker drivers, firefighters and teachers. Despite union claims, all these workers have more in common than divides them. All are facing attacks from their employers, whether this is the state sector or a private firm, all face worsening conditions, greater ‘flexibility’, low wages, worries over the future of their pensions, or a decline in safety. This last issue was the cause of the strike of tube workers who came out to fight against dangerous working conditions. The government has made no secret of its plans to reform local authorities, by cutting jobs, introducing Private Finance Initiatives and keeping wages low. Last year seven out of ten local authority workers were so demoralised they thought about quitting their jobs. Pay has been traditionally low in this sector, helped in part by the fact many local authority employees are women and are still paid less than men. But even men in local authorities are not paid anywhere near the average wage, with most earning only 83%. Other public sector workers also have a great deal to fight about. Firefighters are demanding a 40% pay increase, which would still only take them to £30,000 a year. The strikes have been naturally met with hostility from Labour, with one adviser describing them as ‘our biggest threat yet’. Enter salvation in the shape of the unions. John Edmonds of the GMB, in a desperate attempt to stop any further strike action, suggested to the government they appoint a ‘strikes Tsar’ to troubleshoot and prevent strikes in the first place. Contrary to the position of the left, this isn’t because he’s right wing, but because strikes cause disruption and income loss to both the employers and the unions and have to be contained for this reason.

The recent public sector strike is a case in point. Called for one day, the union’s disruption was kept at a minimum. The unions argued that since their members are amongst the lowest paid in the country they could not afford to stay out any longer. But even the lowest paid worker hands over a fair percentage of their wages to the union every month, and for what? No strike pay is ever paid. In fact, once the money is handed over it is never seen again. All the one-day token strike did was to leave some of the lowest paid workers one day’s wages worse off. It’s hardly a recipe for solidarity, and nor was the planned ‘rolling programme’ of strikes, which meant some workers would be called out while others went in. While further action was planned for August, Unison and others were desperately trying to reach a settlement.

They had already backtracked on their demand for 6% by the time they went into talks. In the end they settled for the 3% as offered in the first year, plus an additional 1% in October, with a further 3.5% in April next year. Unison hailed this as a great victory, especially for the lowest paid workers. They will eventually see an increase of 52 pence an hour, over two years of course, taking them to £5.32 an hour. The whole notion of percentage pay increases is divisive and unfair, and designed to keep those on the lowest wages firmly at the bottom of the wages pile. By dividing workers into little sectors and calling them out industry by industry or skill by skill, the unions manage to retain a firm hold over class anger.

Class solidarity outside union control

Unison, and other unions, separated workers from each other. They made sure that teachers and local authority workers did not strike at the same time as firefighters or postal workers. They worked hard behind the scenes to reach a compromise acceptable to the government and or whatever employer they’re dealing with.

The last thing the Government wanted was a ‘Summer of Discontent’ and the unions are still anxiously working away to avoid one. For workers in all sectors, private or public, there is only one way to win a strike, and that is through solidarity with other workers facing similar attacks. This means working outside the union framework and against the union in all its guises, from the officials down to the leftists who try to push the more class conscious workers back into the union framework.

At best, trades unions give workers partial compromise, but at a heavy cost, both financially to the individual worker and collectively by splitting workers up and stifling solidarity. At worst, they actively work hand in hand with the state to defeat our class. Unions, at any level, will stand in the way of real class solidarity. A series of meetings of workers from all sectors making decisions on tactics for the strikes could win real gains for workers. When workers organise for themselves and make their decisions outside of union control they will gain far more in a short time than a whole lifetime of union manoeuvring ever could, leftwing or not.