Tories Collapse Amidst a Growing Strike Wave

Following decades of retreats and defeat, there exists a layer of senior union representatives who have not been involved in action, nor have they experienced victory and are remote from most rank and file workers. Where senior reps have been in situ in established, organized workplaces for years and sometimes decades, they can spend most of their time in meetings with senior management. Often, their relationship with the management can seem more important than that with reps and members. This layer of senior reps are often the most influential trade union spokespeople in their workplace. They also tend to occupy most of the lay positions in the union machines at regional and national levels where their conservatism reinforces that of union leaders.

No doubt there is still a political left active across the labor movement. However, it has atrophied, and it is doubtful that its influence would be positive today due to the fact that most of the organized left adopts a “broad left” strategy which relies on left leaders to deliver action. When these leaders are found wanting, often the only opposition comes from the right. We often talk about the “deadening hand” of the trade union bureaucracy when analyzing setbacks or defeats. However, we rarely discuss the suffocating impact of this layer of reps combined with the lack of an independent rank and file in workplaces and union structures.

After announcing a series of strike days for November, the RMT came under pressure from the right wing press over one of the days of action coinciding with the National Poppy Day on November 3. This is a day where red poppies are worn as a show of support for the Armed Forces, and groups such as the British Legion collect money for military veterans. Rail action on this date was to be coordinated across the country with strikes on the London Underground shutting down key parts of the economy. The decision to cancel action on that date was taken by the rail unions executive,  made up of elected reps—which makes it too simplistic to simply blame union leaders for derailing the action. However, the point here is not that the RMT is somehow susceptible to jingoism in a way other unions are not. It is likely that most other union executives would cave in to the same pressure if put in this position, and the decision by the RMT was quickly followed by the TSSA. When union leaderships who are confronting the state in national disputes feel the inclination to call off action in the spirit of so-called “national solidarity,” they get away with the retreat because there is no coherent alternative view from an independent rank-and-file to keep the strikes on. This is beginning to change in some workplaces where passive and ineffective senior reps are coming under pressure from new reps, and with the influx of new members who want to fight against the pay cuts. The new wave of strikes is leading to the beginnings of a recovery in the movement and some important victories.

Opportunities for the left

As the economy slides into recession, the Tories and the Bank of England want to tame the growing workers’ movement. The labor shortages will no doubt be less severe if businesses go under and unemployment rises but many of these shortages will remain unresolved. However, the fact that we are also experiencing a rising wave of strikes as we enter recession provides a different experience to that of suffering multiple defeats prior to the downturn. There are no guarantees that strikes will disappear as pressure grows on working class families—even during a recession. Whatever transpires with a declining economy, the Tories and the employers are already mounting a serious challenge to organized labor. We need to see more coordinated and sustained industrial action to meet the scale of the challenge. One and two-day stoppages will not win these disputes. The national strikes are growing but thus far have been led from the top. As they involve more unions, the danger becomes greater that some union leaders will settle for minor concessions. We saw this in 2011 when bureaucratic mass strikes in the public sector were called off in a betrayal of union members’ attempts to defend their pensions. Socialists must continue to focus on building solidarity and independent networks to support these strikes and oppose any sell outs.

The small but growing number of victories in the private sector are a result of well-organized rank and file militants coordinating action across their sectors. In construction, trash collection, road haulage and the buses, we see a growing number of reps supporting each other and learning from their successes. In Unite, these reps are working together in national industrial combines, which have been encouraged by the new leadership. This strategy is being opposed by the old left who want to maintain their influence and cling onto the failing broad left approach. Socialist militants need to build these combines as part of a strategy of building solidarity, coordinating effective action and defeating the old left in the unions. Achieving this will mean linking the bigger political questions against war and oppression with the struggle for pay. The Liverpool dockers provided an inspiring example when they came out in solidarity with Black Lives Matter in 2020. It’s therefore no surprise that they refused to be cowed into postponing their latest strike on the day of the queen’s funeral.

Attempts are being made to link up struggles in the community with industrial struggle. A number of campaigns have sprung up in recent months. The Enough is Enough (EiE) campaign, launched by the leadership of the CWU and RMT, has held impressive large rallies across the country. However, it remains a tightly controlled organization that is hindering the development of local groups. The Don’t Pay UK network, a grassroots campaign developed by a small group of revolutionaries whose aim is to encourage one million people to refuse to pay rising energy bills, has managed to sign up over two hundred thousand people. The People’s Assembly, a broad coalition of the left and labor movement, has called national demonstrations to bring the movement onto the streets. However, we currently lack a unified campaign to unite the industrial struggles with community resistance.

Today we face unprecedented challenges. Escalating imperialist war which includes the threat of nuclear war, economic crisis, and worsening living standards alongside accelerating climate change. We also face a growing health crisis and rising inequality in income, health, education and housing, with an infrastructure that has been ravaged by four decades of privatization. The growing degradation of work means that more people are now no longer prepared to put up with “bullshit jobs” and the experience only helps fuel much of the resistance we see today. The new Tory government was able to hide from scrutiny during the period of “national mourning,” but its first attempts at intervening in the British crisis led to its collapse. The opportunity for building a mass movement across the working class and wider society is clearly upon us. However, the left needs to develop a coherent strategy for uniting the disparate forces and the growing numbers of workers entering the struggle. In the process of building an effective and united movement, a new radical left can be born. This will require patient work alongside the new activists we meet in the various campaigns that have emerged.