Class anger, class struggle, class unity!

The discontent in British society is moving from simmering to boiling as more and workers go into action, either in official strikes or in unofficial wildcat strikes.

The conditions created by Brexit and then by the Covid lockdown pushed workers to agitate around pay demands. This situation was further aggravated by the war in Ukraine, with scarcity of foodstuffs and raw materials causing price rises and a willingness by capitalists to take advantage of this. Inflation is now running at 13% and rising. Employers are offering pay offers of between 2 and 5% often after years of pay freezes in some sectors. In other words many workers are facing what in fact is a pay cut. The Bank of England responded by pushing up the base rate by a half percent, the highest increase since 1995. This will mean that more and more people will not be able to keep up with their mortgage payments.

As a result of this situation, more and more workers have taken to industrial action over this summer. This includes workers organised in the rail unions, in RMT, ASLEF and the TSSA. Forty thousand RMT members went out on strike for two days in the week ending August 21st, and were joined in London by London Underground and London Overground workers and by bus workers in West London working for the London United bus company, as well as some rail workers in the TSSA.Train drivers in ASLEF have also taken strike action over the last two weeks across Britain.

Elsewhere, around 2,000 workers organised in the Unite union will go on strike at Felixstowe, the largest container port in Britain from August 21st to August 29th. Approximately 50% of the UK’s container traffic comes in through Felixstowe. This will undoubtedly have a drastic effect on the supply of food and raw materials, already in a parlous state.

On Wednesday, August 24th, many wildcat strikes are expected to happen at construction sites and refineries.

On Friday August 26th , 115,000 Royal Mail workers in the CWU union will go out on a one day strike, and will be joined by 2,000 workers in the Post Office Crown Office who will start a two day strike. This will be followed on Tuesday August 30th by a strike by 40,000 BT and Openreach workers, and by Post Office administration and supply chain workers.

On August 31st workers at Royal Mail, BT and Openreach will strike simultaneously, involving 150,00 workers. More strikes by Royal Mail workers will take place on 8th and 9th September.

Bus workers working for the Arriva bus company have continued industrial action in north west England and in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire, as well as in north London, Kent and Essex.

Hundreds of workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland went out on a wildcat strike last week. They will be taking wildcat action again on August 24th (see above).

Amazon workers went out on wildcat strikes too. In Bristol they went on strike and organised a sit-in at the BRS1 centre. On the same day Amazon workers went on wildcat strike at Rugeley. Workers also walked out on the same day at the BHX1 Site in Rugeley. Earlier wildcats took place at Amazon centres in Coventry and Tilbury and at Swindon. Amazon workers at fulfilment centres in Dartford, Tilbury, Belvedere, Hemel Hempstead, Chesterfield and Rugeley operated slowdowns in work last week, refusing to pick more than one package an hour.

Workers in the Unite union at Dundee University plan to go on continuous strike from August 25th whilst workers at the AQA exam board struck for four days and plan to come out again on a five day strike. Meanwhile workers at the posh London store Harrods are balloting for strike action. Bin workers throughout Scotland are also due to come out on strike.

These waves of militancy have alarmed the boss class. They know that the summer of strikes will be followed by increasing industrial action in the autumn. The Tory Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has threatened to introduce more guard-less trains and strike bans for the transport sector. Both the candidates for the next Tory leadership, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, have talked tough about cracking down on industrial action.

As for Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, they too are horrified by this wave of militancy. They are intent on attempting to prove to the bosses that they are the most competent party to deal with working class militancy as they have done before.

What is needed is for workers to make sure that they come out on strike at the same time. The next opportunity for this is August 31st, with many workers already due to strike that day. This should be accompanied by rallies and demonstrations in local areas. Pensioners, the unemployed and youth (school students and college students) should support the strikes and reinforce picket lines, rallies and demonstrations. Local solidarity committees should be created in neighbourhoods, involving both striking workers, pensioners, unemployed and students.

We cannot trust the union leaders to carry out a successful outcome to these strikes, even the most radical sounding of them like Sharon Graham and Mick Lynch. The latter, despite his previous criticisms of the Starmer leadership, was ready to endorse Starmer by saying “I want him to be prime minister. That’s what we’ve got. He must win. We’ve got to push him and persuade him to get into a position where he’s in the front rank with you, all of you.”

But Starmer has already made his position clear. He is opposed to strikes and to any meaningful action by workers. He is our enemy. The union leaders are desperately trying to stop workers breaking with Labour. We know that Labour has consistently throughout its history opposed itself to strikes by workers. In the coming months Labour will stand side by side with the Tories in denouncing these strike waves. As for the union leaders, they will attempt to sabotage any meaningful action. We as workers must resist and develop our own grassroots organisations, not just in the workplaces but in the neighbourhoods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/08/19/class-anger-class-struggle-class-unity/

Wildcat strikes: a very basic introduction.

 

A number of wildcat strikes broke out in the UK during August.

The wave of wildcat action kicked off at Cranswick Continental Foods in Pilsworth. Next, wildcat strikes broke out at several Amazon warehouses including Tilbury, Rugeley, Coventry, Bristol, Dartford, Coalville, Belvedere, Hemel Hempstead and Chesterfield.
There were also more wildcat strikes at Grangemouth oil refinery. Chemical plant workers also took wildcat action at several sites across Teesside and at Humber Refinery in North Lincolnshire as well as at Valero refinery in Milford Haven. Train drivers at Avanti West Coast brought some services to a halt by refusing shifts.

But what makes a strike ‘wildcat’?
Wildcat strikes are a form of autonomous direct action. Autonomous because they are not officially sanctioned by and are likely to be outside of the control of the unions and left-wing political parties. Direct because they short circuit the mediating and representative role of the trade unions.
As the recent wildcat strikes spread like wildfire, media outlets were keen to describe the danger to businesses.

Share Talk website wrote:
"Businesses cannot plan for wildcat strikes, making it difficult to manage them. These strikes are dangerous for employees who abandon the legal protections granted to them in collective bargaining."

The Evening Standard asked:
“What is a wildcat strike?” Wildcat strikes don’t have the permission of their union, and workers don’t go through the typical process a union does when arranging industrial action, which sometimes challenges their union’s authority."

Computer Weekly stated:
"Amazon workers also have staged wildcat strikes (meaning they were conducted without the involvement or support of a union) in Rugeley, Coventry, Swindon, Rugby, Doncaster, Bristol, Dartford, Belvedere, Hemel Hempstead and Chesterfield"

A couple of dictionary definitions of wildcat strikes are:
Wildcat strike: a strike that is started by a group of workers without the approval of their union.
Merriam-webster dictionary.

Wildcat strike: a sudden strike (= act of refusing to work as a protest) without any warning by the workers and often without the official support of the unions.
Cambridge dictionary.

But council communist Anton Pannekoek outlined the reason that anarchist communists and libertarian communists emphasise the subversive potential of wildcat strikes:
"In the wildcat strikes, we may see the beginnings of a new practical orientation of the working class, a new tactic, the method of direct action. They represent the only actual rebellion of man against the deadening suppressing weight of world-dominating capital."

Wildcat strikes are a form of direct action and the anarchist Emile Pouget explained the significance for revolutionaries of this tactic of militant working class action:
“Direct Action is a notion of such clarity, of such self-evident transparency, that merely to speak the words defines and explains them. It means that the working class, in constant rebellion against the existing state of affairs, expects nothing from outside people, powers or forces, but rather creates its own conditions of struggle and looks to itself for its means of action.”

As a form of autonomous action, wildcat strikes have the potential to go beyond the narrow framework of trade unionism. Anarchist communists and other communist revolutionaries offer criticisms of the limitations of trade unions.

William Morris, the author of News from Nowhere and Lectures on Socialism, wrote in 1885 that:
Trade unions [do not] "represent the whole class of workers as working men but rather are charged with the office of keeping the human part of the capitalists' machinery in good working order and freeing it from any grit of discontent".

In a similar observation to William Morris, council communist Cajo Brendel described the role of unions:
"The undeniable fact that from the very first day of their existence unions have had the task of mediating between capitalists and workers, mediating of course in order to extinguish the flames of conflict between the two parties, not to kindle the fire by pouring oil into it, mediating in order to stabilize the antagonistic relationship of workers and capitalists, not to destroy it."

The wildcats in the UK have been in mostly, though not entirely, in workplaces where there are either no unions or they are unrecognised. The GMB are talking credit for at least some of the Amazon actions, but they are, for the most part, self-organised. What is important about these wildcat strikes is that they show what workers can do for themselves. If they can be extended and spread then they can overcome isolation and being picked off.

Useful texts and pamphlets:

Goodbye to the Unions! Controversy About Autonomous Class Struggle in Great Britain

Direct Action. Emile Pouget:
libcom.org/article/direct-action-emile-pouget

France Winter 1986-87: The Railways Strike – Henri Simon: 

libcom.org/article/france-winter-1986-87-railways-strike-henri-simon

 

Fresh Strikes in August on Trains and Boats and Planes

Strike action is being planned for dates in late August across rail, London Tube trains and buses as well as at the container port at Felixstowe. In Germany, pilots for the airline Lufthansa are also planning to strike.

On Monday August 8th Ryanair Spanish cabin crews plan four-day strikes every week for the next five months.

On Friday August 12th EasyJet Spanish pilots to strike through to Sunday 14th.

ASLEF Train drivers are striking on Saturday August 13th, at the following rail companies: London Overground, Greater Anglia, Great Western Railway, Hull Trains, LNER, London Northwestern Railway, Southeastern, West Midlands Railway, Avanti West Coast, Crosscountry. Rail service covered by those railway companies will come to an abrupt halt.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport workers union (RMT) have also announced new days of strike action involving London Underground and Overground staff on Thursday August 18th and Friday 19th.

On Thursday August 18th and Saturday August 20th RMT workers will be striking at rail companies Chiltern Railways, Cross Country Trains, Greater Anglia, LNER, East Midlands Railway, c2c, Great Western Railway, Northern Trains, South Eastern, South Western Railway Transpennine Express, Avanti West Coast, West Midlands Trains and GTR (including Gatwick Express).

Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) are also considering strike action over pay, jobs and conditions. The train company Southeastern, which is wholly owned by the Department for Transport and runs train services between London and Kent, as well as parts of East Sussex, will be hit by the TSSA strikes. Major stations potentially effected include London St Pancras, Victoria, Charing Cross and Cannon Street, as well as Dover Priory, Ramsgate, Ashford International, Dartford and Sevenoaks.

Over 1,600 London bus drivers are also set to walk out. The drivers, who are members of the Unite union and employees of London United, are set to strike on Friday August 19th and Saturday August 20th.

Public transport in and around London in this period will be severely disrupted and business will most certainly not be as usual in the capitol.

Also on Friday August 19th EasyJet Spanish pilots in SEPLA union to strike through to Sunday 21st.

Meanwhile, workers at the UK's biggest container port in Felixstowe also intend to strike for eight days in a dispute over pay. Around 1,900 members of the Unite union will walk out on August 21st after rejecting a 7% pay offer from Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company. The strike will be from Sunday August 21st until Monday August 29th.
Around half of containers brought in to the UK are transported via the port at Felixstowe.

Airline pilots working for the German airline Lufthansa have voted in favour of potential strike action over pay. They would be taking action during the peak of the summer travel season. The Vereinigung Cockpit union is calling for a 5.5% pay increase this year and an automatic adjustment for inflation starting next year.

Saturday August 27th EasyJet Spanish pilots in SEPLA union strike through Monday 29th.

There is also the growing possibility of British Airways pilots going on strike, with negotiations ongoing. Royal Mail staff have voted to back a strike but there are no dates set yet

The momentum for strike action is significant and the idea of strikes as a means of resistance continues to grow amongst larger groups of workers, spreading to non-unionised sectors such as Amazon, but things will have to escalate further and direct action must be applied if workers are to create a crisis for the capitalist class.

Wildcat Actions Breakout at Amazon in the UK

On August 4th between 700 and 1000 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Tilbury, Essex took wildcat action in response to a pay increase offer of only 35p-per-hour increase.

The Tilbury warehouse is one of Amazon’s largest in Europe. One worker at the warehouse said Amazon treats them “like slaves”.
The actions started on Wednesday 3rd and escalated by Thursday 4th.

Workers also took action at the Lyon's Park Amazon warehouse in Coventry with about 100 workers occupying the canteen. 

Similar actions happened at Dartford in Kent as well as depot in Belvedere, Hemel Hempstead, Chesterfield and Coalville, Leicestershire.

On August 3rd scores of Amazon workers also took wildcat action at Rugeley Amazon Fulfilment Centre in the West Midlands. That strike was over a 50p-per-hour pay rise offer.

There was also wildcat action at Amazon’s massive warehouse in Bristol. Only a week before the Amazon strikes, on the 28th of July, a wildcat strike happened at Cranswick Continental Foods in Pilsworth, Bury. Over 100 workers were involved in the action that was about pay and conditions. One worker said: "People are tired, exhausted, and just want to have proper breaks - drink, rest".

Seething anger amongst workers could result in this form of militant direct action spreading. Wildcat strikes are feared by bosses and union officials because they show how people can act outside the control of the mediating role of trade unions. Wildcat strikes also can spread like wildfire, especially in distribution industries. 

This current set of actions by Amazon workers has the potential to go global.

Strikes: Towards a Summer and Autumn (Winter and Spring!) of struggle!

We are entering a period of heightened class struggle. The so-called Cost of Living Crisis has seen significant sections of the working class refuse to meekly accept pay offers that are way under inflation and therefore wage cuts. And the unions have been forced to make moves, militant noises and call strikes. And the idea of striking is proving popular. There is talk of a General Strike ( see www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/06/21/why-a-general-strike-is-better-than-a-general-strike/ for our thoughts on generalizing the strikes).

UNISON Local Government workers in Scotland have voted for strike action in response to the ‘final’ pay offer of 2%, with nine local authority branches exceeding the required 50% turnout threshold required by the Trade Union Act. It remains to be seen if the unions will be able to avoid calling a strike.
Unite Subway (underground railway) workers in Glasgow have voted to strike, calling days when their action will impact Scottish Premier League football. A UK wide ASLEF train driver’s strike is scheduled for July 31st whilst BT workers in the Communications Workers Union (CWU) have taken action this week, and postal workers in CWU look like they will be going out on strike shortly.

Aside from the ongoing, though presently fragmented, pension fight, the University and College Union (UCU) are preparing to ballot on the 3% pay offer (effectively a serious pay cut) which has been rejected by all Higher Education (HE) unions. UNISON in HE are balloting, but there remains the possibility that despite the rejection, not all unions will take action together thereby weakening the fight.
The RMT and the ‘white collar’ transport union, TSSA, are to strike in August for two days. Like with the July 27th RMT strike, the rail system will be severely impacted.

But let’s not get carried away. RMT’s leader Mick Lynch has indeed exposed the combination of ignorance and malice that the various government representatives embody, but he is part of a union bureaucracy that has to work within the confines of legality and in a way that will not ultimately jeopardize the union’s seat at the table. 

There is anger, there are masses of workers who are ready for mobilisation and action, but there is almost no significant rank and file organization in most TUC affiliated unions so workers are dependent upon their national officials. Some are more left than others, but the fight will remain in their hands unless the rank and file take control.

There is the possibility of spreading strike action to non-unionised sectors, the strike at Cranswick Continental Foods in Bury by a multi-national super exploited workforce was organised without a union. This inspirational self-organised strike has the potential to be replicated as momentum builds and workers gain in confidence. 

But there remains a crucial need to create rank and file bodies that will control the struggles from below and extend them to ever wider groups of workers.