What Is An Irresponsible Strike?

"Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system."

Karl Marx - Value, Price and Profit

Ed Miliband's first speech as Labour Leader begged more questions than it answered. That is an indication that it was vacuous. The general themes of social justice were fair enough, but only because they are so general that almost anyone, including, as people like Andrew Neill pointed out, David Cameron could accept them. There may have been the odd commitment, such as to a Living Wage, which would be beyond the scope of Cameron and Co., but even that was set in such general terms as to be meaningless. How is this "Living Wage" to be implemented, for instance, and doesn't it imply that it requires the Minimum Wage to be set at a decent level? Why not just commit to that?

There were some moralistic comments about how unfair it is that a Banker can earn as much in a day as a Care Worker earns in a year, but his Dad would have told Ed that such inequality is an inescapable feature of Capitalism, and the fact that workers are deprived of ownership of the means of production. Unless you are committed to replacing Capitalism by returning ownership of the means of production to those very workers then those moral sentiments are meaningless. Inequality did not rise under New Labour because they set out to bring about such a situation, but because tinkering with Tax and Benefits to try to redistribute wealth will never address the real causes of inequality.

And, even within the context of Ed Miliband's argument and politics this approach is clearly flawed. He spoke about the dire consequences that the Liberal-Tory cuts will have on those very people at the bottom of the heap, and the need to oppose those cuts. But, at the same time he caved in to the bosses media - apparently according to Trevor Kavanagh, former Sun Editor, the first person he rang after his election was the current Sun Editor - by trying to separate himself from the unions with a meaningless statement. He warned against an irresponsible wave of strikes against the Cuts, saying that he would not support such strikes, and nor should the Party. But, what is an irresponsible strike?

If you listen to the bosses media then strikes are simply the actions of militant Trade Union leaders, and a handful of extremists. If that is true then the vast majority of workers must be very dumb indeed, because, especially today when unions are hamstrung all roads up by legislation, it is very difficult to win support for a strike. Every worker has to be consulted, and if there is any chance that the bosses can show that some worker has not been, or that some have been who should not have been, then a strike ballot can be disqualified as the recent BA Cabin Crew dispute shows. Even where a huge majority is obtained in such a ballot the Courts will throw it out if a few discrepancies exist. So, all those workers who do vote for a strike, were we to believe the bosses media must be real dupes to be voting for something that is against their interests, and is only being manipulated by a militant minority. But, of course workers are not stupid or dupes. They do not vote for a strike because they want to strike, or because they have been manipulated, but because they can see no other solution to the situation they face. A strike is a sign of workers weakness not strength.

And as the Channel 4 "Dispatches" Programme, "What's The Point Of The Unions", last night, demonstrated most workers experience of unions is not that of being manipulated to strike, but being manipulated not to strike, to accept deals with the bosses rather than rock the boat, of victimisation for those who do try to put forward such a stand. With union leaders, like Derek Simpson, being paid £200,000 a year, more like the boss of a medium size company or the Chief Executive of a Council, is it any wonder that such people associate more with the bosses than the ordinary workers?

Of course, there are some union leaders like Bob Crow who will set out to improve the conditions of their members, and who recognise the importance of effective action to bring that about. But, as the programme showed, such leaders "manipulation" amounts to nothing more than actually arguing with members, providing leadership to take a particular course of action. As though, every day workers are not being bombarded by propaganda from the newspapers and the media to take another course of action, to lie down and be rolled over by the bosses.

There are too, those within the Left sects for whom a strike is a means to an end. The conventional wisdom is that during a strike workers political consciousness is raised more than at any other time. Yet, there is really no evidence to support this contention. One or two people might be politicised as a result of being involved in a significant strike, but generally speaking those who come to prominence are people who have not been previously involved, and who just as quickly disappear after it has finished. The Left sects are more interested, because they believe that one or two of these individuals might be won to their particular organisation. This is essentially the outlook of the Leninist/Luxemburgist Left, which is that nothing can really be done short of the revolution, but Economistic demands have to be raised in order to provoke workers into struggle for them, out of which the Party can be incrementally built ready for the Revolution when it comes. But, as a strategy it is pathetic. If workers really were politicised by such strike action, then solely on an incremental basis over a few decades the forces of the Left - even broadly defined - should have grown to 100 times what they are today.

The real problem with strikes is that outlined by Marx above. It is not that workers are "irresponsible" in engaging in them, but, precisely because of the weakness of the workers position that leads them to engage in them, because of seeing no alternative, they are not always the best solution to their problems - they are not irresponsible but as Marx puts it an "injudicious use of their power." In part, they can be injudicious for the reason that Miliband was suggesting - the need to build a wider coalition of support for a better solution. But, they can also be injudicious for the reason Engels set out in his "Condition of the Working Class", where he wrote,

"and thus a new spirit came over the masters, especially the large ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of Trades’ Unions, and finally even to discover in strikes — at opportune times — a powerful means to serve their own ends."

As I've written elsewhere, that appears to be the case in Greece. The bosses state wants to save money by saving on wages to Public Sector workers, it does that when those workers are on strike. It wants to save money by reducing the services provided to the Public, it achieves that when strikes stop those services being provided. It is falling into precisely the trap that Engels describes. The bosses state has no reason to concede when the strikers are achieving its ends for it. And all the time, those denied the services by the strike are turned away from their fellow workers. Unless, the strikes were to build into something more, into a challenge for power, they are a dead end. But, that kind of Luxemburgist strategy was shown to be false by Lenin. There is no necessary transition from mass strikes to insurrection. In fact, the longer the strikes fail to move forward, the more likely that demoralisation will set in, and the workers will be set back decades.

That is why I've argued that we need a more intelligent strategy against the Cuts in this country too. Rather than such strikes what we need is to use the experience of the Anti-Poll Tax Movement. We need to build the largest possible movement across society to oppose the Cuts, by Trades Unions mobilising to send their activists out into the communities to canvas people on every doorstep, and they should be supported in that by every Branch LP member. We need to build anti-cuts committees on every street, on every estate, in every town and city uniting LP's, Trades Councils, TRA's and every other rank and file organisation of workers. But, the basis of such a movement should not be to do the Tories work for them by depriving workers of the services they need through strikes, it should be to refuse to allow the Liberal-Tories to withdraw those services. Every school, library hospital or other facility threatened with closure should be immediately occupied, and the service continued to be provided under workers control with the democratic involvement of those dependent on the service. If workers within Council Building are threatened with redundancy, the Council Offices should be occupied the same, and only those Councillors who support the workers admitted. The buildings taken over should be financed by a Council tax and rent strike, with workers on each estate paying the money into an account established by their anti-cuts committee, and if the Council Offices have to be occupied the Accounts staff should stop payments to every large company, and to central government in order that funds remain available to pay workers.

But, we should learn the lessons of UCS and of May '68, and many more struggles. Having occupied these facilities and started to run them under our own ownership and control, we should not be persuaded to hand them back to the bosses state. To do so is to accept the bosses ideology that workers cannot run their own lives. It is to ask for the attack to be renewed upon us at a time of the bosses choosing. If Ed Miliband really wants a new politics for a new generation, if he really wants to put forward an alternative to irresponsible strikes, if he wants to support the idea of "Community", let him support and argue for such a solution.

But, having said all that, if instead workers threatened with cuts decide to strike, am I going to say, sorry I can't support that? No, of course not. Marx advised the Paris Workers not to rise up in 1871, but when they did he put himself wholly on their side. I disagreed with the slogan of "British Jobs For British Workers", raised by the Lindsey Oil Refinery Workers, but I supported their strike. Why because, ultimately it is a class issue. It is a question of "What Side Are You On?" I am on the side of the workers even when the tactics and strategy they use I think is wrong. Only then do you have the right to criticise those tactics, and to try to convince workers of a better course. Unfortunately, I suspect that Miliband's course is not even a different course let alone a better course, but is no course at all.