GALLOWAY BACKS WILDCAT STRIKES
Galloway: ‘It’s about decent jobs, available to all’
Reacting to news of wildcat walkouts from construction sites across Britain, Respect MP George Galloway says:
“Despite attempts to confuse and misreport, the fundamental issue that’s led thousands of construction workers to defy the anti-union laws and walk off the job is simple: decent jobs, open for all to apply for.
“These walkouts come after years of the construction conglomerates trying to weaken union organisation, divide up workforces and introduce super-exploitation across the industry.
“Union activists have told me of unofficial blacklists operating, made all the more widespread by a culture of subcontracting to cut-throat companies.
“We used to have a nationally-owned energy sector, which provided secure and relatively good jobs as well directly employing building workers and entering long term contracts with construction companies.
“Now we’ve got privatisation, chaos and a race to the bottom where employers across Europe are attempting to drive down pay and conditions.
“That’s why the defence of national agreements is so important. It is the only way whereby working people can raise up conditions in the worst companies to those where unions are better organised and have won a fairer share.
“So those little Englanders or downright racists who claim they are supporting the construction workers’ walkouts are doing no such thing, because they oppose the very trade union strength that makes a national rate for the job possible.
“The Unite union – including the TGWU, which I’ve been a member of for over 30 years – has always stood against scapegoating and discrimination. And it’s stood against the exploitation of foreign workers as a means to lowering pay and conditions here.
“The union has been calling for national agreements to prevent undercutting, and for jobs to be open to all construction workers, without blacklisting or discrimination.
“That’s got my support. If Gordon Brown really wanted to help construction workers he would rigorously enforce the highest employment standards instead of playing to the right wing gallery with slogans about British jobs, for British workers.”
#2 Good to see an early attack on the SWP. Well done.
Comment by ll — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:13 pm
But seriously.
I don’t think wishing away some of the difficult issues is good enough. Galloway seems to want to pretend that the demand “British jobs for British workers” is not a problem. But of course it is. I am for socialists being at the picket line but not as some cheerleaders but arguing about the real enemy.. bosses etc. Likewise Jeery Hicks is right to go to the picket lines but seems not to be keen to argue that the demands and clogans they are using are playing into the hands of the right. If anyone thinks there is not a problem then why are some tories coming out in their support. The left must not abstain or shake its head but try and intervene to better the direction of the action.
Comment by ll — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
As per-usual Galloway is out of his depths here? Walworth’s, Gaza, wildcat walkouts on construction sites; he is indeed a man of all the issues’ playing in his own amphitheatre!
Comment by Jim — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:24 pm
Once again imputing to other people whose voices people will actually hear, unlike this little pipsqueak, a lack of courage and principle that self-evidently they don’t lack. ll really is a very sorry excuse for an SWP member.
Comment by ll not so cool — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
I agree with George here - it is good that he is orientating to this in a broad manner and a shame that others in his party are only seemingly interested in building their own profile for election at the dispute.
Comment by ian hamilton — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
Just a few word’s on the “nationalist” nature of the strike.
It is worth recalling that what sparked this dispute was the discrimination of an Italian construction firm against British workers not primarily on the basis of nationality but rather on the basis of their refusal to accept inferior terms and conditions. This is a collective struggle by the workers in this industry to fight back against the race to the bottom and the boss’s tactic of pitting workers from different countries against each other.
It seems to me that talk about this being a strike against foreign workers is mostly based on management spin and one unfortunate photo on the BBC website of a picketer holding up a notice saying British jobs for British workers.
Socialist Party members have been intervening at several different pickets around the country with the following key demands that have been getting an excellent response:
1) ALL workers in the construction industry to be paid the National Engineering Construction agreement wage.
2) A register of all unemployed construction workers, controlled by the unions to be used in deciding who fills vacant positions, new contracts etc on construction sites
In my view the influence of the BNP is being over-exaggerated by a hostile media in an attempt to undermine the strike. Socialists have a much greater influence on events here than the BNP. For example on the strike committee of the Lyndsie Oil refinery dispute, the Socialist Party has two members.
Comment by Neil — 30 January, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
Around 500 workers walked out at Scottish Power’s Longannet power station, and just over 100 at its Cockenzie power station, while around 80 stopped work at British Energy’s Torness facility.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
Good that GG has made this statement, and Jerry Hicks his, and that socialist unity has reported it.
But I have just been to SWP website (15.30pm, fri 30th jan) and can find NO MENTION of the dispute at all - not in any form. (The website and paper is all about Gaza).
Therefopre, angry working class people will find no guidance on this outbreak of strike action if they turn to the SWP website today.
And yet our enemy, the BNP is all over it.
The SWP CC argues for their ultra-centralised structure to enable their party to make fast responses to turns in the class struggle. Well, we are waiting…
Comment by Barry Kade — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
I think we need to be a little more careful here. The strike is not racist. But the slogan British Jobs for British Workers is widespread. In Aberthaw near Barry in South Wales, strikers were holding up print outs of the slogan as well as a whacking great canvas banner which had the slogan printed on it.
The steward who spoke to the BBC was at pains to say this wasn’t an attack on foreign workers and used the example of how they had taken Polish workers under their wing as proof of that which was brilliant. But we need to be wary of simply cheering on uncritically - there is a battle of ideas on these picket lines and where socialists are organised in the workplace they need to be arguing against these nationalist notions, not letting them get on with it because they don’t want to alienate themselves from “the lads” over a popular but reactionary slogan.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 30 January, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
BRITISH JOBS FOR BRITISH WORKERS
Comment by Barry Nigel Pickering — 30 January, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
Well, Galloway is being a complete hypocrite over this. I recall him asking a guy who phoned into his show, during a discussion about migrant labour, ” what’s so great about you? Why should you have a job rather than a foreigner?”, and that’s his general attitude. If you don’t believe that, then you haven’t listened to his radio show much - I have, because basically I think highly of him; but on the question of migrant labour he is totally wrong - as are the people here who consider themselves ‘the left’. How many are you? Who’s ever elected you to anything? What workers do you represent? Who else calls you ‘the left’, in other words?
If you have a problem with ‘British jobs for British workers’, then you’re not on the left.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 30 January, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
Aren’t people using the ‘BRITISH JOBS FOR BRITISH WORKERS’ line because it’s what Brown said recently?
As far as I’m aware the company concerned is a sub-contractor who only agreed to the deal if they were allowed to bring in their own workers.
They are playing the corporate game and it’s that which should be challenged, not its symptoms.
Comment by faceless — 30 January, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
Jock McTrousers:
“Well, Galloway is being a complete hypocrite over this. I recall him asking a guy who phoned into his show, during a discussion about migrant labour, ” what’s so great about you? Why should you have a job rather than a foreigner?”, and that’s his general attitude…..”
No, George is not a hypocrite at all. The racist fool he was denouncing was denouncing migrant workers being allowed to work here at all. That is rather different from this case, where local workers (whatever their ethnic origin) are not allowed to even apply for these jobs. No equality there.
“If you have a problem with ‘British jobs for British workers’, then you’re not on the left.”
Well then Martin Webster and John Tyndall must have been well on the ‘left’ , mustn’t they? Ditto for our esteemed Prime Minister today, and the BNP leeches who are trying to hitch a lift on this at the workers’ expense. Jock McTrousers … what a nasty little creep you are.
Comment by ID — 30 January, 2009 @ 8:45 pm
Galloway’s response is totally opportunist. Nothing wrong with connecting to the worries of those fearing for their jobs, but the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’ must be criticized explicitly. The left must go to the pickets and argue for united action against the bosses and the governemnt, and at the same time take on the discussion about imigrant workers.
It is a bad sign that socialistunity is following GG in this, instead of arguing for working class solidarity
Comment by Jamal — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
Well said George Galloway. Why do we think the anti europe, anti working class Thatcher signed the Maastricht treaty? We need a socialist states of Europe not this neo-liberal wet dream. Why should workers have to migrate across the world to find work? No wonder our schools are crap and elitist. Capitalist anarchy or chaos as Galloway puts it.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 30 January, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
Why British jobs for British workers is not the solution to the crisis
The Socialist Workers Party has issued a statement on the walkouts in construction. The full text follows.
Thousands of workers at around 20 construction sites and refineries across Britain have walked out on unofficial strike. At the centre of the strikes is the claim that foreign workers are taking the jobs of British workers.
Economic crisis is threatening the jobs and living standards of every worker. Just last week giant multinationals announced 76,000 job losses across the US, Britain and Europe. The world is in the deepest crisis since the 1930s with spreading mass unemployment, pay cuts and poverty.
This government, which has so utterly failed working people, showers billions on the bankers to shore up the profit system. But workers are ordered to the dole queue. As a steel worker at Corus said last week, “If you’ve got a bowler hat you get billions, if you’re in a hard hat you get turned away”.
We need a fightback, with strikes and protests, and the unions have been scandalously slow to offer any sort of resistance to the jobs massacre.
But these strikes are based around the wrong slogans and target the wrong people
It’s right to fight for jobs and against wage-cutting. It’s right to take on the poisonous system of sub-contracting that is used to make workers compete against each other.
It’s right to demand that everyone is paid the proper rate for the job and that there’s no undercutting of national agreements. And we need militant action, including unofficial action, to win these demands.
But these strikes are not doing that – whatever some of those involved believe.
The slogan accepted by many of the strikers is “British jobs for British workers”. That comes directly from Gordon Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference in 2007. And it has been encouraged by many in the higher levels of the Unite union. Derek Simpson and others at the top of Unite have done nothing to encourage resistance to job losses, or a fightback against repossessions or against the anti-union laws. Instead they go along with a campaign that can divide workers.
But it lets the bosses off the hook and it threatens murderous division at a time when we need unity in action to fight back.
It’s not Italians or Poles or Portuguese workers who are to blame for the attacks on British workers’ conditions.
Construction workers have always been forced to move far from home for jobs, whether inside a country or between countries. How many British workers (or their fathers or brothers) have been forced to work abroad from Dubai to Dusseldorf?
When workers are divided it’s the bosses who gain. Total Oil, who manage the Immingham refinery, make £5 billion every three months! Jacobs, the main contractor which has then sub-contracted to an Italian firm, made £250 million in 2007.
These are the people workers should be hitting, not turning on one another.
Those who urge on these strikes are playing with fire. Once the argument is raised it can open the door to racism against individuals. Already in some supermarket warehouses the racists are calling for action against workers from abroad.
We all know what will happen if the idea spreads that it’s foreigners, or immigrants or black or Asian people who are to blame for the crisis. It will be a disaster for the whole working class, will encourage every racist and fascist and make it easier for the bosses to ram through pay and job cuts. Already the BNP are pumping out racist propaganda supporting the strikes.
Everyone should ask themselves why Tory papers like the Express and the Sun and Mail – which hate union power and urge on privatisation – are sympathetic to the strikes
Right wing ideas gain a hold among workers when they see their lives being torn apart and the unions offer no lead. No doubt some in Unite think it’s easier to get a fight around a slogan like “British jobs for British workers” which sets people apart than one that brings people together like “Workers should not pay for the bosses’ crisis”. That’s a doomed strategy.
Instead of turning against workers from abroad, everyone should be organising in a united way to pressure the union leaders to fight. And if the union leaders won’t fight then workers will have to organise the resistance themselves.
Let’s demand an end to the system where foreign workers are housed separately from the British workforce. Let’s bring workers from abroad into the unions and link arms against the bosses and their system.
Workers across Europe are under attack. Out unions should learn from the general strikes in Greece and France that we need mass, militant action directed at the bosses and the government to win.
Fight all job cuts
No deals that cut wages or accept lay-offs
Smash privatisation and sub-contracting
Unity against the bosses, no to racism and the BNP.
Comment by Mike — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:10 pm
18# Bloody Hell – Think again?
What we need; is a world without states, frontiers or racial barriers or prejudices towards fellow workers. A world that leads not men to patriotism as used by Brown did; to excuse the failings of the social system. True Socialists will have none of this. No frontiers, no racial barriers or prejudices. Socialism must set men free to live their lives to the full. It will remove poverty abolish war and bring peace by ending hatred and giveaway to security and brotherhood, but don’t expect the likes of professional and well paid politicians such as Galloway to advocate these things?
Comment by Jim — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:11 pm
`What we need; is a world without states’…
That is not what we need. That is what you want. You should try politics someday. What we need is a workers government in Britain that concentrates the means of production in the hands of the working class and a united states of Europe. What we want will have to wait and even in a world without states, frontiers or racial barriers `labour mobility’ will be the choice of the labourers not an econoomically imposed necessity.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:24 pm
Comment 19 SWP statement “But these strikes are based around the wrong slogans”.
No they didnt adopt SWP slogans - its not a perfect world (how nice to be so pure, so perfect from the side lines)but its up to all socialists to get in there are argue for resistence around working people uniting whatever their colour and supporting the right to resist job cuts. If we dont offer support the recists will take over and then it will be to late.
Comment by Red — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:47 pm
The claim is that a contract has been given to a company that will bring foreign workers to Britain to do work that are not unionised in the local unions, British workers of any nationality or place of origin will not be able to apply for the work, this is not about “white workers”.
Yes the slogan needs more work on and sounds racist (probably is nationalistic) but who are we to say what workers can take action, they believe they are the right workers and listening to the union this is not about the “foreign workers” but about workers that live in Britain who are in trade unions regardless of their nationality or place of origin can not apply for the jobs or have opportunity to do the work. The strike is about the contract which specifically employs workers that do not live in Britain and harbours them on boats to build a massivem extension of a power station in Lincolnshire with non-unionised labour, the contractor has stated that they will NOT employ local labour!!!
We need to be careful that we don’t romanticise the working class. The “foreign workers” are being used as trade union busting labour living in boats in harbours - they are being used by the bosses to drive down union negotiations. We cannot allow workers to be housed in boats with the intention of cutting across the trade unions! The crisis of capitalism will try to squeeze everyn penny and reform from us including the right to organise in a trade union and the demands the unions bring.
The slogan British jobs for British workers is a crap slogan and shoddy too - it is racist, but that does not mean that the strike is racist. If the strike dropped the British bit and highlighted that is was about non-unionised labour and lack of opportunity for local workers to apply for the jobs would that be better? If the workers were not foreign but just non-unionised workers from Surrey who were to live on boats and local workers could not apply - what should the slogans be then?
We need to be careful that just because the BNP, The Sun and the Daily Mail are supporting the strike due to their own petty minded nationalist agenda does not mean that the wild cat strikers are unprincipled.
I remember in Edinburgh during a local government strike the Australian and New Zealand non-unionised social workers broke the strike, we called out Emergency Social Work and left them up to it, they were trying to say we were bullying them and there were complaints made. Because they were travellers and did not have a pension here they could not see why they needed to go on strike. It caused a lot of bad feeling and quite right so! They were scab workers, intentionally or not!
Comment by Cat — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:53 pm
21# Bloody Hell – What I want doesn’t mater, It’s what it takes to make a humane world that dose, and if we do nothing and wait or dream of workers government like a schoolboy, capitalisms repressive forces will have passed us over again. Only when production is for human use shall we see choice, when the enormous number of jobs which are vital to capitalism become redundant will we have choice!
Comment by Jim — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:53 pm
#23
cat
exactly - well explained
Comment by Andy Newman — 30 January, 2009 @ 11:56 pm
Jim: you are just a neo-liberal anarchist aren’t you? A world without states, frontiers or racial prejudices is your immediate demand and until it is realised then nothing can be done but a workers’ government in Britain (as opposed to this New Labour piss take) is utopian? If anybody is a political `schoolboy’ it is you.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:00 am
“Yes the slogan needs more work on and sounds racist ”
Umm needs work on!!!! it is racist, the slogan is one of the right wing, It is not a case of a few workers arguing this slogan it is the preminant slogan of this dispute. People can wish away the reality as much as they like in cyber space but I afraid the reality is that the right wing are happy tonight when they see this event. Of course soicialist need to argue woth those workers and others, yes that means going to the picket lines etc but don’t dress it up as progressive because it ain’t and I am afraid Jerry and Galloway have pandered to this populism and denied what is patently true. The SWP statement/leaflet is excellent and carries a socailist arguement.
Comment by ll — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:34 am
26# “You are just a neo-liberal anarchist aren’t you?”
No I’m a Socialist of 34 years still standing and fighting!
“A world without states, frontiers or racial prejudices is your immediate demand and until it is realised then nothing can be done but a workers’ government in Britain (as opposed to this New Labour piss take) is utopian?”
No immediate demand comrade. A world without states, frontiers leaders and not forgetting money.Will there then be a chance for humanity to live in real harmony!
“If anybody is a political `schoolboy’ it is you.”
I may disagree with my fellow workers from time to time, but I respect that they create and produce all wealth and without them all - The world would be northing, I believe with a passion that one day the future will be in their hands and a world worth living for!
I have no shame I put my name to this post!
Comment by Jim — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:34 am
#27 Now we see why the `respectable’ SWP is opposing this strike: because Jerry Hicks and George Galloway support it. Talk about instruments of the bureaucracy.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:39 am
respect for the excellent SWP statement!
I was just watching the news on different channels about the wild cat strikes. The placards and the flags that were visisble as well as some interviews were really directing the anger against foreig workers. This is a real danger socialists must recognise and confront without abandoning the fight and the solidarity with the strikers.
Comment by Jamal — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:40 am
29#“Now we see why the `respectable’ SWP is opposing this strike: because Jerry Hicks and George Galloway support it. Talk about instruments of the bureaucracy.”
Bloody Hell; your acting like a sectarian schoolgirl – This is not the way to win harts and minds just look at Galloway?
Comment by Jim — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:52 am
All views on this need to be based on some kind of interface with reality. I know that’s hard for all of us when we enter blogland, but if any of us are serious about this question we will see to ground our opinions so. The alternative is just so many pronunciamenti by people who have no connection at all with any of the protagonists they are talking about.
That fate is ever present. But that’s no reason to succumb. What resources does the left have to act in this situation and how are they being deployed? That’s the question. Elsewhere I understand that some people are flopping into talk of Chilean lorry owners or the Berlin transit strike. Many of the same people have flipped from an abstract workerism. Either way, nothing good will come of that.
Comment by Kevin Ovenden — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:56 am
Yes, we see it now. The SWP are on an anti-Jerry trip. Pity `Lenin’ wasn’t up to speed. Workers break anti-union laws but the important thing is to smear Hicks.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:57 am
The SWP released a statement on the strikes, which Seymour immediately posted up at the end of his post with the comment that they were “much more critical” then he was. Within a few hours another post was up denouncing his previous post and agreeing with everything single point in the SWP statement.
Clearly the change of mind was prompted by cult head quarters.
Comment by Ed D — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:58 am
Gee, this whole thing and all the comments here show the bosses sure know how to divide and rule.
Comment by peter Hine — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:44 am
I was a militant in the construction industry for 25yrs,being the cause of a successful strike when I was victimised in Scotland in 1979,I led strikes in 87+92 in London and with another person founded a rank+file Londonwide group in the 90s,was supportive of big Brian Higgins in the 80s and was close to Joe Harrod who led the successful steel erectors strike in 89.So having had a close personal view of the type of tensions these disputes engender the facts are thus.The employers do import cheap foreign labour to weaken the existing workforces wages conditions and organisation.This is an objective historical fact,what is also an objective historical fact is that the workers must attempt to maintain maximum unity between existing workforce and imported workforce to defend wages conditions organisation and class conciousness.These two objective historical facts are an obvious dichotomy which produce these horrible contradictions which the worker/militants must deal with on a daily basis.Seriously hard politics comrades!! So these disputes must be backed up to the hilt.(critically if neccessary)
Comment by exconstructionmilitant — 31 January, 2009 @ 2:06 am
Um, in what way do any of the slogans of the strike build solidarity with the Italian workers? Or is this about getting them fired so that British workers can take those jobs? You could learn a thing or two from the Communists in the 1930s - in the US they demanded jobs for black workers without any jobs lost for white workers, not the replacement of one with the other. This made it possible for radical whites on the inside to build solidarity. The Italian workers, many of whom will have participated in the big strikes and protests in Italy in recent years, will have no basis to solidarize with the strike.
I don’t think you have to be a revolutionary socialist to understand the difference between a strike that demands a closed shop - ie. that all workers be represented by the union and covered by a collective agreement - and a strike which seeks to privilege access to work by workers of one nation over another.
As Inigo Montoya said on another thread: how would you feel if the slogan in France and Germany was to send home the 100,000 British workers who have jobs in those countries? Surely they are “taking” French and German jobs as well. Where does this lead?
Comment by redbedhead — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:09 am
In Hackney the Planning sub committee often stipulate that a percentage of workers to be employed on new construction sites should be local labour. We dont stipulate that they must be of British nationality. It would be interesting to know whether Planning sub committees covering construction on power sites etc do the same.
Comment by BarryB — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:16 am
#37 - Agreed. Slogans are absolutely vital in these matters, and the slogans we are seeing in this strike are nationalist, with the potential to become racist if the trajectory and focus of anger isn’t changed. The Italian and Portuguese workers involved are not scabs. They were employed by Total on a short term contract per EU legislation. There are British workers doing the same in Europe and elsewhere. Yes, migrant labour is being used to drive down wages and break the unions. But this has occured throughout history - when Irish labour was used, Caribbean, women, and latterly workers from Eastern Europe. Let’s learn lessons. Let’s not pander to reactionary slogans because they have gained traction with a large section of striking workers. We do ourselves and the working class a great disservice in the long run if we do.
Attempts are hopefully being made to make contact with these workers, to demonstrate solidarity with their plight as a source of cheap non-unionised labour, living on company barges with little or no employment rights. Hopefully attempts are also being made to involve the Italian labour movement in an attempt to have them intervene on the side of the workers - both British and migrant.
EU legislation which allows such divide and rule tactics to be implemented across Europe has created this crisis. Supine union leaders which have allowed this to happen without a fight also bear some responsibility. This is the chickens coming home to roost after three decades of anti-union legislation and pro-business government in this country. British jobs for British workers is a cheap, populist slogan promoted by New Labour to distract from their responsibility for the current crisis of capitalism in pushing forward some of the most egregious economic policies of any British government since the Second World War.
Comment by John Wight — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:43 am
#37 `I don’t think you have to be a revolutionary socialist to understand the difference between a strike that demands a closed shop - ie. that all workers be represented by the union and covered by a collective agreement - and a strike which seeks to privilege access to work by workers of one nation over another.
As Inigo Montoya said on another thread: how would you feel if the slogan in France and Germany was to send home the 100,000 British workers who have jobs in those countries? Surely they are “taking” French and German jobs as well. Where does this lead?’
The SWP seem hell bent on discrediting these strikes but are only discrediting themseleves further. British workers are being excluded in what in nominally their own country. That is union busting. What is behind this? SWP trying to discredit Jerry Hicks. More ultra-left liberalism that plays into the hands of capitalism and another example of the SWP setting their face against the general movement in their own interests. This time they’ve gone way to far.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:43 am
#19 Will revolutionary socialism’s finest be heading off to Grimsby, Grangemouth, Sellafield, etc to distribute this edifying tract to the pickets in an effort to get them to go back to work?
Comment by fans of abstract propagandism — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:47 am
British workers are being excluded in what in nominally their own country.
+++++++++++
Can someone explain to me what the material difference is, for the unemployed worker based in Grimsby, between a sub-contractor based in the North-west using a workforce brought down from the North-west, and a subcontractor based in Sicily using a workforce brought from Italy and Portugal? Not the difference for UK plc, but the material difference for the Grimsby engineering-construction worker seeking work. Would there by a strike against the use of an internal migrant workforce?
Comment by Jodley — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:53 am
Jodley: British workers are being told they cannot do these jobs. It is union busting. You ask: would there be a strike against the use of an internal migrant workforce? Well of course there would be if they were being used to break the union or scab or drive down wages and in fact they happen all the time.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 10:59 am
And the slogans of a strike against an internal migrant workforce being used in the way you describe would be….?
Comment by Jodley — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:07 am
re 42 The working class in britain has developed a collective identity and organisation ( TUs etc) in an attempt to resist the power of Capital. The foreign workers are being brought in by Capital in order to undermine that.
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:08 am
“The union has been calling for national agreements to prevent undercutting, and for jobs to be open to all construction workers, without blacklisting or discrimination.
“That’s got my support. If Gordon Brown really wanted to help construction workers he would rigorously enforce the highest employment standards instead of playing to the right wing gallery with slogans about British jobs, for British workers.”
So, to clarify, Galloway backs the demands in the top quote, general and admirable demands on the unions books, but doesn’t back the strikers’ or the unions call for “British Jobs for British Workers” - in fact, he specifically attacks Brown for playing to the right in using that slogan. Will Galloway use his position and profile to visit the pickets and take this argument to them - I’m not being facetious, I genuinely hope he does, because all the internet statements and Seamus Milne columns buried in the Grauniad will not have the impact necessary to try to win the argument against this slogan, against demands to replace Italian workers.
He might not want to mention where his suit comes from, mind you.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:36 am
Well done, Inigo - another successful sneering post disguised as “I genuinely hope so”.
Comment by external bulletin — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:39 am
Whatever, external bulletin, if you can’t see that my last line was a (pretty amusing, I thought) joke you’ve got no sense of humour. For someone who’s chosen their moniker as a dig at the SWP it’s pretty fucking rich. How you’d have managed back in the days of Lenin and Trotsky’s acid pens I really don’t know, reduced to a gibbering wreck at the accusation of renegacy no doubt.
I don’t suppose you want to engage with the actual substance of the post? Let me repeat: I really hope Galloway goes to the picket lines and argues against the BJ4BW slogan. I’m not saying it because I don’t think he will - I think there’s every chance he will, and even more if supporters like you prompted him to do so. It’d get coverage and he’d be guaranteed an audience.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:45 am
COMMENT 27 by ll “Of course soicialist need to argue woth those workers and others, yes that means going to the picket lines etc but don’t dress it up as progressive because it ain’t and I am afraid Jerry and Galloway have pandered to this populism and denied what is patently true”.
Ultra Left bollocks on your part my friend and by the SWP (sorry about the language but this sort of thing makes me angry). Just remember we are talking about ordinary working people who have mortgages to pay and families to support who fear they may lose their jobs or there will be no jobs for their kids (who cant leave home), Good luck to them - IT IS PROGRESSIVE - they are fighting and resisting and all socialists should support them but ofcousre we should get there on the picket lines (if possible) and debate how this is to be done and try to turn the slogans into something more appropriate like “Defend The Right To Work” - being ulta left critical helps no one and demoralises those workers who may make a stand. Its so sad to see the SWP go from bad to worse over the last year.
Comment by Red — 31 January, 2009 @ 11:57 am
#47 Yes, agree with all of that.
Normally, when comrades from the various parties go to picket lines they argue their positions, and whatever, but then they also often attempt to SPREAD the dispute. By sending off delegations to other workplaces, sending out pickets, using model resolutions etc.
Inigo has said on the other thread that the SWP are currently going to the picket lines - which is good. But is the SWP also attempting to widen the movement right now? Or do they feel that to do so in the present climate is “playing with fire”, to quote from their statement? I am unclear on this point and would appreciate some clarification.
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
Waterford workers occupy plant
A crisis meeting on the future of Waterford Crystal takes place in Dublin today as 100 angry workers continue to occupy the plant.
The firm’s receiver David Carson said that 480 of the 670 employees at the famous crystal maker in Kilbarry outside Waterford city have been made redundant.
The Unite union, which represents the workers, will today meet Mr Carson along with local TD and Government Minister Martin Cullen and the secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach, Dermot McCarthy.
Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) general secretary David Begg will also be present at the meeting, which will discuss bids for Waterford Crystal from potential investors.
Receiver Mr Carson has been negotiating with two US-based groups in recent weeks in a bid to save parts of the business.
He said: “The decision to cease manufacturing does not necessarily preclude a resumption of operations in Waterford in the future.
“The receiver is continuing negotiations with interested parties with a view to a sale of the company’s assets and those discussions are focused on agreeing the terms upon which a transaction could be completed.”
Former Waterford Crystal chief executive, John Foley is part of a US consortium that hopes to make a new bid for the company.
Employees stormed the visitors’ centre at the premises yesterday after they learned the receiver had decided to lay off more than half of the workforce.
About 100 workers later staged a sit-in at the plant and were supplied with food parcels and blankets by the local community.
…………………………………….
Now ll and others a question - are these workers not by implication defending jobs for “Irish workers” (who may ofcourse not be Irish) living in the locality of Dublin? Its a progessive occupation the sort we need to see more of in the UK (pity the Woolworths workers did not try it).
So good luck to the constrction workers in their progressive despute to defeend jobs for themsleves their families and their locality. George Galloway was correct when he stated:
““That’s why the defence of national agreements is so important. It is the only way whereby working people can raise up conditions in the worst companies to those where unions are better organised and have won a fairer share.
“So those little Englanders or downright racists who claim they are supporting the construction workers’ walkouts are doing no such thing, because they oppose the very trade union strength that makes a national rate for the job possible”.
Comment by Red — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
Good statement by Galloway and some really good comments (as well as some very poor ones). Also reading a quite good two page spread on this in today’s guardian coupled with articles and pictures on protests all over Europe.
We on the left really need to get our selves in gear over this. There are going to be many many more actions of this sort as the resesion kicks in harder. And many of them will take up imperfect or very arguable slogans. But the solution to that is not to argue that “Those who urge on these strikes are playing with fire”. The fire is there. The strikes will happen weather group’s on the left support them or not.
It is no good complaining from the sidelines. We need to back these strikes to the hilt while at the same time trying to win people over to new slogans and new demands.
We also need to stop sniping at each other and turn ourselves into a united left force that can really engage with movements like this.
Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
Re my own #48 Sorry, I should also have asked if the SWP will be building for the “jobs demo” that I understand is taking place in London on Thursday.
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
“Red” - Now ll and others a question - are these workers not by implication defending jobs for “Irish workers” (who may ofcourse not be Irish) living in the locality of Dublin?
They are defending existing jobs against cuts. They are occupying and resisting the attacks on workers. The wildcat strikes in Britain are fighting to remove foreign workers and replace them with British ones. Can you not see the difference? Frankly, I’m astonished at the rose tinted glasses being worn by all you radicals here - do you want Italian workers sacked and replaced with British ones? That is what the strike is about, no matter how you spin it. The shots I just saw on the news had a crowd in which the most prevalent slogan was “Put British Workers First”. Do you support that slogan or are you going to argue against it? I’ll be at the nearest picket to me on Monday if they’re out, willing to put my money where my mouth is, even if some people will be tempted to put a fist there too. This is the difference between being a cheerleading panderer to chauvinism to win popularity and being a socialist.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:29 pm
Congratulations to Mr Galloway for taking the lesson from 1968 and leading the Billingsgate Market Workers.
Comment by 1968 Revolution — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:34 pm
Inigo Montoya
It’s not spin. It’s about looking at the total picture. Your interventions I’m afraid now have all the hallmarks of ridiculously false polaristion in which differences on the left become amplified and views of reality become hopelessly one-sided.
That’s stage one. Stage two is imputing the basest possible motives and ascribing the worst possible interpretations of what others on the left are doing, eg the Socialist Party having a member on one of the strike committees thrown up by these walkouts.
And I do think an approach that does not start from the fact that these are illegal strikes, spread through non-official channels is a mistake. Some people made the same mistake over the prison officers’ walkout in August 2007. Instead of addressing the reactionary elements of consciousness from the standpoint of the action they were taking, too many on the left treated us to disquisitions on the sociological position of prison officers.
Where is the point and what is the political force that can cleave the progressive from the reactionary and offer socialist leadership? I don’t accept that starting with the confused slogans of the strikers is it.
Comment by Kevin Ovenden — 31 January, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
#54 “And I do think an approach that does not start from the fact that these are illegal strikes, spread through non-official channels is a mistake.”
I think an approach that starts from the legality or otherwise of the strikes and entirely ignores the political content of the demands raised is a mistake. A reactionary strike is a reactionary strike (I think this is one, but I wasn’t so sure yesterday, so am disinclined to be too harsh on those who take the other view) whether it is legal or not.
Comment by skidmarx — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:27 pm
#55 So yesterday you were a reactionary but today you are not. Thank god for the SWP CC telling you what to think. Who knows where you’d end up without that?
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
‘what is the political force that can cleave the progressive from the reactionary and offer socialist leadership? I don’t accept that starting with the confused slogans of the strikers is it.’
But equally denying that these confused slogans are representative of the consciousness of those on strike isn’t either. Both Galloways statement and the SP statement deny that ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ is a dominant idea in these strikes. Just about every picture I’ve seen has shown placards or banners with some version of this slogan on it.
Comment by swp member — 31 January, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
#55 Bloody Hell- thankyou for being another Respect(Not at lot) goblin who would rather engage in unfounded personal abuse than offer any rational argument, further exposing the desperation the project has now reached. I haven’t had any communications from the SWP central commitee, and would be unlikely to thank any god or gods if I did. I did look at www.leninology.blogspot.com this morning where a similar shift had taken place, which did help to confirm me in my change of judgement, but it was interviews with the strikers and a guy running a local hostelry, and the universal appearance of British Jobs For British Workers slogans that had encouraged my shift of mind. If you weren’t so obviously an idiot I might ask if you would prefer those who neve change their minds about anything, but I know that there is no pleasing some people. By the way I said I wasn’t sure yesterday, but you probably couldn’t find a nuance with both hands if it was shoved up your arse.
Comment by skidmarx — 31 January, 2009 @ 2:13 pm
People change their minds. Organisations change their minds.
If you think the swp are all robots fine. Point noted. Now can comments stick to the bloody strikes and their character and the lefts intervention? Cos its SLIGHTLY more important than the relationship between the swp cc, its memebsr and bloggers.
Comment by swp member — 31 January, 2009 @ 2:20 pm
Do not adjust your sets. The distortion is deliberate
The Capitalist media are intent on diverting this movement to xenophobic direction. But some of the comments here, (by people who rightly criticised the bias of the BBC when reporting the Gaza war), now unquestioningly accept the BBC’s slant on this dispute at face value.
A real struggle is a test of socialists.
Who is capable of engaging with the movement and struggle within it for a Socialist strategy.
And who will line up with the Corporations and the Capitalist media to besmirch the movement.
Comment by amnon — 31 January, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
That’s a good point amnon. The Guardian has today shown itself to have a better grasp of the dynamics involved than those who say simply this is a reactionary strike and then suggest that those who take a more nuanced view are pretending there are not widespread reactionary views involved. That’s the argumentation of the playground.
Comment by Nas — 31 January, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
Kevin, it’s all well and good to start from the illegal nature of the strikes but it’s not enough to stop there. You draw a comparison with the prison officers strike. I went to my local prison and had a chat with a few guards and was well received for going to show solidarity. They were striking for better pay and were happy to discuss the need for a united fightback and were very political, arguing against funding New Labour.
This strike is premised somewhat differently - it is based around a reactionary demand, even though many of the workers on it will not see it this way. You talk of a false polarisation but that is the territory of people who have wilfully misread the SWP’s statement for their own sectarian agenda to suggest that we are calling it racist, that we are arguing for abstention etc. This is ridiculous. The SWP statement argues we need a militant fight to defend jobs, that we need to fight against subcontracting eroding worker’s rights and wages, that illegal action is necessary. But it also argues that this strike has the wrong people in its targets, a fact that can be borne out by anyone who has witnessed the levels of anti-Italian sentiment and sloganeering on the picket lines. That is why the SWP is not simply putting out statements that support the strike on the basis of what they want it to be about rather than what it is about. It’s about sacking Italian workers and replacing them with British ones. All the nonsense about a more “nuanced” view is whitewash.
Any socialist with principles must argue that the kind of action being taken is good and needed but the target and aims are utterly wrong. They should be arguing forcefully against the slogans being raised and, importantly, against the position that these Italian workers should be sacked. They need to be arguing for more jobs, for jobs for all, regardless of where they come from. This is not an approach which ignores the illegal and secondary nature of the action. But it is one that proceeds from the level of conciousness of the strikers and tries to elevate it as best they can.
What is the alternative? What concrete suggestions do you offer for an alternative argument to be put across on the picket lines? What would you say when people started talking about British Jobs for British Workers? Patiently explaining that we need unity across the class, that we can learn from Italian workers in struggle against Berlusconi, that BJ4BW is a dead end that plays into the hands of the right? That is what the SWP is trying to do - the notion that we are wading into this calling people racists and hoping to get the shit kicked out of us is absolute bollocks.
The most dangerous notion I can see is that we cheerlead the strike into escalation, into spreading without any clear idea of how we transform the objectives of the action. Saying “well done lads” and then hoping that, when there’s a few thousand others out on strike, we’ll somehow be better placed to offer a left wing political direction for the movement is nuts. What is the balance of forces? What is the strength of the subjective factor? By which I mean all of us, not just the SWP by any stretch of the imagination.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
Do we support the right of capital to import a workforce- housed on barges and isolated from the rest of the working class - in order to further undercut union organisation and strength in Britain.
As socialists we should say clearly- no we dont support the attempt by big business to reduce our living standards and we support a collective working class fightback to defend jobs and union organization
The union bureaucracy has gone along with new Labours attack on our living standards. They will push the british nationalist line ( not racism which is something else) in the struggle. Socialists have to push a working class socialist response such as socialisation of the means of production and for the right to work and 100% union membership.
The Socialist Party is raising the demand that any worker should be part of the national engineering construction agreements that cover the wages and conditions on the sites.
They are also calling for an unemployment registrar to be set up under union control that can supply labour to the sites when that is needed.
These are good pro working class demands. However the demand of british jobs for british workers is one we should oppose but not by claiming that it is racist which it is not but because it can be used to divide workers and weaken the struggle for jobs for all.
What is posed is the need for a socialist alternative to the present capitalist crisis. We need to call for workers control and a workers government which will socialize the means of production. We need to build a socialist party which is democratic and independent of the labour bureaucracy and of the forces of capital
Any form of nationalism is a dead end for working class people but we have to be sensitive to the concerns of workers fighting for jobs and we should not use the presence of backward ideas ( which are inevitable) as a excuse for refusing to giving support to the fight to defend living standards as it has emerged
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 31 January, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
IM - look, I don’t see anyone saying they should ’stop’ before confronting the reactionary aspects of the strike. That’s just strikes me as a strawman. As far as I can see people are talking precisely about how to win unambiguosly left slogans and positions among the workers taking action. The disagreement with the SWP is the starting point and whole thrust of its statement, which strikes me as a combination of an exaggerated view of the consciousness of the workers involved and a frankly abastract call for them to link arms with others across Europe.
It seems like the Socialist Party have made a better job of getting in and being in a position to have some influence. As for the prison officers’ strike. Socialist Worker refused to support it. And that was also a mistake. An try being a little more accepting of a plurality of views other this. I mean
‘All the nonsense about a more “nuanced” view is whitewash.’ That’s him told, eh - his nonsense is whitewash. Totally convincing, that.
Comment by Nas — 31 January, 2009 @ 4:32 pm
`What is the alternative? What concrete suggestions do you offer for an alternative argument to be put across on the picket lines? What would you say when people started talking about British Jobs for British Workers? Patiently explaining that we need unity across the class, that we can learn from Italian workers in struggle against Berlusconi, that BJ4BW is a dead end that plays into the hands of the right? That is what the SWP is trying to do.’
All patronising waffle. There are no `concrete suggestions’ here just abstract nonsense.
This strike is a reaction against the neo-liberal EU which has outlawed socialism in its constituent countries. It is also a challenge to the government to do something for the working class about the economic crisis. They’ve bailed out bankers but workers are being thrown out of work and homes in their hundreds of thousands. Are we supposed to get on our inter-continental bikes and work for peanuts in Poland or simply languish on the dole? No thanks. Britain is a discreet economic, legal and political entity. The struggle for whose Britain it is is just beginning. There is nothing inherently reactionary about the slogan British Jobs for British Workers, it is the SWP that is filling it with that content. Are British workers not entitled to jobs in Britain? Britain needs a workers’ government and Europe a United States in which the banks and credit systems are nationalised along with the major capitalist enterprises to prevent mass unemployment and in which we can begin to plan our economic future. If you really want to see what fascism looks like try mass British Unemployment for British Workers.
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
It seems the attitude that socialists should take can be summed up in the famous parable of Tony Cliff something along the lines of:
You are on a picket line and a worker makes a racist remark.
The sectarian storms off the picket line maintaining revolutionary purity by not hanging around with racists.
The opportunist just pretends he or she doesn’t hear and stays on the picketline.
The socialist links arms with the workers picketing while simultaneously arguing tooth and nail against the racism.
Comment by Adamski — 31 January, 2009 @ 4:40 pm
Did Cliff, who was really good at stating the bleeding obvious, say anything about making sure you never get to the picket line because you’ve condemned all the strikers as racists and reactionaries before you get there.
And Adamski, would a socialist join a reactionary or racist strike?
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 4:57 pm
Nas: “which strikes me as a combination of an exaggerated view of the consciousness of the workers involved and a frankly abastract call for them to link arms with others across Europe.”
If you have details which explain how this is an exaggerated view of the consciousness of the workers involved, let’s hear it. I can only base my analysis on conversations and reports rtelayed to me by people who have visited the pickets which suggests the SWP’s analysis is not exaggerated, that the strikes are contradictory but with a very pronounced chauvinistic overtone. Again - I don’t believe these are racist strikes. Are there racists present? Of course, as you would expect on any strike. The question is surely, how do you argue against this? Do you support calls for an end to subcontracting, competition amongst workers etc? Yes, as is clearly spelt out in the SWP statement. Here’s the crunch: Do we argue against the prevalent slogans of “British Jobs for British Workers” and “Put British Workers First”? Do we argue against those foreign workers on barges being sacked and sent home? I should hope so.
Let’s look at what Nas stupidly describes “as a frankly abstract call for them to link arms with others across Europe” actually says: “Let’s bring workers from abroad into the unions and link arms against the bosses and their system.” What is abstract about that? Unionising workers from abroad is something that is happening all around the country, especially amongst Polish workers. It wasn’t abstract to the guy at Aberthaw station saying that it wasn’t a strike against foreign workers because they had unionised Polish workers and taken them under their wing before calling for BJ4BW in the next breath. We absolutely have to argue for unity with workers from abroad, make concrete links between groups of strikers in order to raise the level of conciousness. That means arguing against the reactionary slogans, arguing against Italian workers being sacked and replaced with British ones, and arguing to take the fight to the bosses and the government.
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
“Did Cliff, who was really good at stating the bleeding obvious, say anything about making sure you never get to the picket line because you’ve condemned all the strikers as racists and reactionaries before you get there.”
You’re an awful liar. We haven’t condemned the strikers as racists or reactionaries. You have no arguments and must appeal to lies to support your position. At least Nas and Kevin and the rest of them have a position, even if its one I’m not in agreement with. Why don’t you just bugger off?
Comment by Inigo Montoya — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
What a bleeding useless bun fight this discussion has turned into!
Rather then battling over interpretations of what the other thinks why don’t we see if we can have some good faith in stating where we agree and where we disagree.
The following seems true to me:
1) A large chunk of analysis of Respect, Socialist Party and SWP seems to be the the same.
We all agree that the strikes are a response to the bosses undermining wages.
We all agree that workers are right to strike to defend there terms and conditions.
We all agree that workers are right to fight against local labour being locked out of job oppotunities.
We all agree that “British Job’s For British Workers” is a reactionary slogan. Though its worth noting that it is a natural one for workers to raise given Brown’s recent assurances.
2)The difference comes about in terms of how we should support the workers fight.
The SWP statement seems to start from the proposition that these strikes are on balance reactionary - thus supporting them would be “playing with fire”. It suggests that we need to start with the negative nature of the strikes and from there argue for a positive alternative.
Respect and the Socialist party’s starting point seems to be that on balance the strikes are progressive - thus we should start by supporting them and from there move on to trying to pull them towards more unequivocally positive demands.
Any one disagree with that characterisation?
I for one think that we should give unconditional but not uncritical support for these strikes. (c.f. support for Hamas - very different yes but structurally similar debate could be had)
Indeed I fail to see how we have a hope in hell of having any even tiny influence over them if we don’t start with full on support. The question is whose statement on the strikes would have most chance of winning over the strikers?
Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:36 pm
The Morning Star has a more understanding progressive view of the Construction despute than the ultra left views of Socialist Worker and the SWP. A few years ago it would have been the other way round.
Biting back at bosses’ Europe
IT would be all too easy to look at the huge wave of stoppages sweeping the country at the moment and write them off as an outbreak of jingoism.
But it would be entirely wrong to do so.
Naturally, the slogan “British jobs for British people” has been seized on by the right-wing press in their description of the dispute.
Equally naturally, the far right are desperately trying to get their grubby arses on the bandwagon, but the issue is far more significant than their nasty little philosophy suggests.
The speed at which this movement has developed has taken everyone by surprise, but it should really come as no shock that working people have noticed that the policies of Gordon Brown’s government, allied with the pro-business bias of the European Union, are costing them jobs, and are hitting back.
Because that is what is at the root of the issue.
In its anxiety to provide a completely free market for the profit-hungry bosses of companies across Europe, the EU paid absolutely no notice to the rights of workers.
The bosses’ freedom to make a fast buck completely swamped any consideration of the rather more basic right to work.
Reinforced by the recent anti-union rulings of the European Court of Justice in the Viking, Laval, and Rueffert cases, this has meant that bosses are now free to bid for and win contracts anywhere in Europe and supply whatever labour they feel like.
In the case of the dispute in Lincolnshire, this has meant that Italian subcontractor IREM has brought in its own workers, apparently housing them in a ship at anchor in Grimsby dock.
This may well be in keeping with the bosses’ freedom to exploit as enshrined in EU law, but it has effectively deprived British workers of the right to seek work in their own country.
Blowhard Prime Minister Brown can witter on as much as he likes about globalisation and a developing global new world order, but it is increasingly clear that it is a bosses’ world order.
As a result of his global fixation, Mr Brown is getting more and more out of touch with the concerns of ordinary working people.
And, up until recently, it almost looked as if he was getting away with it, but no longer. The consequences of such neglect have a habit of creeping up on politicians and this rash of protests is evidence that it is happening to the Prime Minister and his new Labour cronies.
It is interesting to watch which subjects are being brought up by various people at the protests.
There is no sign of any xenophobic fear of foreign firms or workers. Indeed, at least one of the firms at which several hundred workers walked out in protest was a German subcontractor.
But there are concerns being expressed about the lack of local jobs, the dearth of apprenticeships and the absence of any opportunities for young workers to gain employment.
It should be noted that these thousands of workers are not protesting merely for themselves. They have jobs in the industry. But their concerns are for others, for those unemployed with no opportunity to find work and for young people who cannot find work because of the nature of the European Union’s version of a free market.
They are to be applauded and, if their unions cannot support them publicly because of the strictures of the anti-union laws, we can and we will.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/comment/biting_back_at_bosses_europe
Comment by Red — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
Joseph: the SWP have branded this a reactionary strike and a large number of its participants as ideological racists. If it is a reactionary strike it is the duty of socialists to oppose it but they intend to join the picket. Their intention, then, can only be to undermine it from within.
The bosses who have hired this italian contractor are using it to undermine union organisation in this country. This is a legitimate strike. Abstract nonsense about internationalism with the italian contractors is designed to smother the strike to the benefit of the bureaucracy that have lost or never had control of it. Hicks supports the strike hence …
Comment by Bloody Hell — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:45 pm
Bloody Hell, I don’t think that’s quite right. The SWP statement agrees with the fact that there are progressive demands contained within the strike. Thus it is perfectly rational for them to be on the picket line to try to push support for these demands. Its just that they think the overall character of the strike is reactionary and there for that we cannot raise slogans unconditionally supporting the strike. They support the strike but only on the condition that it is transformed.
The argument is do you start by emphasising the negative aspects of the strike and see the biggest danger as being that a wave of racism is unleashed or do you start with the fact that the core demands of the strike are positive and argue from there. So your right we should unconditionally support the strike, though we should argue against certain slogans.
Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 31 January, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
Just to summerise a sizable majority of this discussuon (and perhaps most discussion on this blog)
Blah blah blah SWP bad Blah blah blah No they not Blah Blah Blah Yes they are Blah No there not Blah blah This reminds me of what X or Y from SWP said in 1974 in regards to Z blah blah No I was at Z and actually what the SWP said was worse blah blah What was the point of this discussion again blah blah Oh yeah to comfirm that we are irrellevent blah blah that is the SWP’s fault too blah No its not Blah bleeding blah repeated ad nausium.
Comment by imatrot — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:15 pm
imatrot: Mr/Mrs perfect your point is?
Comment by Red — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
Well thanks for considering me perfect but anyway my point is … Why must every discussion result usually by the second or third comment into an attack on the SWP which then leads to SWP members defending themselves and then slowly degrades into a slanging match in which the central point of discussion is lost in the vortex of anti/ pro SWP discourse. Really comrades all this talk of how the SWP’s leaflet is the wrong way of addressing the strike is really ironic when coming from people whos only real intervention into the strike is to attack the SWP as if they were a central part of what was going on rather than a sizable but still relatively small organisation with little members actually involved in the struggle. If we really must wade into lefty trainspotting why don’t we get stuck into a telescopic analysis of the SP who seem to be more central to whats going on.
Comment by imatrot — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:32 pm
imatrot - somehow, you didn’t notice all the attacks on Galloway and Jerry Hicks.
Any particular reason why you only noticed attacks on the SWP?
Comment by external bulletin — 31 January, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
Imatrot - I agree that blaa blaa blaa arguing about our differences can be pointless. But there does seem to be a practical element to this discussion. Namely how should be address the strikes.
One argument is that the potential for racism is the biggest threat and we should approach the strikes with cortion- setting out our conditional support.
The other argument is that we should give unconditional but critical support to the strikes.
These are not idyll questions, rather then inform how we should approach the strike.
Of course the most important thing is that we all get out their and do something but it sounds like we are arguing for doing very different things.
Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
Because i am a cyborg from the SWP CC only able to follow their commands thus I decided to concentrate on the vast bulk of abuse rendered against the SWP and decieving felt obliged to ignore the attacks on those running dogs of imperialism Galloway and Hicks. Or more realistically I stopped reading before I got to them because the discussion had already descended into a pro SWP/ Anti SWP slanging match. But if you are a paranoid delusional type who sees the evil hand of the SWP everywhere please feel free to believe the first option.
BTW i am not a member of the SWP and hcve many criticisms of the way they work, I just don’t believe that this is the central point of every debate.
Comment by imatrot — 31 January, 2009 @ 7:04 pm
The SWP are opportunists, and their accomodation to Galloway in the past was disgusting, indeed it is likely they are saying the right things on this strike for the wrong reasons BUT THEY ARE SAYING THE RIGHT THINGS. When a group take a correct principled stand for whatever reason serious revolutionists are duty bound to support them. Derek Simpson, the Morning Star, the SP and all the rest who support these racist strikes are wrong, they are ASSISTING THE BNP by not fighting against the tide. This is Enoch Powell’s dockers writ large, this is Gordon Brown legacy to the British working class and the BNP are lapping it up. You must fight this reactionary mood as your lives depend on it or it will sweep the entire left away with it. You must tell them they are wrong, their enemy is not the Italian or Portugese workers who donated such large sums of money to the striking British miners in their great strike - BRITISH JOBS FOR BRITISH WORKERS IS BLACK REACTION and there is no getting around it. They should be fighting to make sure these workers are paid the union rates and, please, stop this pathetic excuses for racism and fight it
Comment by Gerry Downing — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
Inigo Montoya made the following point above:
I wonder what practical, hands on experience you have with organising migrant workers? And persuading the actually existing trade unions to put effort into prioritising recruiting migrant workers?
In union branches like mine, where there are many migrant worker members, there has been long running debate and gradual overcoming of misconceptions - it has been absolutely key to argue the principle that migrant workers should not be used to depress pay and conditions. That is a trade union prnciple that provides a common interest between the migrant workers (who don’t want to be discriminated against, and paid less), and the indigenous workers, who see bringing the migrants into the union as vital for maintaining their own pay and conditions.
Now of course there are issues with agency workers, and short term hires, etc etc, that make real life more complex than the theory, but as a union we want to see all workers treated the same.
Even after we have been organising Polish and other migrants for years, we still occassionally get activists and shop stewards echoing arguments at branch committee like british jobs for British workers. What we do is patiently and politely disagree, and run through once again why it is in the interests of both migrant and indigenous workers to be working together. The stewards themselves do a great job in the workplaces - where there can be chauvinism.
The issue in this strike is that migrant workers have been brought in at worse terms and pay, and outwith national union agreements. The actually existing workforce, with all the confused ideas in their heads are fighting against that.
It is utterly abstract to argue that these particular Italian and Portugese workers could be brought into the union on existing rates of pay. If the contractor was prepared to pay existing rates of pay, they would have recruited locally in the first place. The problem is the EU tendering process that allows firms to leverage different national rates of pay in this way. This is not the issue of individual migrants havig a right to go to other countries to work; the issue here is about multinational companies moving whole workforces about the globe to push down wages. In a sense this is a similar case to a British factory being closed to send the production abroad - but becasue it is construction it is the workforce that moves, not the factory.
Now I’ll let you into a secret. In the actually existing working class and trade union movement, some people are a slightly less left wing than the Trotskist left groups.
It is not suprising that given the use by the bosses of cheap foreign labour and not allowed local workers to aply for the jobs, that the dispute has got mixed up with attitudes to immigration. So what?. the militants in the industry, the actual union activists and the officials in the union have to deal with the workforce as it actually is, not how they would wish it to be.
The task of the activists is to go on and try to win the dispute, and to use whatever influence they have to ensure that people understand the issue is not about foreigners, but about the use of cheap labour to undermine union rates of pay, and conditions. But any activist who tries to do that in a crude way, may find they don’t get a hearing from the strikers. Experienced militants know that sometimes you need to roll with the punches so to speak, in order to maintain a dialogue, and be prepared to agree to disagree once you have made your own position clear.
Now what is happening is that the BBC and anti-union lie machine have snapped into line trying to dress this up as a purely reactionary strike against foreigners, in order to isolate it from support in the wider labour movement. Some people have fallen for it. But the lie from the BBC would not be so effective if it didn’t have a grain of truth in it.
The question is, will the labour movemetn be stronger or eaker if this strike wins? will we be stronger or weaker is it loses?
of course the BNP are all over this, but their influence would be weakened by victory, and strenghtened by defeat.
If the few class conscious trade union militants involved do all they can to win the strike, then their stock will be stronger among the rest of thw workforce, and their infleunce in challenging the occassional bit of racist prejudice will be stronger.
We shouldn’t let the more unfortunate slogans, and the press coverage, deflect us from understanding the actually concrete real-life issues involved
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
Andy
Those are very good points. These are difficult issues (because reality stubbornly refuses to fit into simple notions) and therefore there is room for difference, discussion and dialogue on the serious left about them.
What I don’t get is the Manichean view which talks of the darkest reaction defining and motivating these events and yet also paints a panglossian picture of transcontinental unity.
One major weakness these events reveal is the weakness of a left political force - political in the sense that normal people understand it, ie a political party - that they have exposed. That brings back various issues. And they are simply not going to go away.
Comment by Kevin Ovenden — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:26 pm
Andy
I don’t think we can really claim at the minute what the outcome victory or otherwise, in relation to the BNP will be. Whilst i can accept the argument that the BBC and other news sources have a motive to play up the racist elements it is important to understand that this boostering actually has real life effects in the broader workers movement and broader society in general. If the racist element is not challenged and a victory is won amidst national media focus on the racist element, then it will come to be accepted that it really was a racist strike, even if it wasn’t. The BNP could use this to ‘booster’ themselves and claim that it was there politics that won the day.
Of course the answer to this situation is not to call for a defeat for the strike but to fight to ensure it wins but at the same time ensure that the racist slogans are challenged.
Comment by imatrot — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:30 pm
#54 The equation of striking workers, supported by their trade unions, sporting slogans echoing the recent statements of a Labour prime minister with those who marched in support of Enoch Powell’s after he was sacked by Ted Heath for his rivers of blood speech is so bonkers it should not be worth commenting on. Yet the hysterical reaction of the SWP and some other ultra-lefts to the strikes would suggest this is a view with a wider currency than just one or two idiots.
If this is your starting point, there is absolutely no hope of you influencing workers to move to the left rather than the right and you will leave the field open to the BNP. This is dangerous and irresponsible. Fortunately we have the likes of Galloway, Jerry Hicks, Tony Woodley, the Morning Star and the Socialist Party to help try to ensure these strikes, prompted by prefectly legitimate grievances, are led in a progressive direction. Meantime the toy bolsheviks should go play with their toys.
Comment by gobsmacked — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:36 pm
#85 iamatrot
“Of course the answer to this situation is not to call for a defeat for the strike but to fight to ensure it wins but at the same time ensure that the racist slogans are challenged.”
Exactly.
My own view is that the most obvious beneficiaries of a victory would be the trade unions, and working class self organisation, and direct industrial democracy.
In the light of defeat, the BNP would clam that the workers had been betrayed by the liberal metropolitan elite, the uniosn had failed the workers as wel, and they need the BNP to speak for them.
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
How will the strikes win? By expelling the Italians and Portugese workers and giving their jobs to British workers. And who is British? I am not although I have lived here for 35 years. And as unemployment escalates when we have finished with the Poles and East Europeans we can turn on the Balcks and Asians - maybe British technically but not really, say the BNP. And you think the BNP will not benefit from this? They are on a win-win ticket here. Unless you oppose this reaction and stop acommodating it you will destroy the left. Ultra-left revolutionaries - look at the ’sensible’ company the SP is now allied with and still call themselves Trotskyists! “Fortunately we have the likes of Galloway, Jerry Hicks, Tony Woodley, the Morning Star and the Socialist Party” Good Christ, if I wasn’t an athist
Comment by Gerry Downing — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
Andy N # 82 asks: “The question is, will the labour movement be stronger or weaker if this strike wins? will we be stronger or weaker is it loses?”
What is defined as winning - who frames what victory would mean? Here are two framings:
Victory = a) The imposition of by the unions of a new framework of non-discriminatory, egalitarian and socially just hiring practices for the L.O.R job and others? Or b) the media spectacle of ‘British Workers’ defending their right to jobs by driving out ‘foreign workers’?
While it could have been different, the right wing slogan of ‘BJ4BW’ has gained hegemony over the situation. This has been through an interaction of Gordon Brown’s notorious words, with the slogans of desperate shop stewards, which have found a willing and resonant echo-chamber in the capitalist mass media. This media reaction of course contrasts with every other example of biased pro-boss reportage or purposeful ignoring of workers actions and opinions when they challenge capital.
If victory become framed in these BJ4BW terms - then it could encourage action against all sorts of ‘other’ groups of workers - from polish workers to long established British Black and Asian working classes. A pogrom atmosphere at the edge of a great capitalist depression, this strike could be a grim precedent. And if the strike fails - the situation is of course also bad - for it has still put the idea of blaming foreign workers at the centre of organised labour, and added to the bitterness of defeat, which also feeds fascism.
This is the result of a situation where strike action in resistance to this massive wave of job cuts and redundancies has been deemed ‘impossible’ by the trades union leaders, the mass of workers and the Labour party. So instead, we fight each other. Divide and rule.
This is the result of decades of UK trade union defeat and retreat, the globalisation of the capitalist enemy, and the collapse of the idea of socialism. Resistance needs some at its heart who have a politics which can challenge and look beyond the dominance of capitalist market logic, thus making direct action in the defence of jobs credible. Given the bailout of the banks, belief in the ‘realism’ of winning support to save jobs can grow.
That must be our hope. Build mass direct action against a potent and visible symbol of the job losses, use it as a rallying point, combine it with a general challenge to capitalist market dominance - to spread the demands that the ‘bail-outs’ to the rich are instead made to defend the jobs and homes of the mass of working class people.
Comment by Barry Kade — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:07 pm
But wouldn’t a ‘victory’ for the strikers in the present climate mean that the immigrant workers are sacked and that the BNP would claim a victory for “British jobs for British workers”?
Comment by anticapitalista — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:16 pm
Post #29 “Now we see why the `respectable’ SWP is opposing this strike: because Jerry Hicks and George Galloway support it. Talk about instruments of the bureaucracy.”
From reading the SWP statement, which I posted, I would argue that the SWP are not opposing this strike but are taking a rather more critical stance to the dispute than those comrades who seem to be content to tail after those forces who exult in the use of national and chauvinist slogans by the strikers.
Now lets be clear the SWP are not calling on workers to cross the picket lines. What they are saying is that urging on these strikes is dangerous given that they are ever more dominated by nationalist slogans and are directed against migrant workers. The strikes are then being co-opted by the trade union bureaucracy and the national bourgeois media who are more than happy to publicize reactionary elements within the strike while mantianing total silence about the real threat to the jobs of all workers in the construction industry.
If there is any event from recent history that is similar to this dispute it can only be the strikes that backed that well known classicist Enoch Powell after his outburst regarding “rivers of blood”. Should revolutionaries have backed those strikes and tailed the noxious slogans put out by Powell and the tiny bands of Nazis? Of course not! On the other at that time revolutionaries correctly refused to go into work scabbing on their fellow workers. Instead they made clear that the slogans of the strike were reactionary and contrary to their real interests and pointed to the immense power of an active organised section of the class as revealed in that dispute.
And that is exactly how revolutionaries opught to act today and is very different from the craven tailing of nationalism displayed on this blog by the acolytes of that well known British nationalist George Galloway.
Comment by Mike — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:19 pm
What the strike is about is the EU tendering process that allows a contractor to bid based upon importng the entire workforce at rates of pay and terms & conditions inferior to the prevailing national conditions; and to bypass trade union organisation by so doing.
Given that at some point there will have to either be a negotiated settlement, or some government initiative to defuse the situation, then I am sure Unite will be pursuing some result whereby workers already residing in britain cannot be excluded from applying for jobs; and whereby the pay. terms and conditions have to be at existing british levels..
This would be a good result.
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:21 pm
Has anyone got evidence of what the contract workers are paid?
Comment by Geordie — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
Post #72 “The Morning Star has a more understanding progressive view of the Construction despute than the ultra left views of Socialist Worker and the SWP.”
The Bore and its adjunct the CPB are deeply nationalist and were always going to back the reactionary slogans that now dominate this dispute. As ever they oppose the internationalist views of revolutionary socialists.
Let’s not forget they scabbed in the past and would do so agin and all in the name of british nationalism.
Comment by Mike — 31 January, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
`Let’s not forget they scabbed in the past and would do so again and all in the name of british nationalism.’
The only people in danger of being branded scabs in relation to this dispute it the SWP. Apparently they’re going to set up a counter-demonstration and pro-contractor pickets. Perhaps they’ll be `linking arms’ with the police whilst enjoying a cosy chat about racism with them?
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 8:38 am
That the forerunners of the Bore and the CPB scabbed and for that matter campaigned for the Tories in at least one election is a matter of fact. Although I do recall Rob Griffith denying these facts back in my local many moons ago. However the garbage retailed in post #96 are nothing but tittle tattle - evidence please.
Comment by Mike — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:02 am
#96 What are you talking about `tittle tattle’. Read `Ray’ over on Lenin’s Tomb. He wants sepearate pickets and demonstrations in support of the contractors. The SWP have branded the strike reactionary and the bulk of its participants ideological racists. They demand an intervention that accommodates the Italian contractor. All that is real scabbing. I think the SWP has fucked it’s `turn’ to the unions.
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:15 am
Mandy expresses real thinking behind New Labour:
You can go and work in Europe, Mandelson tells strikers
Unions furious as ministers take aim at Britain’s wildcat protesters
Lord Mandelson enraged unions and Labour MPs last night by accusing wildcat strikers of “protectionism” and claiming they could turn the recession into a full-blown depression.
The Business Secretary inflamed the dispute over foreign workers by suggesting that protesters could go and work elsewhere in Europe if they were unhappy…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/you-can-go-and-work-in-europe-mandelson-tells-strikers-1522527.html
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:35 am
No, we need a rank-and-file movement in the unions to combat this - but the Socialist Party are accommodating to it. Of the bigger groups only the SWP have taken a relatively healthy stance. The SP have moved beyond accommodating to Crow and Serwotka and now prostrate themselves before Woodley and Simpson/Hicks who are attempting to outbid each other in reaction in the bid for the leadership if Amicus/Unite.
Gerry Downing
“A trade union led by reactionary fakers organizes a strike against the admission of Negro workers into a certain branch of industry. Shall we support such a shameful strike? Of course not. But let us imagine that the bosses, utilizing the given strike, make an attempt to crush the trade union and to make impossible in general the organized self-defence of the workers. In this case we will defend the trade union as a matter of course in spite of its reactionary leadership.” Trotsky 1939
Comment by Gerry Downing — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:38 am
In reply to post #98 I note that a post on another blog by an individual who might or might not be a member of the SWP is hardly conclusive proof as to the stance of that group. It is in fact no more or less than the viewpoint of one individual.
Moreover I note that the SWP does not “demand an intervention that accommodates the Italian contractor”. Rather it seeks a settlement of the dispute that is to the mutual advantage of workers regardless of the country of origin. Such a position used to be described as internationalism I can only assume it is an unknown concept to some here.
Comment by Mike — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:45 am
`Rather it seeks a settlement of the dispute that is to the mutual advantage of workers regardless of the country of origin.’
You never say what that means though do you? The SWP have branded the strike reactionary and the bulk of its participants ideological racists. They want the wild cat strikers to end their action so that they can go around branding everybody who supported it as racists. How the sects end up in the pockets of the bureaucracy.
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 10:12 am
Taking the Michael do you have any ability to comprehend written statements or is your misrepresentation of the SWPs position merely malicious. Either way probably best you keep them to yourself as you sound like a twat.
Comment by imatrot — 1 February, 2009 @ 2:05 pm
Post #97 “The SWP have branded the strike reactionary and the bulk of its participants ideological racists.”
The SWP is correct in arguing that the tendency of this strike, under pressure from the bourgeois media that consciously reinforces the most backward prejudices of some of the workers involved in the dispute, is to become a purely reactionary dispute along the lines of past disputes such as the dockers walkout that backed Enoch Powell in 1968. And if push comes to shove the fact is that there are deep wellsprings of racism amongst the working people of this country. If you cannot recognise racism,as you obviously cannot, you cannot fight it but must capitulate to it as do those fools who support the spreading of these disputes which mark you are not directed against the bosses but aim at gaining guarantees for one group of workers, the so called British workers, at the expense of so called foreign workers.
Comment by Mike — 1 February, 2009 @ 3:09 pm
#99 Yes, we know Mike. The SWP are opposed to these strikes. we get it. good for you.
Comment by Taking the Michael — 1 February, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
I don’t understand the SWP. This strike is complex however if you use critical thinking you can sort out difficult situations. Of course racism and nationalism is a feature but so is union busting and the manipulation of migrant workers.
You can support this strike whilst picking up that racism is a divide and rule issue.
A sucessful outcome would be for the contract be open to ALL workers and have the right to be in a trade union, that is not a racist demand!
Comment by Cat — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:45 pm
“the SWP have branded the strike as reactionary and the bulk of its participants ideological racists” … “The SWP are opposed to these strikes”. Both these statements are totally false.
If people must fetishise the SWP, it would be as well to start by slagging off the positions it actually adopts. In this case, it argues that the strikers should radicalize the dispute and turn their fire on the bosses. That’s clear enough isn’t it??
Comment by Jonathan — 1 February, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
This is a real August 4 turning point for the British Labour movement. Besides those wedded to Labour reformism and the TU bureaucracy we have those wedded to reformism as a theory - George Galloway. And we have the Libertarian Marxist, anarcho-syndicalist tradition that they see the socialist future as composed of workers as they are now, with their present level of consciousness and draw the conclusion that we must accommodate to that, however bad it is. The libcom anarchists take a similar line. No revolutionary hope for the future where the ‘muck of ages’ will be swept away - not for nothing does the International pledge to ‘change forthwith the old CONDITIONS’ a materialist appreciation of the source of consciousness. But to accommodate reaction like you are doing is inexcusable.
I am exceedingly pleased that the AWL, the SWP and Workers Power have taken such clear positions against this chauvinist strike wave. Despite differences on other very serious matters we must now unite to fight this reaction; it is led by Gordon Brown, it is developed by the Unite leadership - Woodley, Simpson, Hicks, etc., they are defended by the Morning Star and the Socialist Party and Respect - has the ISG managed to find its voice behind Galloway’s arse yet? Or are they simply overpowered by the stench? Must you really rely on the reactionary Gregor Gall to speak for you on this matter?
It will obviously now have repercussions on the NSSN and everywhere else. If I have criticisms of the AWL and SWP’s positions is that they are soft on the TU bureaucracy, who are funding Gordon Brown and whose capitulation to capitalism over the years has produced this situation. Now is the time to set ourselves the task of building a real principled internationalist rank-and-file movement in the TUs, independent of ALL TU bureaucracies. Let us now fight for that in the NSSN against all the British chauvinists and their apologists - and what really pathetic grovelling apologies we have heard! Poor old muddled Paul in an AWL post thinks their article does not ‘have any purchase on reality’. Hitler was a reality once. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to purchase him!
Comment by Gerry Downing — 2 February, 2009 @ 11:49 am
#16: “Those supporting the Lindsey strike are playing with fire.”
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/037p2J02498nB/610x.jpg
Comment by playing with fire — 28 June, 2009 @ 6:33 am