After February 1, all out on March 15 – build towards a 24-hour general strike

Socialist Party Scotland

• Union leaders should launch an appeal for a massive strike fund for those on the front line
• Fight the new anti-union bill with national action and a 24-hour general strike if the Tories try to implement it
• Kick out the Tories – Starmer’s Labour and the SNP don’t fight for us. Build a new workers’ party
• Nationalise rail, mail and the big companies under democratic working-class control and management
• Take the wealth off the super-rich. For a socialist alternative to capitalism’s poverty and crisis

Civil servants, university staff, train drivers and some teachers are all out of strike on February 1 in Scotland. In England and Wales they are also joined by 300,000 members of the NEU education union as well.

This is a big escalation in a strike wave that has seen workers in the postal service, BT, railways, councils, the NHS and Scottish teachers taking action among others.

What is clear is that the idea that we all need to strike together for pay rises is hugely popular. The 15 March is a day that some unions are already planning to strike on.

It’s also the Tory government’s budget that will see a further onslaught against public spending and workers’ rights.

If all the unions with live strike ballots coordinated action on March 15 it would be possible to have a massive strike that day, And lay the ground for a 24-hour general strike.

Fight anti-union laws

The strike wave is an answer to the new Tory anti-union bill. If they try and enact the legislation they must be met with a 24-hour general strike.

The Tories are in crisis, deeply unpopular and divided. But they have every intention of trying to make workers pay for the crisis of capitalism. But the workers’ movement has the power to defeat them with coordinated action.

All trade unions are fighting the government. It’s no accident that the Tories are working behind the scenes to defeat the postal workers and the rail workers, backing Royal Mail and the privatised rail companies. That’s another reason to fight together and all strike together.

In Scotland many strikes are also taking place against the SNP-led Scottish government who have passed on every penny of Tory austerity to public services in Scotland.

And it is that reality of continual acceptance of cuts that has brought the Scottish government into head-on collision with the trade union movement.

A force has re-entered the scene of history which could bring about the fundamental change needed. The working class!

In December 2022 alone 1.5 million strike days were taken across the UK. Those included CWU members in Royal Mail, NHS unions and the RMT transport union.

Now is the time to up the coordination of the action. Drawing more workers into struggle, all striking together, has the potential to win real pay rises for workers and increase the pressure on the employers and to drive out the Tories.

If the TUC in Britain was to respond to new anti-union legislation by calling for a 24-hour general strike – as the unions did in Ontario, Canada recently – the laws would be history and so could this weak Tory government.

Such a strike would terrify the capitalist elite, it would also massively increase the confidence and cohesion of the working class.

Build a new workers’ party and fight for socialism

There is not a single political party who is fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with workers. Labour leader Keir Starmer has demanded his MPs stay away from picket lines.

The SNP have been dragged kicking and screaming by striking workers to increase derisory pay offers.
Workers need a party of their own that stands for pay, benefit and pension rises that match inflation, for public ownership of the economy and for a fight for socialist change in society.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition offers a banner for trade unionists and others prepared to put up a real alternative to yet more austerity.

Socialist Party Scotland stands for the nationalisation of the major banks and corporations that dominate the economy, around 150 in the case of Britain, under workers’ control and management which would lay the basis for a socialist plan of production to end hunger and poverty.

The science and technique squandered by capitalism could be harnessed to meet the needs of all while protecting the planet.