Build for a 24-hour general strike

The ‘Summer of Discontent’ that saw rail workers, Scottish council workers, postal workers and BT staff taking action is turning into a ‘Winter of Discontent’.

Even forty four years after millions of workers went on strike in 1979 in one of the biggest periods of struggle since the 1926 general strike, the phrase has continued to haunt the bosses and the capitalist establishment.

Like then, the current strike wave has been driven by spiralling inflation and a brutal cost-of-living squeeze. Since the summer we now have Scottish teachers taking action on pay for the first time in almost forty years.

They were joined by 70,000 university lecturers and 115,000 postal workers among others at the end of November. CWU members in Royal Mail are striking up to Xmas to defend the basic integrity of the industry and their terms and conditions.

RMT members are doing the same against the Tory government and the bosses at Network Rail and many train operating companies.

The suspension of scores of CWU union reps shows the vengeful spite of Royal Mail bosses. Postal workers are determined to fight to defend their reps, knowing full well this is a vital part of maintaining the CWU in Royal Mail.

For the first time ever the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) voted to strike UK-wide. Action in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is due to take place from next week.

RCN Scotland, Unison, GMB and Unite members also rejected the below inflation £2,205 Scottish government NHS pay offer. As a result yet another concession was made, adding £35 million to the over £500 million forced from the government to avert strike action in the NHS in Scotland.

Like the council workers’ strikes over the summer, those are steps forward but still below inflation and the spiralling cost of living.

Imagine how much more was possible if strike action in the NHS was being taken? Nevertheless, it’s clear that determined and militant action by workers has the potential to win significant pay improvements for workers.

equal pay

The total won following the historic equal pay strike in Glasgow is now £800 million. This was only possible by workers fighting together backed by a fighting trade union leadership.

Other workers like the PCS civil service union and very likely the FBU will also have live strike ballots. Scottish Unison members in the councils and the NHS will soon by tabling pay claims for 2023/24 with real inflation likely to be still way over 10%.

There is a real prospect of public sector action going into 2023 approaching the scale of what took place on 30 November 2011, now known in the movement as ‘N30’.

Then, two million workers took action together in what was effectively a public sector general strike, to defend their pensions against the austerity offensive of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition.

The plans for strike action in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in December can also be a turning point.

This divided Tory government is the employer of millions of public sector workers, and the political backer of the privatised Royal Mail and rail companies.

Workers have no option but to fight, and are showing their determination to struggle. But on every picket line striking workers are saying: “We should be striking together.”

Coordinated action, particularly on the scale of a 24-hour general strike, bringing together workers from all sectors, would be a huge moment in raising workers’ sights and confidence.

It could put massive pressure on the Tories, posing the prospect of finally pushing them out of office. a new workers’ party

That prospect poses the political programme and vehicle needed by workers. There is already huge suspicion of Starmer and his ‘new New Labour’. His refusal to support strikes is not lost on workers.

Nor is the recent disgraceful expulsion from Labour of Unison’s national president Andrea Egan. It’s clear who’s side he is on – and it not ours!

Starmer could lever massive pressure on Sunak and Royal Mail management right now if he promised that in office Labour would deliver on the policy passed at its recent conference to renationalise Royal Mail. But his silence on this is deafening.

For the SNP the situation is no different. Most of the public sector strikes in Scotland means taking on the SNP in power. A party whose leadership support capitalism and the market just as vehemently as Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak.

It’s clear that workers need industrial strategy of mass coordinated strike action but also a political voice as well.

A political party that represents the interests of workers, their families and communities is vital.

And it’s the trade unions, particularly those who are leading this current strike wave, who need to act to build such a party to fight this rotten economic system of capitalism, austerity and wage poverty.