‘Don’t Pay’ or ‘Enough is Enough’: The role of workers’ vanguards in the current moment – Lessons to learn from GKN workers in Italy and others

Angry Workers

There are moments when a particular group of workers can become the political focus for the wider working class. They can act as a pole of attraction, they can become a conduit for a wider program and new forms of struggle.

The current wave of strikes in Britain shows that significant sections of the working class feel both the need and ability to defend their own interests. It has come at a point in the deepening crisis where the mainstream political establishment is unable to present meaningful state-driven solutions.

In desperation, the controlling Tory party has ditched Johnson and created several months of vacuum where they don’t even pretend to generate plans to ease hardships. That convulsion in the governing party is not unique to Britain. Unable to respond to crisis and pacify the population, governments elsewhere in Western Europe have also dissolved. In France, Macron’s party have lost control of the National Assembly and, in Italy, Draghi’s coalition government has collapsed.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the British Labour Party has been intent on showing themselves as the next Government to prop up the capitalist status quo in Britain. They are so keen to prove that point that, week in, week out, they have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from struggling workers.

While the absence of a plan is lamented by the reformists, we think it opens up an opportunity to strengthen the chance for workers’ struggles to progress from singular defensive battles to a wider political program for the working class.

Things are churning

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Essential workers of the world unite!

Roarmag

The “heroes” who sustain our lives during this crisis, are barely able to sustain theirs. A heterogeneous working class movement of frontline workers can change this.

Authors: Santiago Leyva del Río, Kaveri Medappa

Ironically, the global pandemic which threatens our lives has put a spotlight on the infrastructures that sustain them. The workers who have always been saving lives, caring for the ill, cleaning and sorting waste, producing goods and providing services essential for the uninterrupted running of lives have been made “heroes.” The same capitalist actors who considered these workers easily replaceable and often dismissed their work as “unskilled” are now cynically hailing them as “warriors.”

The classification of certain workers as “essential” has created conditions which allow for disparate groups of workers to think about themselves as part of a collective. The nature of this crisis has made the infrastructural labor that sustains everyday life evident. On the one hand, this conjuncture has revealed, and will exacerbate the shared vulnerabilities of “essential workers.” On the other, it has altered the public perception of this work, paving the way for its social and economic valorization. These new circumstances open up possibilities for the articulation of a heterogeneous working-class movement.

The sudden glorification of essential workers can be considered an epiphanic moment in which the ideology that shapes our world views, notions of ourselves, our aspirations and desires can no longer obscure what is really essential. Neoliberal ideology has loudly denied the vulnerability and the interdependence which sustain our lives, sedating us into an alienating, individualistic sense of normality. However, our slumber has been disturbed and we have been abruptly awakened from our complacent fictions to collectively confront a reality that is more crude than usual, yet more real than what we call normality.

Our two-faced governments encourage us to clap for essential workers from our homes, while insisting that we need to get the same economy which has been ostracizing these very same workers back on its feet: a return to “normality.” In so doing, they turn our former precarious lives into an aspiration. We are witnessing an iteration of what Mark Fisher called capitalist realism — the idea that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. In this interregnum, the only thinkable alternative to what is perceived as a literal confrontation with the end of the world seems to be the longing for a nostalgic return to a crappy past. Will essential workers continue to be clapped for and worshiped as heroes once we go back to the new, old “normal”?

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DORSET IWW JOINS BMA PICKET

 

It seems that our beloved Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Rhymes-with-naughty-word Hunt doesn’t really have to expend much effort to totally piss off the working class.

This was proven beyond doubt by the picket that assembled from a number of unions (Dorset IWW, Unite and that Bakers one that gave Hovis a tough time over 0 hours contracts) in solidarity with the BMA outside Bournemouth Hospital at 8.30 on a freezing cold 10^th february morning.

The depth to which this toff twat can piss off the working class couldn’t have been made clearer by a solidly determined member of Dorset IWW who was in hospital at the time with an extremely painful back injury that’s going to take a long time to heal.

Our brave and stalwart comrade left her sick bed in only light hospital clothing and somehow made her way to the picket line outside where she stood for 15 minutes in solidarity with the junior doctors. Frozen solid and in excrutiating agony the antics of tory tof cunt Hunt it seems can dull the physical discomfort with the anger it creates. Fellow worker we salute you.

Well Hunt here’s a message for you. If you can piss us off so that we’ll leave our sick beds and let you know what we think of you when we’re fit be very very afraid. One day we’re going to catch up with you and you have a problem pal.

Solidarity with the Junior Doctors. Whereve the Junior Doctors stand Dorset IWW stands with them. An injury to one is an injury to all; literally in this case.

Anti Workfare Pickets. IWW Dorset

A local Co-operative store in Bournemouth has chosen to sign up to use the exploitative practice of Workfare or government work programme.

IWW Dorset are outraged that a store that promotes itself as an “ethical employer” is prepared to put fellow workers jobs at risk, as well as paying the workfare participant less than minimum wage.

We demand that Co-operative put an immediate end to this exploitative practice and offer the workfare participant a contract of employment and treat them as an equal team member.

As such we are proposing a rolling picket to inform customers of the situation and allow them to make up their own minds what action they are prepared to take if any.

We are therefore looking for volunteers to man the picket, handing out leaflets at convenient times between 7am and 11pm ongoing as and when people are available.

The picket will operate at any times when we can get 3 or more people to man it.

Leaflets and guidance will be provided for all volunteers.

If you want to help with this action please be in touch, in the first instance by emailing afoolofatook@riseup.net with any availability. Someone will then be in contact with you with further details and rota slots will be prepared.

Solidarity – See you on the streets!

Greece IWW: ‘In any case NO! We do not stop, We continue.’

The struggle for human emancipation, is a struggle against capitalism and every institution or policy assignment and split representation.The recent NO should not be left as a referendum victory of the “Greeks”, but to mark the re-start of workers to continue and strengthen self-organization. The class struggle is the basic and sufficient condition not only to stop the capitalist attacks, but also the cohesive element that allows us to recall, the basic values of our class such as solidarity, direct action and companionship. In this context, on the occasion of 110 years since the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) we invite you to the event discussion: “The working class and the employer class have nothing in common!” Timeliness of revolutionary syndicalism on July 18th, 8pm at Eutopia Workshop, Leonidou 62 & Thermopylae, Kerameikos. Not to sigh for the history. But to learn from the past in order to organize the present, to emancipate the future.

8/7/2015
Industrial Workers of the Word (IWW) -Greece, Regional Organizing Commitee (GreROC) Contact

Victory at the job centre – an injury to one is an injury to all!

There is a way to help unemployed people who have ‘failed’ workplace assessments and a way was found here in Dorset.

A fellow worker with quite severe adult ADHD and anxiety disorder was recently the victim of a ridiculous workplace assessment and found totally fit for work without any consideration for his condition.

The fellow worker is in possession of a letter of diagnosis dated October 2014 that his ADHD and anxiety are so bad that he is unfit for work.

The fellow worker is also a single parent.

After the assessment ‘fail’ his ESA was immediately stopped and he was informed to file a claim for JSA and search for a job. No support, no guidance, nothing.

The fellow worker asked me to accompany him to the job centre and I did so.

The initial appointment was basically a ‘get the claim filed’ exercise designed to last about 10 minutes. This was no problem.

The fellow worker was then told that his next appointment would be a 40 minute appointment that would delve further into an appropriate type of work and any implications regarding his single parenthood. The JC adviser then told the fellow worker his appointment would be at a time that was ridiculous and gave the fellow worker no time to pick his daughter up from school.

The fellow worker asked for another appointment more appropriate and was told ‘no’.

The fellow worker then asked me for assistance. Together we demanded an appropriate appointment and the second time around after some faffing around in a back area we were given the appointment we wanted.

Getting this wish gave us 7 days to formulate a strategy to try to avoid the fellow worker being put into a position where :-

1. His mental health would deteriorate

2. He would be unable to take and collect his daughter to and from school

3. He would be able to construct a meaningful appeal against the work assessment’s ridiculous findings.

The answer was a good old fashioned GP’s sick note that the fellow worker had obtained at a GP’s vist immediately after the 10 minute interview at the jobcentre.

The fellow worker and I attended the job centre for the 40 minute appointment and rather than let the JC adviser control the interview the fellow worker took immediate control and presented his sick note clearly stating that he was signed off from work for 3 months with an anxiety disorder.

This gave us everything we wanted. The job centre adviser was forced to concede that JSA can be paid for up to 13 weeks on production of a sick note without there being any pressure on the claimant to search for work or be on any kind of workfare program.

I am pleased to say that our fellow worker will now be paid for 3 months at the full adult jobseekers rate, is under no pressure to attend the job centre, search for work or be mandated to attend workfare.

The pressure is now off and the task ahead is for our fellow worker to put together an appeal and have his ESA re-instated.

The important point in all this is that there is a role for union reps with job centre claimants.

The fellow worker approached the union for help and together we were able to identify a strategy that would achieve what the fellow worker wanted and we left the job centre fully satisfied with the outcome.

Credit goes to the fellow worker who owned the problem and with union assistance worked out his own solution.

He did tell me that support from the IWW had been crucial in him obtaining the confidence to clearly dominate the proceedings at the job centre and get the result he wanted.

He was quite anxious that because his ESA had been stopped, without an income he and his daughter would have problems being able to feed themselves and pay their rent.

I am please to report that this fellow worker and his daughter are now safe for 3 months pending appeal thanks to his presence of mind and appropriate IWW support.

Deal or No Deal

I work part-time (16 hours) at South West branch of a well known national chain of grocery stores that like to publicise themselves as ethical and a mutual.

At a management briefing today a pay deal has been announced for the next two years amounting to 10.2 percent with 8.2 percent being paid in October 2015 and 2% in October 2016. This pay rise has been restricted to Floor staff and 1^st line team leaders.

Whilst on the surface this may seem a good deal it is flawed at the most fundamental level. Most workers are on short time contracts; anything from 8 to 20 hours and for many of them especially those drawing in-work benefits this pay rise is no rise at all.

Colleagues drawing such benefits as Housing Benefit, Tax credits, Pension credit or any other means tested benefits probably will not get a pay rise because their hourly rate will increase and their means tested subsidies will go down cancelling out any advantage.

Team leaders are mostly on full time contracts of 35 hours and above so will probably derive some short term benefit from this deal before inflation cancels it out.

USDAW will probably crow about this deal from the rooftops whilst urging it’s members to vote Labour and will be busy trying to avoid dislocating it’s collaborationist shoulder whilst it pats itself on the back about ‘delivering’ for it’s membership who pay the eye watering salaries to its office bearers enjoying privileged jobs for life at the members expense.

This is a lousy deal for all workers whichever way you stack it up. It reinforces division between workers in an artificial hierarchy, it does nothing for the lowest paid and most exploited workers, it gives a collaborationist union that frequently negotiates ‘no-strike’ deals with exploitative employers just to get recognition at work a superficial piece of meaningless publicity.

The long term vision of the Industrial Workers of the World must remain in place. There can be no peace until the wages system is done away with and workers in all endeavours of the means of production whether agrarian or industrial are fully in democratic control.

Reformism and collaboration are not the tools of working class emancipation.

The struggle goes on.

A Worker.