Rob Williams, Socialist Party trade union and workplace organiser
The Tories have finally delivered their well-trailed autumn statement. Their latest chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, the fourth this year, tried to face both ways – assuring the money markets that the government has got a handle on public finances, while trying to stealthily soften the appearance of their new austerity blows on working-class people. But make no mistake, these are vicious attacks, on top of the brutal cost-of-living squeeze.
Twelve years ago, Tories David Cameron and George Osborne, and Lib Dem Nick Clegg, unleashed £100 billion of cuts. The attack on public sector pensions led to what was effectively a public sector general strike of two million workers on 30 November 2011. It could, and should’ve been the first step in a struggle that could have defeated the Tory-led coalition, but the right-wing trade union leaders capitulated.
But the eleventh anniversary of the ‘N30’ public sector pensions strike will also see mass coordinated strike action. Up to 200,000 workers will be out on that day, including CWU members in Royal Mail, UCU in higher education, joined in some universities by Unison, as well as NEU action in sixth-form colleges.
If anything, the potential is far greater now than in 2011. Then, public sector workers were very much in the vanguard. The Tories attempted to play them off against workers in the private sector. It didn’t work: there was great support for the mass public sector action then, with huge strike rallies in towns and cities all over the country.
But now, in the face of spiralling prices hitting all workers, a strike wave has been growing across all sectors. It is made up of three main elements: localised, mainly private sector, strikes; key national private sector disputes such as Royal Mail, BT and the railways; and now national ballots and action in the public sector, especially the NHS.
This N30 strike day isn’t a one-off. It is one of ten further Royal Mail strikes from now until Christmas, and the third of three UCU strikes. On 24 November, the EIS is calling a Scottish-wide school strike, while its members in higher education will be joining UCU and Unison on the 24 and 25. Saturday 26 November sees train drivers in Aslef take further action. And on every day there are workers taking strike action, with many winning significant victories, such as Unite members on Liverpool docks and Hull Stagecoach buses.
But Hunt’s budget is a new vicious turning of the screw. It is confirmation that the Tories and the boss class that they represent want workers to pay for this crisis not of our making. They have to be taken on and defeated.
As in 2011, the most effective way to do that is to take action together. This means the unions have to come together to coordinate their strike calendars, so that the strikes of 30 November are built upon and escalated, with unions joining the action as they win their ballots.
The incredible reballot results of the RMT in the national rail dispute, smashing the undemocratic thresholds of the restrictive Tory anti-union laws, are a real sign of the militant mood of rail workers and their determination to fight and win, given what is at stake for them and their families.
That fighting mood is increasingly being shared by more and more workers. The bosses’ Tory political backers are staggering from one crisis to another. But within each individual dispute, where workers are fighting for gains, the consciousness is building that if workers fight and strike together, the employers can be pushed back and the Tories forced out.
