Working Class Solidarity

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I'm honestly getting a wee bit tired of seeing workers attack other workers for committing to industrial action over working conditions.

I was in London yesterday with my wife and a mate. I half-joked that I'd join an RMT picket if I saw one. The RMT recently committed to partial strike action due to new contractual terms being imposed upon TfL tube drivers without discussion. You can read more about it here.

"Why?", my mate said. "TfL drivers get paid loads!"

So what? 

Money doesn't reduce or eliminate risk and poor working conditions. Nor does it return the 200 part-time night driver positions that were suddenly abolished without consent. Those night driver roles were originally introduced to prevent the regular drivers from having to frequently change shifts. If you've ever done shift work you'll know that it can severely affect your sleeping pattern, lead to difficulties sleeping, bring on fatigue, and a lack of concentration and alertness.

"But what about nurses, they should get paid more. They shouldn't have to work 12 hr shifts!"

I agree!

But why does that have to mean that I shouldn't support TfL workers and the RMT strike? Or in fact any other workers and industrial action? No worker engages in strike action purely for the sake of it, no one is daft enough to risk their job and livelihood likes this! No, workers engage in strike action because there is something fundamentally wrong with their working conditions, be it wages, health and safety concerns or understaffing.

Maybe nurses need unions that are stronger on these issues. Maybe we should be helping to organise industrial action on behalf of NHS workers. Maybe the root cause of all these issues is the same - chronic underfunding due to the dominance of state-monopoly capitalism.

All workers should be angered by the fact that our tax money is not being used to fund services that are essential to our own livelihood. We should be angry that the same tax money is instead being used to subsidise monopolists, oligarchs and big business interests who then ship it off to some tax haven in Bermuda, never to be seen again. 

We should remember to focus our anger where it rightfully belongs; we should punch up, not across. How much workers are paid is an issue between them and their boss, it's not for other workers to squabble over. Remember that our struggle is a class struggle, it is the struggle of the working class against the capitalists and hence, it's counter-productive to pitch workers against each other.

If you join the pickets of other workers, when the time comes, and believe me it will, they'll join yours.

It's called class solidarity.



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