Paula Mitchell
300,000. That’s how many nurses in the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) are balloting over whether to take strike action, for the first time ever in the RCN’s 106-year history.
If they vote for action they will join 115,000 postal workers, more than 50,000 rail workers, and 40,000 workers in BT who have been taking national strike action.
Add to those the staff in dozens of colleges and universities currently participating in action. Then there are the countless bin workers, bus drivers, factory workers and more who are taking localised strike action.
And now public sector workers in schools and the civil service are balloting, and other health unions could follow.
No wonder the strikes are popular! They involve massive numbers of people and are inspiring millions more. Everyone is struggling and everyone needs a pay – or benefits, or pension – rise.
Once on the picket line, workers, many of whom have never done this before, are starting to feel their potential strength. Rail strikers have told our members how they now see that their strike is lifting the sights of others, giving other workers confidence.
Royal Mail bosses are digging in, tearing up national agreements, and so rightly the CWU has stepped up the action with 19 days running into December. That’s why the Socialist Party calls for the unions on the front line to launch big public appeals for a strike fund.
But workers should also be confident that gains can be made, such as the 15% pay rise criminal barristers have won.
And nothing should give workers the confidence more than seeing this anti-working class Tory government of the rich in meltdown. The strike wave is playing a big part in their weakness and in forcing U-turns. Now is the time to press home our advantage!
“We should all go out together” is probably the most common thing said to Socialist Party members when we visit strikers on the hundreds of picket lines that now stretch across England and Wales.
Strike action has been coordinated to a degree by the unions taking part – on 1 October four rail unions coordinated with each other and with the strike in Royal Mail.
But the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which involves the leaders and delegates from all the trade unions, and which meets from 18 October in its annual congress, has a huge responsibility. The popularity of the strikes shows the union leaders have authority – now they must use it!
Coordinate the action so we can all strike together, not only to win the pay rises we desperately need, but to deliver the killer blow to this Tory government. The TUC should also coordinate a mass appeal for a strike fund.
The National Shop Stewards Network is holding a pre-TUC action summit on Sunday 16 October in Brighton, open to everyone who is striking, preparing to strike, or looking for a way forward. Come to add to the pressure on the leaders to all strike together!
