Unions must meet to prepare 24-hour general strike
Nick Auvache, Camden and Haringey Socialist Party
The working class fired a powerful warning shot across the bow of the Tory government of the rich, with a powerful display of united workers’ strike action on 15 March. At the same time, Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt was unveiling his anti-working class budget.
Over 600,000 striking workers sent a clear message back: ‘We have had enough of your cuts and attacks on our wages. Our class will not bear the burden of your crisis!’
The government accuses workers of holding the economy to ransom by striking, lecturing us on ‘wage restraint’. But in reality it is the capitalists who are holding us to ransom, stacking up their profits.
Companies like BP and Shell are registering record profits in the midst of the greatest cost-of-living crisis for 40 years, but the Tories never call for profit restraint!
Recent analysis of the top 350 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange carried out by Unite the Union, showed that the average profit margins of these 350 bloodsuckers rose by 89% between the first half of 2019 and 2022.
I bet you haven’t seen your wages rise by this amount since 2019! No wonder workers are not only striking, but seeking out socialist ideas in increasing numbers.
The Tories are likely to lose the next general election. But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is desperate to reassure the bosses he is on their side, not ours. That’s why he has blocked Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate in the next election, and it’s why he has disciplined front-bench MPs for speaking out on picket lines.
The working class needs a political voice. If the trade unions backed a workers’ list of candidates, independently of Labour, for the next general election, it would have a huge effect and be a stepping stone towards the creation of a new mass workers’ party that is needed.
The huge wave of strikes that has swept Britain has already hit the bosses where it hurts – in their profits. Further coordination, like that on 15 March, including a 24-hour general strike, would deal further blows and must be a next step (see page 3).
To bring an end to bosses’ profiteering, and to their endless attacks on workers for good, means fighting to transform society. It means taking the banks and big business out of the hands of the tiny number of individuals who get very rich at our expense and bringing them into public ownership, under working-class control and management, so that production can be planned to meet need, not profit. It means fighting for socialism.
