‘Support for action and debate about how we win – at the time when it counts most’
Suzanne Muna, Unite Executive Committee member
Organising a picket line is hard work, and you feel a lot of responsibility for the members making sacrifices to make a stand. One thing that makes it more manageable is being part of a much bigger collective of people, bigger even than your own union, who are fighting the same battles in their workplaces.
I’m likely to be out on strike again this year when pay negotiations restart at my college, and we’ll be drawing again on the support of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) to get the word out about when and why we’re taking action. Being part of the NSSN means that at the time when it counts most, we can gather support from others in our region, we can get publicity for our action, gather messages of solidarity, and appeal for strike fund donations. This is part of the reason I’m attending the NSSN conference.
The other reason is a strategic one. Coordinating our action is essential over the coming year. Coordinating our strikes gives us the chance of making the maximum impact on the employers in return for the least sacrifice by our members. We need to unify our struggles within sectors and across sectors. The NSSN allows us to debate how to do that, to coordinate not just the days of action, but our demands too, like levels of pay increase, restoration of pensions, and safe staffing levels.
Over the last year, workers have been pushed by sky-high prices for food, gas, electricity, and travel, to get on picket lines and demand that employers start to pay enough to live on. The money is there, it’s just going to the wrong people, like the shareholders of the big oil, gas, and tech companies who have enjoyed record payouts but pay minimal tax. Some of our strikes have been very successful, but for many workers, particularly in the public sector, there is a lot more to be won.
‘It brings together some of the best fighters for our class’
Gareth Bromhall, Ambulance service worker and secretary Swansea trades council
The NSSN conference is one of the best places to talk about how we win it. I’m attending the NSSN conference this year because as an ambulance service worker who has taken strike action in the past six months, I know the importance of coordinated action and working-class unity within our trade unions.
The tsunami of industrial action across health, transport, education, communication and the civil service shows the potential strength of our movement. An event that brings together some of the best fighters for our class is vital.
On our own picket line, and on the many that I have visited over the past year, without exception the prevailing discussion was around the need for coordinated action, across sectors, and the need for a 24-hour general strike. The strikers have also shown, by turning out for strike rallies and pickets, and visiting pickets of other union branches, that solidarity and coordination are vital.
I believe that the discussions that will take place, and the network itself, will strengthen the fight for these aims. So I will be encouraging my fellow NHS strikers to attend. And as the secretary of a trades council long-affiliated to the NSSN, I will be encouraging our affiliates and delegates to do the same.
