Max McGee, Nuneaton Socialist Party
Reading the article ‘No to partnership between unions and employers’ in the Socialist I was reminded of my time as an Usdaw shop and distribution workers’ union rep for Tesco forklift drivers and warehouse pickers during the first lockdowns of the Covid pandemic.
Tesco saw its profits soar by millions since the start of lockdown in 2020, but by December 2021 the warehouse in which I was a union rep and branch secretary balloted in favour of strike action. It was a call that was answered across multiple sites in England as the ‘partnership’ agreement between Usdaw and Tesco bosses mandated all of these depots must also vote to strike for it to be accepted in negotiations.
Our tools were to be set down over the Christmas period, affecting over 5,000 workers at my site after a disgusting initial offer of a 1.5% pay rise, as Tesco tried to claw back some of the furlough pay we had forced them back on. We also had successful victories on unsafe working practices and intimidation of agency staff, the bosses trying to play on the language barriers between workers, which we overcame by translating bulletins.
With Covid deaths and deaths partially caused by exhaustion and overwork at the depot, it was reflection of the risks taken by the working class in general during this period just before the strike wave kicking off.
After a final negotiation mandated by law following the preliminary strike ballot, Tesco offered a below-inflation 5.5% offer. While a significant improvement on the initial lowball, it was still an insult to the essential workers that had risked their lives to keep the rest of society fed. Reflecting a growing fear of the organised working class, bosses across Britain ramped up victimisation of trade unionists, including sacking me during the course of the ballots. Socialist Party members in Usdaw made the point that the union should not be hosting a Tesco-organised and paid for social at all at its annual conference, and not least when their union reps were being attacked by Tesco bosses!
At Usdaw’s 1998 conference an EC statement announced social partnership explaining it “will mean both unions and companies learning to do things differently. Some of the traditional ways we have of doing things may need to change.” This approach has been a disaster for Usdaw members in Tesco, resulting in deterioration of conditions over the years and the loss of a ballot by workers on pay offers.
Partnership agreements muzzle workers and our organisations; there can be no overlap of interests between workers and bosses, social partnership in any sense is completely impossible.
The National Shop Stewards Network since Covid has detailed the marked increase in workplace tribunals year on year. It shows that we can’t just rely on strong unions for our class interests to be realised.
As part of the struggle for socialism, we need a political wing of our industrial struggle, otherwise we lose the minute the ink on our contracts dries and are forced out back on the picket line, as Tesco warehouse workers have seen as they reballoted for strike action over pay during August 2024!
