Separating rhetoric from reality over general strike call

Talk of a one-day general strike against ConDem policies is being floated, led by the Unite union. While any action against this most reactionary of governments is to be supported, we need to separate the rhetoric from reality.

Last September, the TUC Congress voted to investigate the legality of a general strike. Most legal opinion indicates that, given the scope of anti-union laws, all-out action would be deemed unlawful and challenged in the courts.

So a general strike would have to be in defiance of the draconian legislation introduced by the Thatcher government and upheld by New Labour. For over 30 years, the trade union bureaucracy has run absolutely scared of the laws that prohibit spontaneous strikes, solidarity action and mass picketing.  

Any defiance wouldn’t, naturally, have the support of Labour, which is heavily dependent on Unite’s money. A Labour spokesman said: “There is no consensus for a general strike across the trade union movement. Strikes should be a last resort, and we are not in favour of a general strike.”

The record of actual resistance to the ConDems’ austerity drive by trade union leaders is poor to non-existent. Apart from the civil servants’ PCS union, whose members are on strike again today, there has been no sustained challenge.

Unite and Unison have constantly thwarted strike plans against cuts in jobs and services at local council level. When the ConDems announced plans to reduce public service pensions, Unison general secretary said he had a “war chest” of £20 million to back strike action. In the end, the government went ahead with its plans with minimal opposition.

In a submission to the TUC, which meets later this month to discuss the issue, Unite says it  believes a 24-hour general strike "would be a landmark in our movement's recovery of its morale, strength and capacity to play a leading part in a society crying out for credible and honourable leadership".

But any general strike – even a one-day protest - is much more than that. It is a challenge to the state and its power, its authority and legitimacy.  

You can be sure that the ConDem coalition will meet any challenge in the spirit of Stanley Baldwin, the Tory prime minister at the time of the historic 1926 general strike. He famously declared: “Constitutional government is being attacked… the General Strike is a challenge to Parliament and is the road to anarchy and ruin.”

The TUC had threatened a General Strike as a negotiating tactic to try and prevent a cut in miners’ pay and a lengthening of their working day. But their bluff was called and the strike got under way without any serious preparation.The army and the police were mobilised and strike-breakers recruited.

TUC leaders quickly entered into secret negotiations and the indefinite general strike was called off after nine days, with the miners abandoned to their fate.

In 1926, between 400 and 500 Councils of Action emerged in the course of the general strike. Made up of strikers and their supporters, they took responsibility for co-ordinating the strike, propaganda, communications, transport, entertainment, picketing and the delivery of food. They represented, in effect, the emergence of potentially alternative sites of power to the state at local level.

A showdown is coming with the ConDem government and the state as justified grievances over a pay freeze, spending cuts, the break-up of the NHS and the attack on the welfare state, come together.

Instead of waiting for union leaders to get serious, trade unionists and their supporters ought to prepare for confrontation now. They should create People’s Assemblies in each area, bringing together trade unionists, the unemployed, private sector workers, older people, campaign groups, small businesses, students, black and ethnic minority communities and everyone in the firing line.

Assemblies can do what the union leaders won’t – take seriously the implications of a general strike and the question of who rules Britain. They can plan for a transfer of political and economic power away from a ruinous capitalist elite and their lapdog politicians into the hands of ordinary people. In other words, going beyond resistance.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

650,000 words later...

In the four years since A World to Win launched its weekday news blog, we have written over 1,000 of them – that is somewhere in the region of 650,000 words! Now the blog team is going on annual holiday.

Our posts have focused on politics and the state, on ecology and economy, tracking the credit crunch (actually, predicting it!) and charting the growing ecological crisis. We’ve used over 1,600 labels (they are all indexed here to help identify the different subjects).

But it hasn’t been all serious stuff. This year’s April Fool blog raised an ironic laugh: “It’s a no-brainer,” said energy and climate change minister Ed Miliband. “The planet is under threat – people are facing actual death as a result of climate change, human society will not be able to survive the disruption and misery – what else can we do but act, and act now.”

Then there was the unofficial communiqué from last year’s G20 in London, which declared: “We will do whatever it takes to rebuild the balance sheets of the banks and to restore people’s confidence in a system that has come off the rails and is unfortunately and mistakenly despised by increasing numbers of our citizens.”

We’ve written about events in Palestine, Lebanon, Thailand, Africa, India, Pakistan, China, Kenya, Nigeria and Ogoniland, Sri Lanka and the struggle of the Tamils, about the United States, Greece – and many other countries where people are struggling for their rights.

The team has provoked discussion about youth unemployment, the privatisation of education and the brutality of the youth prison system and urged the decriminalisation of drug use.

AWTW was first out of the blocks analysing the ConDem coalition, recognising it as a government of crisis, with fundamental weaknesses as well as a vicious streak. We have been clear that whilst ideology has a role, it is capitalism’s profound and growing economic crisis that is driving the attacks on public spending.

But we don’t want our readers to be bored while the blog team takes a well-earned rest. So here are three things you could do in the time you normally spend reading the blog:

1. Consider the case for People’s Assemblies. On the website is a new explanation of how these can go beyond resistance and become a focus for struggle for a democratic society based on co-operation and self-determination instead of profit and corporate power.
2. Read the Manifesto of Revolutionary Solutions, produced this year. It is a living document that can be continuously updated and amended – so tell us what you think.
3. Think about joining A World to Win.

Being a loyal reader of blogs is one thing, but we need you if we are to grow an organisation that is not just about protest and resistance, but has a positive revolutionary perspective.Without that, neither the political, the economic nor the ecological crises can be stopped in their tracks and turned around.

When we return, you can be sure the analysis of the global crisis and its impact in Britain will be fresher than ever!

Blog editorial team
August 20, 2010