10 minute read
INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN FITZGERALD
escalate, coordinate and expand the Strikes!
Interview with Susan Fitzgerald
against the backdrop of a wave of strikes in britain and Northern ireland. Socialist alternative spoke to SuSaN FitzGeralD, the regional coordinating officer for unite the union and a member of the Socialist party on her views on this important strike wave
there's been an important wave of strikes in britain and the North. what do you think are the key driving forces behind them?
SF: I think it is worth considering the scale of the industrial unrest that is happening. Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, has said that in the past year Unite has been involved in over 450 disputes. That has been in many different sectors of the economy from manufacturing to bus workers or housing executive workers here. Added to this, we' ve seen some really powerful and significant disputes, including 155,000 Communication Workers Union (CWU) members in both the postal and BT/Openreach side of the union, and also of course there have been the important strikes of railway workers in Britain.
That is what has happened so far and the ballots currently underway show the likely possibility of other workers taking strike action amid the cost of living crisis. You have the ballot of University College Union (UCU) members balloting to restart their battle around precarious conditions in our universities which received 81% support for strike action on pay and conditions and 84% on pensions. This time the ballot was aggregated but still overcame the high bar in terms of turnout set by anti-trade union laws. That means in Britain more universities than in the previous years of strike action will have picket lines, and here Unite and NIPSA are balloting their members in Queen’s University. You also have the Royal College of Nurses balloting, voting by a significant majority for strike action across Britain and Northern Ireland for the first time in their 100-year history. They will be joined by workers in the main health unions balloting for action. So we could see a very important revolt of healthcare workers who have been on the frontline during the pandemic, but received nothing but a clap from politicians in Westminster and Stormont in return.
I think people see what is coming down the line, more economic turmoil and even a recession and there is a strong sense of the need to do something now. At the same time, I think what we're seeing is a product of over a decade of bottled-up anger. With the banking crash in 2008, wages fell and workers lost a lot in terms of pay and conditions. Ten years later, by 2018, they hadn't recovered and pay in terms of real pay was lower
or at a similar level to ten years before. Then you started to see a recovery but only for the rich, we started to see profits rise, and a bit of buoyancy coming back, but workers didn't see that in their pay packet, wages stagnated as profits increased.
Then we have the situation where we go through two years of unprecedented crisis in the COVID-19 pandemic. This results in massive job losses, other workers being forced to work from home and of course, essential workers in health, transport and retail who are expected to put their lives at risk, often for very low pay. So when things started to open up, there was an expectation and an awareness that it was business as usual for a lot of big companies, and some companies had a huge surge in profits in many areas. Workers rightly expected that what they had been through would be recognised in their pay packet. Instead, however, we just have the next stage in a capitalist system in crisis, which has not been caused by workers' wages, but by greed and profiteering. The figures for this are quite striking in a report commissioned by Unite: profit margins for the UK’s biggest listed companies jumped 73% in 2021 compared with the year before the COVID19 pandemic. Yet, on the other hand, we have increased talk of destitution and fuel poverty affecting three in four of people in Northern Ireland. Is it any wonder workers are having to strike?
you mentioned the massive amount of strikes that have happened, some very important victories and significant pay increases. what do you think are the factors that led to workers winning these disputes? and also, how have employers responded to this?
SF: So in the report I mentioned about the number of strikes by Unite, they put a figure of winning 80% of disputes, and as a result there are millions of pounds in the pockets of working people rather than the coffers of big business. That says something about the determination of Unite members when they go out to win. We would like that to be 100%, but we can also see momentum towards more strike action, especially with the Tories in chaos in Westminster. The governor of the Bank of England is trying to blame workers for inflation, but it doesn’t wash – Britain is seeing the highest figure for days lost on strike for 11 years.
However, they, as in big business and the ruling class, are nervous about where things will go. So they will take steps to cut across it and you see that with the proposal for further anti-trade union legislation. Despite the real division between the Tories, they are totally united on that, and they are united on their so-called war on ‘ wokeness’ , which is an attempt to divide workers and knock back the very important movements of women, the LGBTQI community and the Black Lives Matter movement in recent years.
It means the bosses are more likely to dig in and it can mean some of the battles we face can be harder. My experience is that earlier in the year the bosses were crumbling a bit quicker. I think it hasn't all been one way either as we have seen in the outrageous attack by P&O when it sacked 800 workers and replaced them with agency workers – with the Tories and others complicit by their inaction. Likewise, in the important dispute in Caterpillar, the bosses dug in and used scab labour against the strike. We can say we didn't win round one, but we don't believe it's finished. Likewise in the Royal Mail strike, we have seen management escalate things and put on the table the very future of Royal Mail with their willingness to tear up national agreements and threaten thousands of job losses.
What we are seeing is the ‘new normal’ , where workers have to fight tooth and nail just to stand still, for basic decency. That's the new reality and it's gonna be battle after battle. But this is it a context in which workers have important wins under our belt. And we have seen some figures emerge as leaders who are more reflective of the actual mood and anger of trade union members, and workers more generally. For us, what is key is how organised the members are and that they come together and discuss how to win their disputes. But having leaders and representatives who stand by those workers and don't just sell them out is vital. So the presence of trade union leaders with a significant platform who defend the right to strike, who stand by
their members and who point the finger at the profiteers in this inflation crisis is important, and I think is serving to give workers confidence.
a key issue is also that there are so many different strikes, but how do we effectively coordinate action?
SF: I think this is something that is naturally coming up and has been discussed on picket lines, because it is common sense. The message that we all 'strike together’ is powerful. So that's being discussed by some trade union leaders and at the trade union conference, but it's more organic at the workplace level. I just came from a protest today of striking Housing Executive workers who have been on strike for several months now, in a very serious battle. When CWU strikers, came along, it was just obvious that they should speak at the protests. It was obvious that they would get a strong and powerful response. When we make the point that we're not alone that's a reassuring message for workers and gives the confidence to push ahead with a dispute.
We have also seen some coordination in terms of strike days and there have been protests that have brought several unions together. In some sectors, like health, the need to coordinate activities is obvious. Coordination shouldn't mean going at the pace set by the most conservative, but what is needed is coordination to be organised by workers themselves, including the building of joint strike committees in workplaces where there are multiple unions.
The point of coordination makes common sense to workers precisely because we are fighting on the same issue. Our common struggle is rooted in the common misery we face in this cost of living crisis. It is natural that the strikes should coordinate and I think it would be powerful if we saw activists coming together to make this happen
you're a member of the Socialist party yourself, what role do you see Socialist party members playing in the different strikes that have happened?
SF: I think socialist politics and this industrial movement that's developing are part of a coherent whole. If you are on strike for 10 to 12 weeks there's a real danger that in the context of complete political instability in Stormont or Westminster, that you are the collateral. That's a political issue. If you can't heat your home, but you're seeing energy companies making super profits, that's political. The very act of talking about the priorities in our society is political, be that talking about the very basics of children not being homeless or women having somewhere safe to go after fleeing a situation of abuse. In that sense, socialist policies, which put people’s needs before profits, are not even radical policies for a lot of people in our society. Even a majority of Tory voters favour nationalising the energy companies in the context of the current crisis.
I think there is an important role for Socialist Party members and socialists in general to play in popularising socialist policies that will more and more seem necessary and rational to people in the context of this crisis, such as demanding wages at least be indexed to inflation, or that the energy companies should be nationalised.
More than that, I think the Socialist Party members can provide an important explanation about why we are facing such economic turmoil and how it is linked to a system facing multiple crises of its own creation. Having a clear-sighted analysis can assist you in a struggle, particularly if you understand the system and crucially the power of workers in struggle.
I think the biggest antidote to the division in society is working-class struggle. You know, when you struggle with working-class people, particularly when you win, it increases confidence. That confidence is so important and has to be built up which means you have to not stop until you win. That means you need to have a fighting strategy, like those advocated by socialists and many other activists in the trade unions. Recent pay rises that have been won prove that when we stand together, we
Royal College of Nurses and other unions in health vote for strike action
