British Strikes and the Return of the Working Class

Nick Reich and Chris Morris

The United Kingdom’s recent strike wave is a shining example of workers’ continued power and strength in advanced capitalist countries. Working-class living standards, confidence, and combativity have been pushed back by neoliberal governments and aggressive employers. Union membership and days on strike have declined so steeply that a generation of workers has no experience of strikes. The British strikes are pushing back those trends and encouraging re-engagement with theories of workers’ self-emancipation such as Marxism.

The modest uptick in strikes since 2020 gained momentum in June last year when the massive National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) initiated rolling strikes over a pay dispute. Rising energy prices, food prices and employer attacks on working conditions in key workplaces fanned the flame, driving the spread of mass strikes across other industries. Tens of thousands of workers in areas including telecom, postal, oil, healthcare and law have gone on strike.

Since then, strike action has ebbed and flowed, notably dipping during a moratorium following the death of Queen Elizabeth. But the crucial nursing sector has continued to drive strike action this year, with February’s nurse strikes the largest in the history of the British National Health Service. Rolling strikes from some unions continue at the time of writing.

Disputes and events like this enhance the organisation and the confidence of the working class to use the strike tactic. Public support for organised labour action has been stubbornly high despite the disruption caused by these disputes. Historically, strike waves have dramatically increased union membership and participation.

The current wave follows recent increases in union membership in Britain, signalling workers’ greater willingness to organise and stop production to extract better pay and conditions from their bosses and the government. Production is central to capitalist society, so workers’ power is immense. When they win battles in their workplaces over issues of basic economic survival, this can pave the way for workers’ power to be used in fights over broader social justice issues or other political questions. Polish Marxist Rosa Luxemburg’s pamphlet “The Mass Strike” highlights how strikes over economic concerns can transform into political strikes and shape their participants into more politically conscious people.

The British conservative government is aware of this potential and fears it. They are pushing for authoritarian laws that would prevent strike activity and limit its legal organisation, while making it easier for employers to replace workers during strikes. They have also cynically and maliciously introduced the so-called Rwanda solution, modelled on Australia’s offshore torture of refugees, in a move that has driven racist scapegoating of

When workplace-specific issues spark public class conflict, politicians and state bureaucrats defend the interests of bosses by whatever means necessary. Governments in liberal-democratic countries like the UK will go as far as winding back democratic freedoms and scapegoating the most vulnerable in society to crush protest. British workers have rightly rejected these divisive politics by blockading attempted deportations of refugees and migrants, and holding mass anti-racist demonstrations across the country.

The scale of the economic crisis in Britain is immense. Inflation has remained stubbornly around 10% for months, with energy prices particularly high due to sanctions responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The country last year experienced a rise in excess deaths, to 20% above the five-year average, after its health system was driven to the brink by long-term underfunding and the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey analysis over December 2022 and January 2023 found that almost 90% of food banks were facing increased demand. But these crises have precipitated resistance from workers, not just submission.

Anxiety over economic pressures is higher in the UK than in Australia, but Australia is not immune from the cost of living crisis impacting workers worldwide. Australian workers have suffered a massive drop in real wages over the past few years, which will only fall further in the short term. Under these conditions, workers’ resistance will almost certainly be resurgent in this country, similar to what we’ve seen in the UK, which would be an immensely positive development.

It is not an act of faith to defend the politics of class struggle and workers’ self-emancipation in a period where strikes and union membership are at an ebb. It’s a recognition that workers’ resistance hasn’t been fully defeated by the neoliberal offensive. Nor are workers invariably narrow-minded, apathetic, prejudiced or selfish. The British strikes show that the working class can still be a powerful political actor in advanced Western economies. They show that workers defending their living conditions isn’t just an economic question but a political action. The British strikes show that workers can fight and win.

Art by Jasmin Small and Hassan Alanzi