The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 20th December 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 20th December 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
In contrast to the parliamentary scene, it was an uneventful year for union elections. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) had an election for their General Secretary, the first since 2001. This event inspired just 2,632 or 12.3 per cent of the union’s 21,150 strong membership to cast a vote that saw a long-standing NUJ full time official, Laura Davison, defeat her challenger 1976–644.
The University College Union (UCU) also had an election, which saw the incumbent, Jo Brady, return on a minority vote on a 15 per cent turnout. In the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) a contest to re-elect or otherwise the incumbent General Secretary is underway.
At shop-workers’ union USDAW, the elections to their NEC were even less exciting. The turnout in the five contested regional contests ranged from a low of 3.5 per cent to 4.6 in the Midlands. In some regions the victors were unopposed and in others, in the absence of nominations, posts remained vacant.
This low turnout by union members is reflected in low union membership. The Department of Business and Trade’s annual Labour Force Survey revealed that trade unions only represented 22.4 per cent of the workforce in late October 2023. Even this dire figure is a rise from 22.2 for the previous year. This low figure conceals the unhappy fact that in the private sector union density is a mere 12.3 per cent compared with 49.2 in the public sector. Even the latter, healthier figure still represents a long-term decline.
In all there are 6.4 million trade unionists in the UK, out of a workforce of 30 million. In 1980 there were 13 million in unions.
Another tragic sign of the weakness of the labour movement is that in October the TUC put their distinctive 1950s modernist Congress House up for sale. The TUC claims that essential refurbishment will cost around an unfeasible £20 million.
It is difficult to see who will buy the purpose-built offices. It is a grade II listed building that includes two important sculptures: Sir Jacob Epstein’s 1957 sculpture of a mother carrying her dead son, a striking anti-war monument, and the bronze Spirit of Brotherhood showing a strong man helping a weak one. Not something an international bank would appreciate. Forty jobs, largely of catering workers, are at risk from the TUC’s planned move.
Given its location, the TUC could clearly do more to exploit the building rather than simply throw in the towel, even if that meant hiring its soul for corporate AGMs in its grand conference room.
Unions at War
There were a number of industrial disputes where strikers took on bosses who were in fact trade unions, resulting in the curious site of pickets outside union offices.
The Transport Salaried Staff Association (TSSA) has been involved in a bitter dispute with general union GMB, which represents the union’s employees who claimed the new leadership were behaving as badly as the old one. Later the UCU found its annual conference curtailed by a walk-out by employees belonging to Unite taking well-timed strike action that continued into last week.
In October, the National Education Union (NEU) found its own London HQ picketed by its employees belonging to Unite over allegations of bullying and overwork. Finally, early this month the boot was on the other foot when Unite faced strike action by employees belonging to GMB who complained of bullying in a small department of the union that just happens to be run by the husband of the General Secretary.
All these disputes have more to them than normal industrial disputes. In particular, the latter dispute has much to do with internal faction fighting and investigations into the union’s lavish new over-budget HQ, conference centre and hotel in Birmingham promoted by the previous leadership including a defeated rival for the top job.
First Time Strikers
On a more positive note, a number of hitherto unorganised or newly militant workers were taking unaccustomed action.
In February, a group of genuine white-collar workers in a nationalised industry who regularly work unsocial hours at the weekend secured a seven per cent pay rise aided by their union, Unite. The lucky workers were Anglican clergy who secured the rise on the first occasion that the Church of England (CofE) entered into formal pay talks with a union, in this case the Church of England Clergy & Employee Advocates (CEECA), which is part of Unite’s broad er Faith Workers’ Branch.
Unite’s faith workers’ branch claims a membership of 3,112 of which 2,181 are Anglicans, and 1.950 of these are clergy, a figure which represents about 10 per cent of the active clergy.
Clerics are not natural trade unionist material. The Faith Workers Branch was set up by the then Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) union in 1994 when traditionalist clergy were fearful for their jobs if they did not accept the then novelty of women priests. However, it is good to see trade unionism making some progress in unlikeliest fields. In May, the CofE’s Leicester diocese signed the first recognition agreement with CEECA.
In May, the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) threatened strike action at budget airline EasyJet after pilots rejected a pay offer that would have brought experienced pilots who presently earn £164,000 a year up to £190,000 in October and nearly to £200,000 next April. EasyJet can easily afford such salaries having recorded a £602 million profit late last month.
The grand premises of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) on London’s Strand was another unexpected strike venue when the small street union, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), took part in a strike that saw Fellows of the Society call off events last September. The strike, for higher wages, came at a time when the senior management team boosted their collective salaries from £359,000 to £976,000 (170 per cent). Despite having £32 million in reserves Management refused to award more than a 2.5 per cent rise while workers are seeking a £2,800 flat rate increase. The RSA fired an IWGB member for organising the hitherto nonunion Society and criticising Management, for which it was roundly denounced at an Employment Tribunal.
Another of the more unusual industrial actions was that undertaken by yoga instructors employed by Colchester Council, who haven’t had a pay rise since 2015. It took an 86 per cent ballot for strike action for the council to increase its offer to £26 per session.
Vets are not normally at the forefront of the class struggle but in south Wales the British Veterinary Union (BVU), which is part of Unite, took action after its members voted by 93 per cent for strike action in protest at “poverty wages” whist bosses increased charges for pet owners.
This action was taken against VetPartners, a private equity firm, which responded to the strike by closing four of the sites affected by it. VetPartners has been gobbling up individual and merged practices after the Blair Government allowed non-vets to own practices.
Other first-time strikers were journalists at Nature, the 155-year-old weekly, owned by Springer Nature, which is Britain’s leading general scientific periodical. The strike came after seven months of talks between the NUJ and Springer via ACAS finally broke down after members rejected a 5.8 per cent pay offer. Springer claim this is above inflation, but it clearly does not make up for a long-term fall in the real value of their salaries.
Liverpool has often been the scene of many dramatic strikes. In 1911 it saw a violent general strike involving the city’s transport workers. In 1919 it had a police strike which was so effective that the police were banned from striking. The last major dock strike in Britain took place in the city in the 1990s. In 2024 it fell to the more genteel workers at the city’s museums to continue that tradition. Liverpool’s museums were closed for weeks when out of 200 government departments, it was one of the few where workers did not receive a £1,500 cost-of-living payment that workers at many other similar bodies have received.
A Narrow Defeat
Although ultimately unsuccessful, a brave attempt was to organise workers at the Coventry warehouse (or rather “fulfilment centre”) belonging to the notoriously anti-union predatory retailer Amazon.
This followed a year of short strikes and sit-ins amounting to 37 days at the Coventry site for a minimum £15 hourly rate after workers rejected an offer of a 50p per hour rise after Amazon’s online business rapidly expanded during the pandemic. This itself was a risky undertaking as Amazon had closed a neighbouring warehouse when workers started getting uppity.
GMB secured a ruling from the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), which is the court for such matters, in favour of GMB’s application for a union recognition vote at the warehouse. GMB needed 40 per cent of the workforce to vote in favour of recognition.
After an eight-week campaign GMB was narrowly defeated in July by 50.5 to 49.5 per cent on an 86.2 per cent turnout of the 2,600 workers. Given the hostile opposition this must count as something of an honourable heroic defeat, given the overwhelming hostility of bosses who did everything except the traditional American method of sending in goon squads to beat up union organisers to prevent unions getting a foot in the door.
Amazon won using a number of dirty tricks. More than 1,000 new workers were drafted in to dilute the vote by saying too few workers were involved in the ballot. One of these was an undercover journalist who reported that most of the recruits had no work to do and simply stood around the shop floor. Anti-union indoctrination classes were compulsory. QR codes decorated the walls that would send an automatic message to GMB cancelling their membership.
Amazon also moved in a large number of managers who spoke the same languages as the largely migrant workforce to convince them of the evils of trade unionism.
Unite had more luck securing recognition at the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and cycling charity Sustrans, who are presumably more gentle in their conduct of industrial relations.
Precarious Work for All
Fire-and-Rehire disputes rumbled on throughout the year. One that had an unusually tuneful picket line was that of the members of the Musicians’ Union (MU) and Equity at the English National Opera, who went on strike when bosses declared their intention to sack them and re-employ some for only six months of the year and leaving others even worse off having to rely on ad-hoc freelance work.
Precarious work is common in the entertainment business. Shortly before that dispute the MU advised wouldbe musicians that steady employment could be sought in an area of the music business where it cannot organise: the British armed forces. An MU survey found that the average member earns just £20,000 per year, the same as a decade ago, which means a very real fall.
While there were many strikes in bus and railway companies up and down the country we must not forget that neglected group of transport workers, the maintenance workers at the London Cable Car run by Doppelmayr Cable Car (DCC) who threatened to close the one-kilometre route crossing the Thames between Docklands and Greenwich. The mere threat of strike action was enough to force DCC to stop cancelling annual leave at short notice and withdrawing taxis for workers after finishing late shifts.
No Crumbs for the Workers
The posh City of London legal firm of Devonshires, who specialise in ambulance chasing or more politely put “no-win no-fee” medical negligence cases, was the scene of an important dispute when an Ecuadorian cleaner was sacked for stealing a left-over tuna sandwich costing £1.50 from Tesco.
After she was sacked her employer, Total Clean, refused her appeal. Her street union, the United Voices of the World (UVW), mounted a picket and the dumping of 100 cans of tuna and 300 sandwiches in the foyer of Devonshires. Despite the theatrical aspects of the protest this case highlights the plight of countless migrant workers in Britain.
UVW reports cases of people being sacked for rolling their eyes during conversations and ignoring a “wet floor” sign. These are not actions by jobsworths but part of a strategy to terrorise workers into unconditional obedience.
The sacked cleaner was actually an administrator in the human resources department of a large corporation in Madrid that went bankrupt forcing her to come to Britain and work removing bin-sacks. It was noted that her employer was deemed one of the more reputable outsourcing companies. From the evidence put to an Employment Tribunal the real reason for her sacking was that she queried improper deductions from co-workers’ salaries.
Another group of precarious workers, fast food delivery drivers, have formed their own independent union, Delivery Jobs UK (DJUK). They recently took strike action against the likes of Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo in pursuit of a minimum £5 fee per delivery.
A TUC report showed that such zero-hour contracts and precarious work are becoming increasingly the norm and not just temporary situations for young workers.