UK’s Trade Union Congress Struggles to Keep a Lid on Worker Militancy

The strike wave that has engulfed the United Kingdom shows no signs of abating. With inflation now above 10% and workers experiencing a 3% cut in real wages (the biggest drop on record), the regime trade unions affiliated to the Trade Union Congress (TUC) are struggling to contain militancy within. In addition to official strikes, following the slow process of consultations, balloting and then negotiations, there have been a number of wildcat strikes as well.

Rail Workers

Rail workers other than train drivers are represented by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA). They have been taking part in a long series of one‑day strikes. National rail strikes took place on Thursday, 18 and Saturday, 20 August. London‑wide strikes affecting Underground, Overground and bus services took place on Friday, 19 August.

Train drivers, members of the ASLEF union, struck for 24 hours on Saturday, 13 August. The rail employers are seeking to impose wage rises well below the rate of inflation, together with redundancies and changes in working conditions.

Postal and Telecom Workers

More than 100,000 Royal Mail workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) voted to strike on 26 and 31 August and 8 and 9 September. 50,000 CWU workers with the telecommunications giant BT voted to strike on 30 and 31 August.

Port Workers

As an island economy, the UK is especially vulnerable to strike action at the ports. Around 1,900 workers at Felixstowe, which accounts for 40% of Britain’s container freight, mainly consumer goods and canned food, voted to start eight days of strike action on Sunday, 21 August. The dockers, members of the Unite union, rejected an offer of 7% plus a one‑off payment of £500. There has not been a strike at Felixstowe port, which is now owned by a Hong Kong conglomerate, since 1989. 500 dockworkers in Liverpool also voted to strike.

Barristers
The cost-of-living crisis is also impacting the so‑called professional classes, who must take industrial action in the current crisis. As Marx and Engels wrote in the Manifesto, «[t]he bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers».

More than 6,000 court hearings were disrupted by the first 19 days (between 27 June and 5 August) of a strike by members of the Criminal Bar Association (court lawyers). Junior barristers are expected to work long hours for very little pay, and even below the minimum wage in some instances. A second week of strike action commenced 16 August.

Airport workers

There is continuing unrest at airports, where bosses have attempted to use the pandemic to reset pay and conditions. Unite and GMB members at Heathrow, employed by British Airways, voted to strike after a 10% pay cut imposed during the pandemic was not reinstated. The strike was called off at the last minute when the unions recommended an 8% pay offer.

Refueling staff accepted a similar offer. Most UK airports are understaffed, and many are cutting flights.

Teachers and healthcare

Anger is reaching boiling point in education and the National Health Service, both grossly underfunded as the government seeks to deal with the debt crisis while promising tax cuts to its supporters. Together, these sectors employ about two million workers, many of whom have voted to strike when given the opportunity. This is being delayed by the trade unions through extended “consultation” processes. At the time of writing, the NASUWT teachers’ union was being balloted on strike action if the employers’ offer of 5% is not increased substantially. Other union leaders, quite pathetically, are writing letters to government ministers begging! In the NHS, strikes by junior doctors and nurses are on the cards for later in the year.

Civil servants

On 26 September the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) is scheduled to hold a national strike ballot over pay, pensions, jobs and redundancy terms. This follows a derisory 2% pay offer and the announcement of 91,000 job cuts – a fifth of the Civil Service. And as if that wasn’t enough, the government is proposing to cut redundancy packages by an estimated 25.9%.

A couple of years ago the union headed off proposals for a 33% reduction in the work force with a judicial review, and currently the union leadership is focused on talks with the government about «delaying any decision until the new prime minister is in place», etc. The vote for industrial action must be carried to back up any negotiations and extend solidarity to other categories of workers, especially in the public sector, who are under threat of further massive attacks.

Wildcat strikes: refineries, power stations

A series of wildcat actions by both unionized and non‑unionized workers has been less well reported in the bourgeois press. But they are evidence that the official union hierarchies are struggling to keep disputes under their control.

At the Grangemouth oil refinery, near Falkirk, an estimated 250 workers blocked roads in early August to prevent any access to the site. Similar actions took place at the Fawley refinery in Hampshire and workers at the Valero refinery in Pembrokeshire are also taking part.

Hundreds of workers, nominally represented by the Unite union, walked out at the Drax Power Station, near Selby in Yorkshire. The plant generates around 6% of UK electrical capacity.

Spontaneous walkouts: Amazon

Finally, there has been a series of strikes at Amazon distribution centers, including walkouts in Swindon and Tilbury. Workers were infuriated when the company made a derisory offer of a 35p (40 cents) increase in the hourly rate. A shop‑floor worker said, «[i]n reaction to the news that Amazon would only give us a 35p pay rise, many of us stopped working on Wednesday afternoon. We hadn’t planned to walk out beforehand, but the news… encouraged many people to do something. I think people in every department joined, with at least 200 workers involved… The next shift – the night shift –joined us with a massive strike».

Amazon imposes inhuman working conditions on staff. At the time of writing, the Amazon workers were continuing to take industrial action by working at their own pace, not the pace dictated by their bosses.

By uniting and generalizing these struggles, British workers would have an opportunity not only to unseat the current government but also to extend the power and self‑confidence of the class. But that is the last thing the TUC and its affiliated unions want. Even the more “militant” union leaders, such as Mick Lynch of the RMT, which is affiliated neither to the TUC nor the Labour Party, have brushed aside any talk of a general strike.