Workers' Liberty

Today's Evening Standard leads on the story of impending strike action by RMT and TSSA. The most interesting thing - other than the 'any publicity is good publicity' angle - is that even a right-wing rag like the Standard can not argue with the justness of the unions' demands. It just thinks that we shouldn't fight for them!

Presumably we should just ask nicely and LUL will see the rightness of our cause and agree to stop de-staffing stations and casualising the workforce. The Standard has fallen for the company spin that LUL has only been given 48 hours to respond to these demands, whereas the truth is that union reps have been discussing these issues with management for months, to no avail. We have sufficient experience to tell us that the only language that management will now listen to is the language of industrial action.

It's like the fight against PPP all over again. For five years, the Evening Standard ran editorials saying how bad the PPP was, interspersed with editorials about how bad strikes against it were! Thing is - they're in the business of selling newspapers, we're in the business of defending workers.

BTW, one 'fact' that the Standard got wrong is that the unions are demanding that non-union members are not given jobs. We wish.