When Is The Time To Fight?
Management are piling attack upon attack on Underground staff: security guards, agency staff, mobile supervision, direct recruitment of drivers, ticket office cuts and closures ... What they all add up to is casualisation and de-staffing. We all know that these will be a disaster for all grades of Tube workers. The question is: when will the fightback start?
The first answer is that for many rank-and-file workers, it has already started. Many of us have been out campaigning, particularly against ticket office cuts, and many have been discussing the issues at union branch meetings and in the workplace. Everyone recognises the implications of these attacks and is willing to defend themselves against them.
But while the unions have been 'moving towards dispute' for some weeks now, it is still not clear when they will actually declare a dispute, let alone start a strike ballot.
Some union officials argue that we need more time to prepare for a dispute. But - as mentioned above - rank-and-file union activists have already done a lot of preparation. What's more, the issues are so clear that workers do not need a lot of persuading.
Even if there are some areas or some grades where people are not convinced of the need to take action, declaring a dispute and a timescale to ballot is probably the most effective way of focussing people's minds and getting them to think about and talk about the issues.
Tubeworker has already cautioned against sitting back and relaxing rather than fighting the ticket office closures. Dragging our feet on this and other issues could be very damaging. The last two big defeats for LUL staff - the most recent pay round, and before that the staffing cuts that accompanied the stations 35-hour week - followed union campaigns that continually put off having industrial action. Delaying action gives out the message that either you think the issues are not that serious, or that you think you are too weak to fight. Beyond a certain point, spending time preparing rather than fighting begins to drain your momentum rather than build it.
It may be that balloting in the run-up to Christmas would be unpopular, but Tubeworker sees no reason for the unions not to declare that they are in dispute now, and will start a ballot first thing in the new year.
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WHEN TO FIGHT
I agree with this wholeheartedly. We are facing our biggest challenges ever as a union and the leadership seem to running around like headless chickens.
The will to fight is there but no one seems to be organising the workforce.
The branches are responsible for a lot of the problems. We should be calling special mass branch meetings to spell out the comming dangers. Local news letters should be going out on a regular basis constantly agitating. We need to get the message home at grass roots level and organise the membership for the fight.
We are seeing newsletters from the functional committee and Regional Council on a regular basis now and that is good. We need the branches to do more to back these up with local issues in a local newsletter and reps to do more in distributing said matererial.
I believe that declaring a dispute now and balloting after christmas would be the best approach for two reasons. The first you will not heamorage members as we did last time we did this and secondly it will give us more time to organise and agitate. Every branch should organise special meetings in the new year at staggered times so that maximum atendence is achieved. Lots of buil up and publicity for these meetings before hand.
I do not believe that we are organised enough for a prolonged strike at present but with a bit of work could be there in the new year.
Rick Grogan