Union organising

Workers’ Liberty’s industrial fractions — networks of our members working in a particular industry or sector to coordinate our activity there — held a joint meeting on Sunday 8 January. The meeting reviewed the ongoing strike wave, discussed campaigning against threatened anti-strike laws, and heard reports on labour movement international solidarity work with workers’ and democratic struggles in Iran, Ukraine, and China (including Hong Kong and East Turkestan/Xinjiang). Workers’ Liberty trade unionists reporting from many sectors argued for escalation and intensification of action, plus...

In every working-class battle, organisation at workplace and local level is essential as well as organisation from union offices and paid officials, and maybe a necessary counterweight to officials’ in-built tendency to see their own negotiating skills as central and workers’ action as a backdrop. That works at different levels. Workplace strike committees are so indispensable in some areas, given the lack of regular workplace union structures, that the union officials themselves move to create them, as the RCN has done among nurses. In other places where there are regular workplace union...

As part of the decision of our union, PCS, to roll out selective action on a regional basis, the union has announced more strikes involving Home Office and Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) workers throughout December. The Home Office workers taking action include workers who provide passport services at airports, which could lead to significant disruption. Our National Executive Committee (NEC) met in early December and revisited the discussion about all-out action. There’s a strong feeling that this should be done in coordination with other unions, and there are developing discussions...

The union has announced strikes involving our members in the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), DWP and the Highways Agency. The strikes will begin on 13 December and continue until mid January. The strikes in DVSA are rolling, regional strikes, the others all-out action. All are designed in such a way as to keep up continual pressure on the employer over a sustained period. The idea is to cause as much disruption as possible to the operation of the civil service. Every worker involved in these strikes will be paid full strike pay. The National Disputes Committee meets now weekly, and...

Over 600 Unite members in the national housing charity Shelter started a fortnight’s strike on 5 December. In February Shelter offered — and started to impose — a pay rise of 3%, followed up by a succession of unconsolidated one-off payments, dependent on budget targets being met. But Unite’s pay claim was for RPI inflation (around 11%) plus a further 3%, in recognition of below-inflation pay rises in previous years. Only after Unite members voted in favour of strike action by 86% in November did Shelter agree to enter into pay talks with Unite, mediated by at ACAS. The talks took place on 28...

Teamster shop stewards in the United States. But vast numbers of US workers have no union representation at all. The same in Australia, and the UK In my life as a working-class and trade-union activist [mainly in Australia], I guess I’ve usually been described by such words as “Oh, you know Bob, he’s a militant”. For me it’s a great badge of honour, however many in the trade union movement scorn genuine militants. Another description used by both employers and more than a few union crawlers: “Oh, Carnegie, he is belligerent”. To be honest up, until about a decade ago, that side of my nature...

We balloted 214 bargaining units and we won in over 120 areas, including Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Department for Transport. Disappointingly we lost in Revenue and Customs (HMRC) — but the union Executive has taken, what I think is the correct decision to re-ballot those members as soon as possible in the New Year. The ballot wins puts us in a position to take widespread action. Of course, the focus of discussion is now around what sort of action that should be. I think we need to take action as soon as possible, and certainly this year. I also believe we need...

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) announced on 9 November that 176 Trusts across the UK had passed the threshold in their strike ballots and voted for action. That’s 100% in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Wales missed the threshold in only one of its Trusts (by only nine votes!). The shortfall comes from England, where Trusts are much larger. This RCN result should encourage members and activists in the bigger health unions, Unison, GMB, and Unite, to push for big turnouts in their ballots. The Unison ballot closes on 25 November, GMB on 29th, and Unite on 30th for their first wave. The RCN...

The GMB union is re-balloting members in Amazon’s BHX4 warehouse in Coventry for strikes to win higher pay, after a previous ballot resulted in a 99% vote for strike action, but missed the 50% turnout threshold by three votes. BHX4’s workforce of around 1,400 workers includes many migrant workers, including a significant proportion of migrants from East Africa and Eastern Europe. Many live in flats or house-shares which mean receiving individual mail is sometimes difficult. Although the ballot is due to run for several more weeks, union activists are confident they are generating the momentum...

Monday 7 November is the last day for our national ballots. Effectively though, votes will not be counted if members don’t send them off by the the previous Friday at latest. We know from information recorded by branches that in many areas we are getting close to the 50%, in some we are over, but in others, we still have a way to go. Over the coming days we have to redouble our efforts to get members to vote. We are running a disaggregated ballot in over 200 areas. This means that by the end of the ballots, we may have a patchwork of positive ballots, but others where we did not get to the...