Organise a union fightback

Up to the Iran-US-Israel-Lebanon war, you could expect 2026 to be dim but not terrible for working-class household finances. No longer.

Because of Universal Credit rises and the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, poorer households could expect a 2.8% real-income rise this year, according to the Resolution Foundation. Middling households, not so much, but still an average real-income rise.

Now the Financial Times reports: “A rise in the price of petrol at the pump is just the beginning. A shortage of jet fuel... A lack of helium — much of which is produced in Qatar — could stop the production of semiconductors. Food production will be damaged by fertiliser shortages...”

All that is already hitting, and will hit, poorer countries much more than Britain. But wide price rises are likely in Britain, too.

And maybe worse. Capitalist crises start when a critical mass of capitalists can no longer make payments due on past purchases or borrowing, and financiers cut credit because they become unconfident of repayment. The economic shock of the war may set off that spiral.

Extended chains of speculation and finance around AI, cryptocurrencies, and non-bank credit are already precarious. Trump’s tariff wars make the system less shock-absorbent.

Unions are likely to need a response like 2022-3 (Russia-Ukraine war price shock) plus one like 2008-9 (closures, job cuts). But it will have to be better than then.

In November 2021 Solidarity’s front-page headline was “A Good Time For Strikes”. Capitalists were anxious to restart expansion after lockdowns; the government was able and willing to run up large debt.

We were right. But then unions used the favourable conditions to limit themselves to feeble campaigns and be able (mostly) still to win bits and pieces. It wasn’t wasted effort. But it didn’t convince workers that, when we vote for action, our union leaders have serious plans.

• All the campaigns were dribs and drabs, one-day or few-day strikes, each time followed by “wait and see, and we’ll propose more in due course”

• No coordination of strikes to multiply impact. Rather, the opposite: deliberate fragmentation

• A “solidarity movement”, Enough is Enough, was launched with big, enthusiastic rallies, and then nixed from the top.

To rally strong action, unions need to convince members of plans which scale up to the challenge of less favourable times, probable in 2026.

• Democratic control, with local and national strike committees, elected and accountable

• Campaigns of determined escalation until we win, not “wait and see”

• Coordination of strikes. Use Trades Councils or ad hoc local union coordinations to create a real solidarity movement, with mass pickets and street demonstrations.

• Unifying, adequate, and precise demands.

Escalator

Many unions have already submitted their claims, but where they haven’t, or reopening is possible, unions should consider adding “escalator clauses”, by which, on top of annual settlements, pay is automatically increased each month to keep up with a price index. No-one knows what price rises will be by late 2026, and few one-off annual pay-rise claims now are likely to cover them.

Italy had an “escalator clause” like that, by law, from 1945 to 1992. Belgium still has one, though shot full of holes. Even the UK had a half-arsed version in 1973-4 (“threshold agreements”).

The standard Consumer Price Index tends to underestimate inflation for the worse-off. But even a CPI-based escalator clause would be valuable.

The Minimum Income Standard calculated by the Rowntree Foundation gives a more realistic figure for price rises for the worse-off. It is calculated only yearly, and as figures for “income standards” for different sorts of households rather than as an average percentage. But unions could easily build on that to calculate a “working-class price index”.

Strong campaigns on pay can lay the basis for the audacious and coordinated action (workplace occupations and more) which will be needed if capitalist economic troubles escalate into full-scale crisis.