Controversial workers protests in Lincolnshire

[Dr Mindbender]

Right wing workers in lincolnshire are protesting at the use of foreign labour.

http://www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk/news/REFINERY-WALKOUT-workers-join-protesters/article-654450-detail/article.html

Is reactionary trade unionism like this rampant and how do we combat it?

[Pogue]

Its not rampant. We combat it by standing alongside them in the true battle, against the bosses, and educating them to the fact that the foreign workers are not the problem.

[Dr Mindbender]

Its not rampant. We combat it by standing alongside them in the true battle, against the bosses, and educating them to the fact that the foreign workers are not the problem.

I wonder who is behind this particular one? I bet the ring leaders are from that BNP front group, 'Solidarity'.

[Pogue]

I wonder who is behind this particular one? I bet the ring leaders are from that BNP front group, 'Solidarity'.

As far as I know, no ones been named behind it. Theres probably seom fash influence though, these reactionary ideas never come from no where.

[Dr Mindbender]

if we have any lincolnshire comrades they ought to get a counter demo going if they arent already.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Well this is what happens when leftist groups spend their whole time throwing hissy fits at each other and flogging papers to people who buy them as an act of kindness. We should educating workers by getting involved in the communities. In the absance of us lot educating them people quite simply learn to take the shite from the mail and express as gospel.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

and unite are behind it the BNP's union dosent do shit.

[ls]

and unite are behind it the BNP's union dosent do shit.

Yes and they need to be targeted and promptly limited by any means necessary as this union appear to hold a bit of power.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

I never thought Unite were really far right but just a bosses lapdog union

[ls]

The difference now being that they are acting as apologists of sorts for this deeply reactionary behaviour, therefore they are complete shits.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Dont get me wrong they are complete and utter ****s but the anti-immigration wank aint limited to the far right thanks to the shite influences of the gutter press (Run by posh ****s i may add).

[bolshevik butcher]

Let's get a grip here. 'reactionary workers' and talk of counter demos is not a helpful response and is typical of the ultraleft who lack any real contact with the labour movement. It certainly won't be adheared to by people who quite correctly are angry at seeing their working conditions and pay being undermined by bringing in cheap and crucially, unorganised, labour. Of course the slogan of 'British jobs for British workers' is reactionary but the underlying fundemental here of preserving hard fought for working conditions, pay and the workers organsiation, the trade union's strength is hardly reactionary! Socialists in the area, particularly those who are members of unite should be explaning the need for the union to organise these Italain workers and the need for no workers to work for less than the agreed terms so as to preserve these hard fought gains. Standing on the sidelines branding people reactionary wont help but it might keep your conscious clean i suppose.

[Dr Mindbender]

Let's get a grip here. 'reactionary workers' and talk of counter demos is not a helpful response and is typical of the ultraleft who lack any real contact with the labour movement. It certainly won't be adheared to by people who quite correctly are angry at seeing their working conditions and pay being undermined by bringing in cheap and crucially, unorganised, labour. Of course the slogan of 'British jobs for British workers' is reactionary but the underlying fundemental here of preserving hard fought for working conditions, pay and the workers organsiation, the trade union's strength is hardly reactionary! Socialists in the area, particularly those who are members of unite should be explaning the need for the union to organise these Italain workers and the need for no workers to work for less than the agreed terms so as to preserve these hard fought gains. Standing on the sidelines branding people reactionary wont help but it might keep your conscious clean i suppose.

If theres no one on the sidelines as you put it kicking a stink how on earth do you hope to even approach these workers to educate them on why their position is wrong?

We need some sort of presence there even if it is only a paper sale.

[bolshevik butcher]

I'd suggest speaking to them for a start! Join their demonstration. As I've said their views are not reactionary, they want to defend their jobs and their union. The task of Marxists is to intervene in these movements and struggle and give them a more complete class perspective surely you can see that? Seeing ourselves in opposition to them certainly won't help Marxists to influence them that's for sure.

[Dr Mindbender]

I'd suggest speaking to them for a start!
Yes, thats why i suggested a paper sale as an alternative to a counter demonstration. People are more likely to engage.


As I've said their views are not reactionary,
They are against employment of people on the basis of nationality! How in the name of Trotsky's beard is this not reactionary!?!



they want to defend their jobs and their union.
That much i support, but it does not need to be at the cost of equal treatment for other nationalities.



The task of Marxists is to intervene in these movements and struggle and give them a more complete class perspective surely you can see that?
Yes, and how pretell, does entertaining their notions of national segregation complement the class perspective?




seeing ourselves in opposition to them certainly won't help Marxists to influence them that's for sure.

we should oppose their ideas when they are wrong.

[bolshevik butcher]

I didn't suggest accepting the idea of employing "foreign" workeres as being right. In fact we seem to be in agreement on the need for dialoge. My main argument though is that the main thrust for this action was correct, defence of jobs and conditions, but it does not have the correct expression and it has divulged into chavinism which must be countered as I said before.

[Dr Mindbender]

I didn't suggest accepting the idea of employing "foreign" workeres as being right.
Unless I've grossly misread that why on earth would any leftist be opposed to hiring foreign workers?

Sorry is that a typo?


In fact we seem to be in agreement on the need for dialoge.
Of course.


My main argument though is that the main thrust for this action was correct, defence of jobs and conditions, but it does not have the correct expression and it has divulged into chavinism which must be countered as I said before.
Clearly, there isnt a sufficient influence away from this chauvinism which is why more must be done to increase the voice of those opposing these bigots.

[Angry Young Man]

Lincolnshire is a rot-wood county. My sister lives there. She was teaching at the college in Boston, where she relayed the backwards-looking bigotry of the students. Aside from this, the reasons for this protest are probably the same as the reasons some people support the BNP - they fear that immigrant labour undermines their security and yet don't have the full story explained to them (I'm probably under a 'no sher shitlock here). To return to my opening point, Lincolnshire is a conservative area. Working class, definitely, but conservative. It's, I've been told, the most intensively farmed area in the country.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Let's get a grip here. 'reactionary workers' and talk of counter demos is not a helpful response and is typical of the ultraleft who lack any real contact with the labour movement.

WTF is with the IMT's fetish for using the words "the sectarians" and "ultra-left"? :confused:

[ls]

Dont get me wrong they are complete and utter ****s but the anti-immigration wank aint limited to the far right thanks to the shite influences of the gutter press (Run by posh ****s i may add).

All true, that Unite guy reportedly (in not quite the sun etc but the guardian and bbc) said "although I'm told there are no redundancies arising from the contract going to the Italian company, if you are out of work, it can seem so unfair".

You are correct that they are trying to shy away from ya know, being seen as outright Fascist racists, but they are at least apologists. They could put this right by encouraging anti-Fascists to correctly spread the word within their unionized workforce and to help calm these protests down, or preferably lay the blame where it lies; in the bourgeoisie and the gutter press.

Even better would be to give them such a good understanding (that they themselves choose to convert to) a good left way of thinking, I think there could well be enough good people in Unite able to help with that.

I hope for their sake they realise the truth and turn the protest into something positive.

[BobKKKindle$]

Latest news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/7859968.stm

These protests are reactionary - the workers who are taking part have failed to identify capitalism as the cause of unemployment and the threat of wage decreases and instead are directing their anger against one of the most exploited and vulnerable sections of the working class - the migrant workforce. This is a case in which revolutionaries should actively encourage workers to abandon the protests unless the reactionary politics are eliminated and the strike is successfully transformed into a struggle involving the whole of the workforce directed against the employers, instead of one group of workers trying to grab concessions at the expense of others.

[Pogue]

Edit: I've found some sources showing Unite involvment.

The strike is spreading, theres solidarity strikes popping up in Wales and across the North of England, and a few protests. We need to get people out there spreading the correct ideal because if this developed into a big workers movement but based on reactionary lines it'd be awful because we'd have a militant and active workers movement united on the wrong grounds. This could have potential if we took it away from the whole reactionary side of things. if theres any actions near me I'll go along and try and talk to them.

[Zurdito]

Well from a distance it is hard to comment effectively.

Obviously there are strong reactionary features to the strike. At the same time of course it is very much in the interest of the bourgeois media and right wing bureaucrat scum to emphasise this nationalistic aspect, as they have done:




Joint leader of the Unite union, Derek Simpson, said workers felt powerless.
"You can understand the moral indignation as well as the industrial concern that people are expected to have skills, but be unemployed and watch foreign workers [be employed] who have got more privilege because they're not barred from these contracts. "The only role that we have is to pay the electric bills from the power stations that they build. No-one can stand aside and say that that is any way justified."



Really who needs the BNP with trade union leaders like that?

Undoubtedly in such a case it's impossible to give any kind of critical support to the "leaders" here, but at the same time we have to remember that exactly what the BBC and bureuacrats want is for the strike to remain within those boundaries and for it to only be percieved by the public and rest of the class within those boundaries, and certainly for the left to stay away and not "pour fuel" on the situation with anti-boss and pro-solidarity propaganda - which at such an explosive time (800 workers in one plant holding a spontaneous open meeting to walk out, 600 workers staging solidarity protests outside steel and chemical plants in Teeside, "wild-cat" walkouts across the country etc.) may gain a hearing.

I repeat that does not mean "critically supporting" the current strike.

[Yehuda Stern]

WTF is with the IMT's fetish for using the words "the sectarians" and "ultra-left"?

It's the IMT's rationale for not fighting reactionary ideology among the working class and adapting to the reformist labor aristocracy against oppressed and immigrant workers.

[Global_Justice]

just something that has struck me as interesting in this debate that nobody seems to have mentioned. its obviously reactionary to say things like british jobs for british workers, however i think this strike can be looked at differently and people are gettin too bogged down with the issue of immigrants. what differentiates these italian workers (i understand they are working for less, somebody mentioned that anyway but im not 100%) from other scabs? there working through a strike and accepting lower pay, they are scabs and should be criticised as such and if they were british you'd all agree. yes they are migrant and are "one of the most vulnerable sections of the working class", but so are the unemployed and everyone is quick to criticise and attack them if they dare replace striking workers.

[Dr Mindbender]

just something that has struck me as interesting in this debate that nobody seems to have mentioned. its obviously reactionary to say things like british jobs for british workers, however i think this strike can be looked at differently and people are gettin too bogged down with the issue of immigrants. what differentiates these italian workers (i understand they are working for less, somebody mentioned that anyway but im not 100%) from other scabs? there working through a strike and accepting lower pay, they are scabs and should be criticised as such and if they were british you'd all agree. yes they are migrant and are "one of the most vulnerable sections of the working class", but so are the unemployed and everyone is quick to criticise and attack them if they dare replace striking workers.

It doesnt negate the entire pretence of the entire 'strike'. It wouldnt be a problem if they were actually fighting for better conditions and meanwhile acknowedging that the buick stops with management but that isnt what they are doing.

If this strike is victorious it will be damaging to the leftist argument and the state of british social justice.

[Socialistpenguin]

Read this and thought of this topic.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/wild-cat-strikes-are-not-racist.html

Edit: Socialist Unity blog also covers this: http://www.socialistunity.com/

[ls]

i think this strike can be looked at differently and people are gettin too bogged down with the issue of immigrants

:confused: Is that not what they are striking about?


what differentiates these italian workers (i understand they are working for less, somebody mentioned that anyway but im not 100%) from other scabs?

So you propose they go and protest with the people that are protesting against them? Would you?


they are scabs and should be criticised as such and if they were british you'd all agree

:confused: We agree with fair and genuine protests that help the Proletariat, not ones that encourage unfair division and complete crap.


yes they are migrant and are "one of the most vulnerable sections of the working class", but so are the unemployed and everyone is quick to criticise and attack them if they dare replace striking workers.

An irrelevant argument.

[Global_Justice]

:confused: Is that not what they are striking about?


no. they are striking in support of the gains they have made, which the bosses are trying to take away from them. the italian workers are being used to break the trade unions, just as any replacement workers or workers accepting lower pay are used. inevitibly and unfortunatly the italian workers are coming in for criticism, but it is because they are being scabs not because they are foreign.



So you propose they go and protest with the people that are protesting against them? Would you?

i propose that they dont replace striking workers and if they do then they can expect criticism from those workers. and no i definatly wouldnt break a strike or work for lower pay.

[BobKKKindle$]

what differentiates these italian workers (i understand they are working for less, somebody mentioned that anyway but im not 100%) from other scabs?

You should be ashamed - workers being driven to accept lower wages and travel overseas in order to obtain work is not the same as being a scab, and by trying to portray the Italian workers as having "betrayed" the British workers you are ignoring the fundamentally reactionary character of these protests and the need for socialists to break this character with arguments in favour of international and class unity. The Italian workers are not responsible - the British workers and their reactionary politics are.

[Vanguard1917]

The 'British Jobs For British Workers' slogan is reactionary, xenophobic and narrow-minded. It's the slogan of Gordon Brown and his ilk. That some of the workers involved in this dispute are using it is a product of, not some far-right influence, but the way in which the issue of workers' rights has been framed by mainstream forces, i.e. in chauvinist terms. It is disgraceful, although unsuprising, that the trade union bureaucracy has adopted the slogan.

But is it correct to simply dismiss the workers involved in the protests as 'reactionary' and racist, and to claim that this is simply a protest against 'foreign labour', which the media has largely portrayed it as? Or is the situation a bit more complex than that?

[Pogue]

You should be ashamed - workers being driven to accept lower wages and travel overseas in order to obtain work is not the same as being a scab, and by trying to portray the Italian workers as having "betrayed" the British workers you are ignoring the fundamentally reactionary character of these protests and the need for socialists to break this character with arguments in favour of international and class unity. The Italian workers are not responsible - the British workers and their reactionary politics are.

You should be ashamed - workers being misguided and lied to by the media who then accept the wrong conclusion for their suffering is a case of the bourgeois manipulating and dividing the working class. The reason so many workers don't have proper class conciousness is because there fails to exist a large political force to join with them in their struggles and help them educate themselves, as the left is either too divided with petty arguments, generally too small through no fault of their own, or too busy dealing with issues in a manner which completely alienates and excludes the working class (such as trying to justify support for groups like Hamas) without trying to link contempary international struggles to the struggles of people in the UK in a coherent manner. Perhaps if all of us, collectively, were more focused on appealing to our class and struggling alongside them, telling them of how much they have in common with workers worldwide, this sort of thing would not happen.

[Killfacer]

the British workers and their reactionary politics are.

Classic middle class lefty, what kind of socialist has that kind of contempt for the working classes? If you weren't such a middle class idiot, then you may have a better understanding of the working classes. It's a time of financial meltdown, there is obviously going tension. People are losing their jobs and their wealth, you would have thought that as a socialist you may come at it from a different angle. Obviously not. May i ask where you are employed? (as in what company/sector do you work in).

[Dr Mindbender]

Classic middle class lefty, what kind of socialist has that kind of contempt for the working classes? If you weren't such a middle class idiot, then you may have a better understanding of the working classes. It's a time of financial meltdown, there is obviously going tension.

Of course, but that doesnt give them the right to blame other workers, foreign or otherwise.

They should channel their anger towards the correct recipient, ie the beourgioise.

[Pogue]

Of course, but that doesnt give them the right to blame other workers, foreign or otherwise.

They should channel their anger towards the correct recipient, ie the beourgioise.

Yet, as we know, thats would assume they have correct socialist class conciousness, but we know that in the framework of bourgeois society, socialist class concoiousness doesnt naturally develop, because the bourgeois media and bosses seek to divide and rule the workers. That is why we need to be there with the workers. We're not, thus, this happens. As enlightened proletarians its our job to direct their anger against the bosses and we're failing at doing that.

[Killfacer]

Of course, but that doesnt give them the right to blame other workers, foreign or otherwise.

They should channel their anger towards the correct recipient, ie the beourgioise.

Spot on. Obviously they are incorrect to blaim other workers. I just think it's frankly disgusting for a "lefty" to talk about the working classes like they're right wing lepers.

[Dr Mindbender]

Spot on. Obviously they are incorrect to blaim other workers. I just think it's frankly disgusting for a "lefty" to talk about the working classes like they're right wing lepers.

Im not sure bob kindles and certainly not myself meant it in such broad terms.

I think theres a 'few bad apples' amongst them that are stirring the shit pot.

[ls]

Im not sure bob kindles and certainly not myself meant it in such broad terms.

You didn't, that's for sure, I hope the same for Bob.


I think theres a 'few bad apples' amongst them that are stirring the shit pot.

Ultimately though it isn't necessarily the bad apples' faults, the plain truth is anyone can see the light when given their required help and circumstances and it's a shame that that isn't being provided well enough in this case.

Can we look into what the local left-wing groups are doing to help de-reactionize this?

[Killfacer]

Im not sure bob kindles and certainly not myself meant it in such broad terms.

I think theres a 'few bad apples' amongst them that are stirring the shit pot.

Bad apples stirring the pot? Christ. There is a lot of reactionary politics in the working classes and to call it a few bad apples is just understating the problem. I think it's fair to say that the majority of people at my work (asda) are against immigration/foreigners coming to England for work, with the financial crisis this will obviously be magnified. The problem is however, how you deal with it. Blaming the workers for everything as Bobkindles did simply shows how far away from the workers he is. Was there any voice of sympathy from him? These are people losing their jobs, in the real world. To simply lay all the blame at their feet is disgusting.

[Devrim]

But is it correct to simply dismiss the workers involved in the protests as 'reactionary' and racist, and to claim that this is simply a protest against 'foreign labour', which the media has largely portrayed it as? Or is the situation a bit more complex than that?

Yes, I don't think that it is the Powell strikes again. At that point it was workers coming out in defence of a racist politician. This is very different. They are trying to struggle in defence of jobs. Certainly there is some very reactionary rhetoric there too. Much of it coming unsurprisingly from the trade union.

As Zurdito said it is difficult to judge from a distance.

There was an interesting piece from the AF about it (interesting paragraph in bold):


The wave of unofficial walkouts following the use of the Italian construction contractor, IREM, with its own workforce at Total's Lindsey oil refinery have received a great deal of media coverage. The motive force seems to be the precarious status of skilled work in Britain. The limited amount available and increased competition for skilled contracts has led to increasing precariousness amongst the workforce. The use of foreign companies with their own workforces to do the work more cheaply has compounded this. This is a result of the dynamics of capitalism, not a conflict between nationalities, something that isn’t lost on at least some of those protesting. The Guardian quoted (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/30/wales) a picket from the protest in Cardiff, John Cummins, 44, as saying: "I was laid off as a stevedore two weeks ago. I've worked in Cardiff and Barry Docks for 11 years and I've come here today hoping that we can shake the government up. I think the whole country should go on strike as we're losing all British industry. But I've got nothing against foreign workers. I can't blame them for going where the work is."
It seems that the increasing precarity of the situation for skilled workers is behind the protest, not racism. We should be wary of the way in which the media reports such disputes. When workers at a nuclear power station in Plymouth walked out on a wildcat strike last year after a round of layoffs, the media immediately reported that they were walking out over “foreign workers”, and that it was a protest against jobs going to cheaper Poles. This contradicted statements from strikers, and the fact that Polish workers were amongst those who walked out in solidarity. In that case it was again the unions which were spinning the “British jobs for British workers” line. The media will always go for the nationalist reasoning.
The strategy that Unite are following is to quote Gordon Brown’s words from the 2007 Labour Party Conference back at him – that he would defend “British jobs for British workers”. They are arguing in defence of the national interest, and the placards you see at the protests saying this are union ones. Its clearly part of the strategy for publicising the dispute, an effective one as it chimes with the nationalist sentiments you’ll find in the media. It’s one we are likely to see more of in similar kinds of disputes.
Clearly what is being demonstrated is capitalism’s inability to meet our needs, not a conflict between national groups. Capitalism is proving unable to provide the work we need to get by on to increasing numbers of skilled workers, and the individual workers are faced with increasing precariousness. The managers at Lindsay put out the project to tender and took the most cost effective option as a way to protect their profits. This is what they care about, not providing means of subsistence to working class people. But nationalism is how this is being rationalised, nationalism of a vaguely left-wing sort – the working class should have work provided for them by the government, they have an obligation to protect us, etc, etc. This is added to the xenophobia of the media, who otherwise ignore or criticise any strike action.
Nationalism has nothing to offer us - our interests and those of the state and capital in this country have nothing in common. Capitalism is the problem, not ‘foreigners’. The Italian and Portuguese workers at the site face terrible unemployment at home, as we face it here. Capitalism cannot meet our needs, and our interests are in demanding that our needs (work, more pay, etc) are met.

I think it is at least worth trying to ascertain what is going on before organising counter-demos as some are suggesting.


Devrim

[Dr Mindbender]

Bad apples stirring the pot? Christ. There is a lot of reactionary politics in the working classes and to call it a few bad apples is just understating the problem. I think it's fair to say that the majority of people at my work (asda) are against immigration/foreigners coming to England for work, with the financial crisis this will obviously be magnified. The problem is however, how you deal with it. Blaming the workers for everything as Bobkindles did simply shows how far away from the workers he is. Was there any voice of sympathy from him? These are people losing their jobs, in the real world. To simply lay all the blame at their feet is disgusting.

I'm sorry to hear you've encountered such closed mindsets in your workplace. Where i work, most people couldn't give 2 hoots about immigration or politics in general as long as they're able to make ends meet. Theres a number of foreigners working in our place, and theres a real sense of friendship between all of us. I think if push came to shove my colleagues would rally against management, not each other. I think xenophobia in the workplace happens when you have a workforce consisting mainly of the indigenous ethnic group. The 'little England' mentality sets in.

[Killfacer]

I'm sorry to hear you've encountered such closed mindsets in your workplace. Where i work, most people couldn't give 2 hoots about immigration or politics in general as long as they're able to make ends meet. Theres a number of foreigners working in our place, and theres a real sense of friendship between all of us. I think if push came to shove my colleagues would rally against management, not each other. I think xenophobia in the workplace happens when you have a workforce consisting mainly of the indigenous ethnic group. The 'little England' mentality sets in.

There is no xenophobia. I have plenty of migrants at my work and they are treated exactly the same as everyone else. It's simply that, as you put it, when push comes to shove i think that the majority of my colleagues would happily see a cap on immigration and would want "british jobs for the british".

[Dr Mindbender]

There is no xenophobia. I have plenty of migrants at my work and they are treated exactly the same as everyone else. It's simply that, as you put it, when push comes to shove i think that the majority of my colleagues would happily see a cap on immigration and would want "british jobs for the british".

I'm sorry i fail to see a distinction between the two. Wanting a difference in treatment for other people on the basis of country of origin is xenophobic, it doesnt matter how you dress it up.

Don't you ever get opportunities in work to explain to your colleagues why their views are wrong?

[ls]

There is no xenophobia. I have plenty of migrants at my work and they are treated exactly the same as everyone else. It's simply that, as you put it, when push comes to shove i think that the majority of my colleagues would happily see a cap on immigration and would want "british jobs for the british".

Do you mean they keep their small-minded views institutional and behind closed doors and don't publicly slate the migrant workers at your Asda?

[Killfacer]

I'm sorry i fail to see a distinction between the two. Wanting a difference in treatment for other people on the basis of country of origin is xenophobic, it doesnt matter how you dress it up.

Don't you ever get opportunities in work to explain to your colleagues why their views are wrong?

Not really mate, i get along with everyone there, but they aren't politicised in the slightest and if i tried they would just think i'm a weirdo.

[Killfacer]

Do you mean they keep their small-minded views institutional and behind closed doors and don't publicly slate the migrant workers at your Asda?

No i don't mean that. What are you chatting about? Killface condemns your antics.

[ls]

In simple terms, if as you said "when pushes comes to shove" they act in a Nationalist and racist manner as you also described - "British jobs for British workers".. it isn't ok or acceptable.

[BobKKKindle$]

Of course this situation is not applicable to the whole of the British working class, and the reactionary behavior of these workers does not mean that socialists should abandon their workplaces and allow racist sentiments to establish themselves as the dominant political force. That would be irresponsible. However, the fact that these workers have been subject to the influence of the bourgeois media and are now being faced with the threat of losing their jobs does not deprive them of moral responsibility for their views and actions - anti-immigrant sentiment is reactionary, and ultimately hostile to the interests of the working class, and socialists should never be afraid to criticize other workers when they express reactionary ideas, in the same way that an individual who joins the military because they lack access to other job opportunities is still complicit in imperialism. It is shocking to see so-called socialists like the member who posted above characterize migrant workers as "scabs" when these workers perform the most dangerous tasks in the economy in exchange for inadequate wages and indirectly support the living standards of other workers by lowering the price of the goods they produce. To paraphrase Sartre, we are always free to make our own choices, and it is this freedom which generates moral accountability, and any attempt to deny this accountability is harmful to the individual as well as society as a whole. To assume otherwise, and to argue that these workers cannot be held accountable, and should be let off the hook and viewed as innocent victims, would signify a patronizing attitude towards the working class. The SWP has issued the following statement:


Thousands of workers at around 20 construction sites and refineries across

Britain have walked out on unofficial strike. At the centre of the strikes is the claim that foreign workers are taking the jobs of British workers.

Economic crisis is threatening the jobs and living standards of every worker. Just last week giant multinationals announced 76,000 job losses across the US, Britain and Europe. The world is in the deepest crisis since the 1930s with spreading mass unemployment, pay cuts and poverty. This government, which has so utterly failed working people, showers billions on the bankers to shore up the profit system. But workers are ordered to the dole queue. As a steel worker at Corus said last week, "If you've got a bowler hat you get billions, if you're in a hard hat you get turned away".

We need a fightback, with strikes and protests, and the unions have been scandalously slow to offer any sort of resistance to the jobs massacre.

But these strikes are based around the wrong slogans and target the wrong people

It's right to fight for jobs and against wage-cutting. It's right to take on the poisonous system of sub-contracting that is used to make workers compete against each other.

It's right to demand that everyone is paid the proper rate for the job and that there's no undercutting of national agreements. And we need militant action, including unofficial action, to win these demands.

But these strikes are not doing that – whatever some of those involved believe.

The slogan accepted by many of the strikers is "British jobs for British workers". That comes directly from Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party conference in 2007. And it has been encouraged by many in the higher levels of the Unite union. Derek Simpson and others at the top of Unite have done nothing to encourage resistance to job losses, or a fightback against repossessions or against the anti-union laws. Instead they go along with a campaign that can divide workers.

But it lets the bosses off the hook and it threatens murderous division at a time when we need unity in action to fight back.

It's not Italians or Poles or Portuguese workers who are to blame for the attacks on British workers' conditions.

Construction workers have always been forced to move far from home for jobs, whether inside a country or between countries. How many British workers (or their fathers or brothers) have been forced to work abroad from Dubai to Dusseldorf?

When workers are divided it's the bosses who gain. Total Oil, who manage the Immingham refinery, make £5 billion every three months! Jacobs, the main contractor which has then sub-contracted to an Italian firm, made £250 million in 2007.

These are the people workers should be hitting, not turning on one another.

Those who urge on these strikes are playing with fire. Once the argument is raised it can open the door to racism against individuals. Already in some supermarket warehouses the racists are calling for action against workers from abroad.

We all know what will happen if the idea spreads that it's foreigners, or immigrants or black or Asian people who are to blame for the crisis. It will be a disaster for the whole working class, will encourage every racist and fascist and make it easier for the bosses to ram through pay and job cuts. Already the BNP are pumping out racist propaganda supporting the strikes.

Everyone should ask themselves why Tory papers like the Express and the Sun and Mail – which hate union power and urge on privatisation – are sympathetic to the strikes

Right wing ideas gain a hold among workers when they see their lives being torn apart and the unions offer no lead. No doubt some in Unite think it's
easier to get a fight around a slogan like "British jobs for British workers" which sets people apart than one that brings people together like "Workers should not pay for the bosses' crisis". That's a doomed strategy.

Instead of turning against workers from abroad, everyone should be organising in a united way to pressure the union leaders to fight. And if the union leaders won't fight then workers will have to organise the resistance themselves.

Let's demand an end to the system where foreign workers are housed separately from the British workforce. Let's bring workers from abroad into the unions and link arms against the bosses and their system.

Workers across Europe are under attack. Out unions should learn from the general strikes in Greece and France that we need mass, militant action directed at the bosses and the government to win.

- Fight all job cuts
- No deals that cut wages or accept lay-offs
- Smash privatisation and sub-contracting
- Unity against the bosses, no to racism and the BNP.

[Pogue]

I think what Killfacer is saying is perfectly clear. Due to the lack of sources emitting class conciouss internationalist socialist messages, and the abundance of nationalist/xenophobic bullshit in the media and society, combined with angry and upset people's tendency to be irrational and search for the quickest scapegoat to indentify, regardless of whether its wrong or right (in this case they've chosen the wrong people to blame), its to be expected that many people will parrot the idea that immigration caps etc are the solution to their woes. Its our goal to educate them otherwise. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the priority of many leftist groups who'd rather destroy banners saying 'No to IDF not to Hamas' and have fucking stupid arguments over what Lenin and Trotsky said or did and why, whilst also doing fuck all but condemning these workers for not being as enlightened as they are.

[Coggeh]

Did someone say Unite were behind this ? the union ? ........ wtf :blink:

[Killfacer]

In simple terms, if as you said "when pushes comes to shove" they act in a Nationalist and racist manner as you also described - "British jobs for British workers".. it isn't ok or acceptable.

No, i am trying to point that when people's livelyhoods are under threat (something which has obviously never happened to you) then people become protective. Racism doesn't come into it, nationality does. It is understandable, yet obviously incorrect, that people who's jobs are under thread feel frustrated when a large firm employes foreign workers.

[Pogue]

Did someone say Unite were behind this ? the union ? ........ wtf :blink:

Some of the stuff Unite has said is suspect, but I expect they're trying to get involved in these strikes because they understand the workers anger, but are not so willing to correct who they direct it at. I don't know why that is, perhaps because they don't want to seem radical or controversial, maybe because they're biding their time.

[BobKKKindle$]

It's simply that, as you put it, when push comes to shove i think that the majority of my colleagues would happily see a cap on immigration and would want "british jobs for the british".This means that your colleagues believe that workers should not all be entitled to the same rights. Immigration controls, by their definition, are discriminatory, because they limit freedom of movement to workers who are able to meet a specified set of criteria, such as being a citizen of the destination country, having guaranteed employment, having certain qualifications or skills which are required by the destination country, and so on. These controls will always lead to some workers who might otherwise be able to migrate legally and enjoy legal protection to remain in their home countries or migrate illegally. Socialists oppose immigration controls in every country - we don't just pander to the most dominant prejudices amongst the working class.


such as trying to justify support for groups like Hamas

The Israeli assault on Gaza and the resistance struggle is not, as you seem to suggest, an irrelevant issue - you are obviously ignoring the large numbers of Muslim workers who participated in the demonstrations against Israel around the country and have been radicalized as a result of their experiences.

[ls]

No, i am trying to point that when people's livelyhoods are under threat (something which has obviously never happened to you)

Nice albeit incorrect assumption.


then people become protective. Racism doesn't come into it, nationality does.

OK xenophobia, that was an error on my part, sorry.


It is understandable, yet obviously incorrect, that people who's jobs are under thread feel frustrated when a large firm employes foreign workers.

It isn't obviously incorrect to people who read the Daily Mail as their holy gospel, also frustrated people act irrationally of course but this is all irrelevant.

My point: why haven't you linked xenophobia to the fact that "when push comes to shove" and they are frustrated by some kind of foreign labour push that threatens their livelihood, the majority of the workers at your workplace (not necessarily by their own fault) will be xenophobic, also I'm sure you can find ways of helping educate them, it _is not_ ok or acceptable to allow people to remain ignorant when you could at least try to make a difference.

I would not work at a workplace with xenophobes without at least trying in some way to help them see sense. Sorry, but that's the truth.

[Pogue]

This means that your colleagues believe that workers should not all be entitled to the same rights. Immigration controls, by their definition, are discriminatory, because they limit freedom of movement to workers who are able to meet a specified set of criteria, such as being a citizen of the destination country, having guaranteed employment, having certain qualifications or skills which are required by the destination country, and so on. These controls will always lead to some workers who might otherwise be able to migrate legally and enjoy legal protection to remain in their home countries or migrate illegally. Socialists oppose immigration controls in every country - we don't just pander to the most dominant prejudices amongst the working class.



The Israeli assault on Gaza and the resistance struggle is not, as you seem to suggest, an irrelevant issue - you are obviously ignoring the large numbers of Muslim workers who participated in the demonstrations against Israel around the country and have been radicalized as a result of their experiences.

Radicalized to what? Those protests have hardly got people ready to smash the state and capitalism. The protests were too 'Fuck Israel, it is a corrupt and evil state!' as opposed to 'Fuck capitalism and all states as they fuck over the working class'. Thus they don't develop class conciousness.

[Killfacer]

Nice albeit incorrect assumption.



OK xenophobia, that was an error on my part, sorry.



It isn't obviously incorrect to people who read the Daily Mail as their holy gospel, also frustrated people act irrationally of course but this is all irrelevant.

My point: why haven't you linked xenophobia to the fact that "when push comes to shove" and they are frustrated by some kind of foreign labour push that threatens their livelihood, the majority of the workers at your workplace (not necessarily by their own fault) will be xenophobic, also I'm sure you can find ways of helping educate them, it _is not_ ok or acceptable to allow people to remain ignorant when you could at least try to make a difference.

I would not work at a workplace with xenophobes without at least trying in some way to help them see sense. Sorry, but that's the truth.

They aren't xenophobic. They don't dislike and aren't afraid of migrants. They just get angry when they are unemployed and a British company sees fit to award 900 jobs to some italians.

[Killfacer]

BNP ALERT! BNP ALERT!

Very bad news, i just saw on the BBC website that the BNP battle bus drove around the area today.

[Pogue]

BNP ALERT! BNP ALERT!

Very bad news, i just saw on the BBC website that the BNP battle bus drove around the area today.

link please. if this is true and the strike goes on i'm gonna consider going up there with some people.

[BobKKKindle$]

They aren't xenophobic. They don't dislike and aren't afraid of migrants

If a section of the working class wants the government to prevent other workers from entering the country legally by imposing immigration controls and using force against those who try to enter outside of the legal channels then the workers in question are xenophobic - they view migrants as the cause of economic problems such as unemployment and low wages instead of correctly identifying capitalism as the root cause and the overthrow of capitalism as the solution. The workers of Britain or any other country are not entitled to special privileges - the idea that hiring migrant workers constitutes some kind of injustice against the workers of the country in which the hiring is taking place is profoundly reactionary as socialists view all workers as equal regardless of the country they inhabit.

[Killfacer]

http://bnp.org.uk/ Only article i could find :blushing:

Main article. I saw it on BBC news (TV) but there aint no article on their website atm.

[Pogue]

I don't really wanna go on that joke site, BNP.org, but if it comes back up on BBC please link it. Are you sure what it said?

[Killfacer]

I don't really wanna go on that joke site, BNP.org, but if it comes back up on BBC please link it. Are you sure what it said?

It had footage of the bus...

[Killfacer]

If a section of the working class wants the government to prevent other workers from entering the country legally by imposing immigration controls and using force against those who try to enter outside of the legal channels then the workers in question are xenophobic - they view migrants as the cause of economic problems such as unemployment and low wages instead of correctly identifying capitalism as the root cause and the overthrow of capitalism as the solution. The workers of Britain or any other country are not entitled to special privileges - the idea that hiring migrant workers constitutes some kind of injustice against the workers of the country in which the hiring is taking place is profoundly reactionary as socialists view all workers as equal regardless of the country they inhabit.

Yes it is reactionary. Your point being?

[Coggeh]

http://www.solidaritytradeunion.net/ (BNP union)

"We believe in 'One Big Union'.The idea is not new. In 1834 Robert Owen formed the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union in an attempt to unite all the workers into one Union. Initiatives for One Big Union have occurred across the world. Most notable was the attempt of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) to organise One Big Union in the United States, Canada, and Australia and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Spain"
What the fuck is going on ............:confused:

[revolution inaction]

I don't really wanna go on that joke site, BNP.org, but if it comes back up on BBC please link it. Are you sure what it said?

didn't see the bbc news but it was on the channal4 news to, its at 5 minutes 40 in this report http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/strikers+put+browns+promise+of+british+jobs+to+the +test/2915577

not really a bus though, and it didn't look like they where involved at all

[Pogue]

They'll try and get involved though, I wish these confused ****s wuld stop shitting all over our class and movement, makes me sick that they try to make themselves seem like the heros of the working class (sorry, white working class :rolleyes:) when in reality they're just fucking twats with a Hitler fetish. Fuck em, someone needs to show the world some real working class politics and kick em off the streets up there.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This is no quite as simple as it seems:

Friday, January 30, 2009


The wild cat strikes are not racist posted by lenin

This is not a racist strike. Naturally, a media obsessed with the idea of a 'white working class' can't see this. But thousands of workers across the UK aren't dropping their equipment and walking out at risk of losing pay and possibly their jobs over some racist bullshit. As Phil BC has already pointed out, interviews with strikers yield a much more complex picture than just British workers striking against 'foreign labour'. As one worker puts it: "This is not a racist protest. I’m happy to work hand-in-hand with foreign workers, but we are not getting a look in. There are guys at this site who had been banking on that work and then it gets handed to an Italian firm. It’s about fairness."

Those few who are raising slogans like 'British jobs for British workers' need to sort their arguments out, because they're wrong and they're misleading, and they seriously damage the prospects for solidarity. What's more, they got that slogan from Gordon Brown, and that itself should warn them that there's something wrong with it. This is not about foreign labour as such - the vast majority of these workers have no problem working alongside migrant workers. And the decision to refuse local workers access to those jobs has nothing to do with the company involved being nice and pleasantly multicultural. Nor is it about labour shortages, as there are plenty of skilled workers available to the employers at the Lindsey oil refinery. Nor is it even about cheap labour in this case, although there have been attempts to use cheap labour to run down conditions in the past. This is about the way Italian workers, who aren't responsible for this problem, are being used in an attempt to break trade union organisation among construction workers in the UK, and in particular to break the terms of previous agreements. If it was about anything else, why would the employers exclude them from the jobs in advance? Why shouldn't the jobs be open to anyone?

If you look at the contributors to the forum on the Bear Facts website for construction workers (which unfortunately does allow that horrible slogan, 'British jobs for British workers' to occupy a prominent position on its front page), you can see for yourself what the arguments are. There are a few who talk about 'British' this and that. But most of the arguments are about why on earth workers should put up with their pay and conditions being shredded, why are unions still funding the Labour Party, and don't we need a general strike to sort this out once and for all, etc. There are also people who are explicitly standing up against the nationalist arguments of the minority. These people are taking an exceptionally brave stance in defying Tory anti-trade union laws, and they're not being intimidated by the attempts to paint them as racists. They are fighting when, by and large, union bureaucrats are not. For that reason at least, the left has to defend this strike and stand up against those who are trying to pass this off as some sort of Powellite reaction.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/wild-cat-strikes-are-not-racist.html


Why British jobs for British workers is not the solution to the crisis
The Socialist Workers Party has issued a statement on the walkouts in construction. The full text follows.

Thousands of workers at around 20 construction sites and refineries across Britain have walked out on unofficial strike. At the centre of the strikes is the claim that foreign workers are taking the jobs of British workers.

Economic crisis is threatening the jobs and living standards of every worker. Just last week giant multinationals announced 76,000 job losses across the US, Britain and Europe. The world is in the deepest crisis since the 1930s with spreading mass unemployment, pay cuts and poverty.

This government, which has so utterly failed working people, showers billions on the bankers to shore up the profit system. But workers are ordered to the dole queue. As a steel worker at Corus said last week, “If you’ve got a bowler hat you get billions, if you’re in a hard hat you get turned away”.

We need a fightback, with strikes and protests, and the unions have been scandalously slow to offer any sort of resistance to the jobs massacre.

But these strikes are based around the wrong slogans and target the wrong people

It’s right to fight for jobs and against wage-cutting. It’s right to take on the poisonous system of sub-contracting that is used to make workers compete against each other.

It’s right to demand that everyone is paid the proper rate for the job and that there’s no undercutting of national agreements. And we need militant action, including unofficial action, to win these demands.

But these strikes are not doing that – whatever some of those involved believe.

The slogan accepted by many of the strikers is “British jobs for British workers”. That comes directly from Gordon Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference in 2007. And it has been encouraged by many in the higher levels of the Unite union. Derek Simpson and others at the top of Unite have done nothing to encourage resistance to job losses, or a fightback against repossessions or against the anti-union laws. Instead they go along with a campaign that can divide workers.

But it lets the bosses off the hook and it threatens murderous division at a time when we need unity in action to fight back.

It’s not Italians or Poles or Portuguese workers who are to blame for the attacks on British workers’ conditions.

Construction workers have always been forced to move far from home for jobs, whether inside a country or between countries. How many British workers (or their fathers or brothers) have been forced to work abroad from Dubai to Dusseldorf?

When workers are divided it’s the bosses who gain. Total Oil, who manage the Immingham refinery, make £5 billion every three months! Jacobs, the main contractor which has then sub-contracted to an Italian firm, made £250 million in 2007.

These are the people workers should be hitting, not turning on one another.

Those who urge on these strikes are playing with fire. Once the argument is raised it can open the door to racism against individuals. Already in some supermarket warehouses the racists are calling for action against workers from abroad.

We all know what will happen if the idea spreads that it’s foreigners, or immigrants or black or Asian people who are to blame for the crisis. It will be a disaster for the whole working class, will encourage every racist and fascist and make it easier for the bosses to ram through pay and job cuts. Already the BNP are pumping out racist propaganda supporting the strikes.

Everyone should ask themselves why Tory papers like the Express and the Sun and Mail – which hate union power and urge on privatisation – are sympathetic to the strikes

Right wing ideas gain a hold among workers when they see their lives being torn apart and the unions offer no lead. No doubt some in Unite think it’s easier to get a fight around a slogan like “British jobs for British workers” which sets people apart than one that brings people together like “Workers should not pay for the bosses’ crisis”. That’s a doomed strategy.

Instead of turning against workers from abroad, everyone should be organising in a united way to pressure the union leaders to fight. And if the union leaders won’t fight then workers will have to organise the resistance themselves.

Let’s demand an end to the system where foreign workers are housed separately from the British workforce. Let’s bring workers from abroad into the unions and link arms against the bosses and their system.

Workers across Europe are under attack. Our unions should learn from the general strikes in Greece and France that we need mass, militant action directed at the bosses and the government to win.


Fight all job cuts
No deals that cut wages or accept lay-offs
Smash privatisation and sub-contracting
Unity against the bosses, no to racism and the BNP

© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated).

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17004

[Killfacer]

didn't see the bbc news but it was on the channal4 news to, its at 5 minutes 40 in this report http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/strikers+put+browns+promise+of+british+jobs+to+the +test/2915577

not really a bus though, and it didn't look like they where involved at all

That's the problem, they weren't involved in the original strike but they will hijack it and pedal their usual racist bullshit.

[Pogue]

That's the problem, they weren't involved in the original strike but they will hijack it and pedal their usual racist bullshit.

Which is why we need to be there, spreading the right ideas, thats what our fucking role is, as revolutionaries.

[Killfacer]

Which is why we need to be there, spreading the right ideas, thats what our fucking role is, as revolutionaries.

Which is why i got angry at laying the blame entirely at their feet. If you come to the workers telling them everything is their fault then they are hardly going to listen to you.

You're spot on though mate and there are going to be plenty more flashpoints like this. The next couple of years are going to be hugely important for both the right and left wing of Britain. We need to make sure we are by the workers side and not way above them in ivory towers.

[Pogue]

Which is why i got angry at laying the blame entirely at their feet. If you come to the workers telling them everything is their fault then they are hardly going to listen to you.

You're spot on though mate and there are going to be plenty more flashpoints like this. The next couple of years are going to be hugely important for both the right and left wing of Britain. We need to make sure we are by the workers side and not way above them in ivory towers.

Love the last comment. I think people forget we are workers and these guys are part of our class, and we have to get them to see things how we see it, rather than condeming them. We need to be with them in struggle, together, as one class, without any divides along nation or colour. Thats why we have to be there, telling this lot who the real enemy is, and fighting the BNP.

[ls]

They aren't xenophobic. They don't dislike and aren't afraid of migrants. They just get angry when they are unemployed and a British company sees fit to award 900 jobs to some italians.

dictionary.reference.com -
An unreasonable fear, distrust, or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or anything perceived as foreign or different. on xenophobia.

We know between each other that the high-level dealings of the bourgeois factions here are all at fault and that it isn't any of the workers' faults (despite even the Italian ones being labelled as scabs). The unions are not actively enough discouraging and helping bring down the xenophobic tone that workers striking are taking against this IREM company that was handed the contract.

Phobia in general is not always as clear-cut as the classic fear and hatred, I'm pretty sure we're all agreed on that at the very least.

In any case, I heard on the BBC News report earlier that there is one union actively involved with some of the strikes more south? That are trying to help discourage the xenophobic overtones to the strike action - this is a beginning.

The nationalist blogs are exploding with excited shit which is not good, we should try and counter that somewhat.

[Killfacer]

You posted a link which agrees with me. They don't fear or distrust them, the just want jobs.

[ls]

How is it not distrust when they believe that foreigners are coming here to take their jobs, when push comes to shove or otherwise.

It is xenophobia and there is no blame lying at their feet, it's just the truth, you admit there are bad apples anyway - why dress it up? We just need to help advance the Proletariat cause.

Just wanting jobs nor any other reason is acceptable for xenophobia, and by not acceptable I mean that we should try to make them aware of the truth.

[beltov]

Here is the ICC's recent statement on the strikes in the UK refineries and power plants.

The walk-outs and demonstrations by workers in oil refineries and power stations over the question of unemployment show the depth of anger in the working class faced with the tidal wave of redundancies brought about by the economic crisis.

This wave of lay-offs and short-time working is not confined to Britain but is engulfing the globe. From the USA to China, from western Europe to Russia, no workers' job is safe; and even when they have work, wages are being cut and working conditions worsened.

But workers around the world are showing their unwillingness to accept these attacks: there are daily strikes and demonstrations in China; at the end of January 2.5 million workers in France struck in protest about unemployment; students and young workers in Italy, France, Germany and above all Greece have been out on the streets demonstrating their rage against a society which offers them no future. The anger of the workers in the refineries is not specific to Britain but part of an international response to the deepening economic disaster.

Nationalism leads to a dead-end

However, the main slogan raised in the energy strikes - "British jobs for British workers" - can only lead the workers into a complete dead end.
The threat to the jobs of workers in the power industry or anywhere else does not come from a ship-load of Italian and Portuguese workers who are being used by a network of British, US, and Italian firms to cheapen labour costs. Capitalism doesn't give a jot about the nationality of those it exploits. It only cares about how much profit it can extract from them. But it is more than happy when workers are set against each other, when they are divided up into competing national groups. The idea of "British jobs for British workers" is directly opposed to the ability of workers to defend themselves. This is because they can only stand up for their interests if their struggles extend as widely as possible and bring all workers, regardless of nationality, into a common resistance against their exploiters. Workers in the UK have no interests in common with British bosses and the British state and everything in common with so-called ‘foreign' workers, who face the same threat of unemployment and poverty because the crisis of capitalism is a world-wide crisis.

Trade unions peddle the nationalist delusion

The main force pushing the nationalist delusion in this conflict has been the Unite and GMB trade unions who have taken up Gordon Brown's slogan - itself filched from the British National Party - and placed it at the centre of the movement. This is not the first time the unions have tried to peddle the "British jobs for British workers" line. Last year building workers on a construction site at a power plant in Plymouth were laid off by the contractor. Other workers walked out in solidarity with their comrades. The union tried to argue that workers from Poland on the site were taking "British" jobs. This rang very hollow when these Polish workers joined the strike. The union which had protested so loudly about British workers being laid off then made a deal with the bosses to get the striking workers back to work and to leave the laid-off workers unemployed.

The media have also played a big part in spreading the nationalist message. Normally they are very quiet when workers take unofficial action or engage in illegal solidarity strikes, but they have been giving maximum publicity to this conflict, constantly focussing on the "British" placards and slogans.
Although there's no denying that the workers in the oil refineries and power stations have swallowed the nationalist bait to some extent, reality is much more complex, as can be seen from this statement by an unemployed worker protesting outside a Welsh power station: "I was laid off as a stevedore two weeks ago. I've worked in Cardiff and Barry Docks for 11 years and I've come here today hoping that we can shake the government up. I think the whole country should go on strike as we're losing all British industry. But I've got nothing against foreign workers. I can't blame them for going where the work is." (The Guardian On-line 20.1.2009). Other workers in the industry have themselves made the point that thousands of oil and construction workers from Britain are currently working abroad.

The future is the international class struggle

In the face of an economic crisis of devastating proportions, it is not surprising that workers will find it difficult to find the most effective way of defending themselves. The energy workers have shown a real desire to organise themselves, spread the struggle and demonstrate in support of comrades in other plants and other parts of the country, but the nationalist slogan they have adopted is going to be used against the whole working class and its ability to unite.

The ruling class has no solution to this crisis, a crisis of overproduction which has been gathering pace for decades. It can no longer conjure it away with further injections of credit - the resulting mountain of debt is obviously part of the problem. And closing each country up behind protectionist barriers - which is the logic of "British jobs for British workers" - was already shown in the 1930s to be a way of sharpening competition between nation states and dragging workers off to war.

The working class has no immediate or local solutions to the economic catastrophe. But it can defend itself against the attempts of capitalism to make it pay for the crisis. And by uniting in self-defence, across all divisions and borders, it can start to discover that it has a historic answer to the collapse of capitalism: an international revolution and a new world society based on human solidarity and not capitalist profit.

International Communist Current 31.1.09

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/2009/321/immingham

[Pogue]

How is it not distrust when they believe that foreigners are coming here to take their jobs, when push comes to shove or otherwise.

It is xenophobia and there is no blame lying at their feet, it's just the truth, you admit there are bad apples anyway - why dress it up? We just need to help advance the Proletariat cause.

Just wanting jobs nor any other reason is acceptable for xenophobia, and by not acceptable I mean that we should try to make them aware of the truth.

We know xenophobia is bad, the point is these workers, like most workers, don't know who the real enemy is and so jump to the quick, easy and wrong conclusion - that its foreign labour. This does not make them bad people, just desperate and lacking in proper class conciousness. Its our job to help instill in them class conciousness.

[ls]

We know xenophobia is bad, the point is these workers, like most workers, don't know who the real enemy is and so jump to the quick, easy and wrong conclusion - that its foreign labour. This does not make them bad people, just desperate and lacking in proper class conciousness. Its our job to help instill in them class conciousness.

Exactly. :)


Other workers walked out in solidarity with their comrades. The union tried to argue that workers from Poland on the site were taking "British" jobs. This rang very hollow when these Polish workers joined the strike. The union which had protested so loudly about British workers being laid off then made a deal with the bosses to get the striking workers back to work and to leave the laid-off workers unemployed.

If this is true, not only did the Polish workers try to strike with the British ones but they were also treated like shit too by some union busting shit (in which the union was complicit). This doesn't make them scabs, it just furthers the fact that both sides are victims to Capitalist and corrupt Capitalist union bollocks.

Greatly angering.

[BobKKKindle$]

Lenin's Tomb has put forward a revised judgement of the situation:


Backtrack time? I think it is. When I wrote my post (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/wild-cat-strikes-are-not-racist.html) earlier, I was under the distinct impression that the racism was among a minority, and that the 'British jobs for British workers' slogan was an ill-thought-out nationalist reaction of a few that could be fought. We've seen this before. For example, there was a (tiny) minority on the Rover protests back in 2000 arguing that it was about 'British jobs', which the media focused on. In that light, the Tories, the right-wing press and the fascists all speaking out in support of the strikes would be an opportunistic hi-jacking of a genuine revolt for full union rights, jobs, pay, and conditions. That assumption is presumably why many people praised the post - they too are sick of the media perpetuating myths about the 'white working class' being especially racist.

The more I look at this, however, the more different it is. For a start, the overwhelming slogan of the Rover workers was 'Occupy, Organise, Nationalise'. But I am astonished to hear (http://www.haloscan.com/comments/lenin/2466050442830333253/#441448) that there is a 'British jobs for British workers' protest planned by trade unionists for next week. Thus, this horrible slogan is not only the single most prominent one on the picket lines, it is actually becoming an official line of trade unionists who have in the past been an ally of anti-racists. Moreover, the arguments of some of the shop stewards supporting the strike are disgusting. This is how one Unite shop steward put it: "I'm a victim, you are a victim, there are thousands in this country that are victims to this discrimination, this victimisation of the British worker." (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23632157-details/Mass+walkouts+in+anger+at+jobs+for+foreigners/article.do) This is an argument that comes straight from the playbook of the far right. Not all of the arguments are this bad, but there is some consistency regardless. Another shop steward, for example, states that it isn't a strike against "foreign labour" but "against foreign companies discriminating against British labour" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8334772). That is exactly the wrong way to go about the argument, because it still says that the struggle is somehow between British workers and 'foreign' workers, not between the workers and the bosses. Moreover, it seems strangely congruent with the recent protectionist strategy (http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16787) of the Unite union. All of this is feeding into the racist coverage (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1131708/Mass-walkouts-Britain-anger-grows-influx-foreign-workers.html) by the tabloids, and probably worse hysteria to come.

Of course, it is right to strike for jobs, and fair pay. That is what should be happening here. And I'm not going to pretend that the companies involved aren't engaged in union-busting. But I cannot, in good faith, stand by the claim that racism is only incidental to this strike. That was just not a realistic assessment. Given the way the demands have been raised, the only way the strikers could win would be if the the 'foreign workers' were sacked. As a consequence, I can't help but agree with those in the earlier thread who are worried about the fall-out. The bitterness that has been built up for years over low pay, deteriorating conditions, run-down housing estates, underfunded public services, and so on, has been intensified by the recession. Now, one expects Brown, whose slogan it is, to defend 'British jobs for British workers'. And the fascists, who gave it to Brown in the first place, will lap it up. But it would be a disaster if this slogan caught on. We do need a struggle, but this is the wrong basis for it.

[Pogue]

Is anyone at all responding to this? I would if I wasn't so far away, anyone nearby doing anything, any groups?

[Dr Mindbender]

Is anyone at all responding to this? I would if I wasn't so far away, anyone nearby doing anything, any groups?

if i wasnt across the water, id help you out man its frustrating not being able to get involved.

If this spreads over here i tell you i'll do something though.

[ls]

It's just so way up north.. you'd think people would get involved.

Dunno, maybe people from other areas will get pissed enough and group together, tell you though it's a bloody long way up from London.. KUDOS to people who do make that trip.

[Enragé]

Latest news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/7859968.stm

These protests are reactionary - the workers who are taking part have failed to identify capitalism as the cause of unemployment and the threat of wage decreases and instead are directing their anger against one of the most exploited and vulnerable sections of the working class - the migrant workforce. This is a case in which revolutionaries should actively encourage workers to abandon the protests unless the reactionary politics are eliminated and the strike is successfully transformed into a struggle involving the whole of the workforce directed against the employers, instead of one group of workers trying to grab concessions at the expense of others.

bullshit. If this is the line of the SWP they're fucking up (yet again).

Socialists should be there, where the strike is taking place, handing out massive amounts of leaflets with e.g the text of the SWP's declaration on the strikes. Encouraging people to stop the protests is ultra-leftist bullshit. The strikes and protests flow from real problems, which flow from capitalism - that is the point we continuously have to make to these workers. The trade union bureaucracy is simply marching behind Brown with their sloganeering, but the workers actually participating in the strike are far from fascistoid or whatever.

[Vanguard1917]

The trade union bureaucracy is simply marching behind Brown with their sloganeering, but the workers actually participating in the strike are far from fascistoid or whatever.

The central demand -- insofar as there are any concrete demands -- of the protest is that the refinery work should go to local, i.e. British, people, rather than to the workers from abroad currently employed.

In that sense, from the perspective of the workers in the protest, what would determine the success of the protest? The Italian workers being sacked, sent back home, and their jobs being given to the 'locals'?

It's clear to me that we can't in any way accept such 'demands' as legitimate. Anger needs to be directed against the employers, chauvinist BJ4BW sentiment needs to be marginalised, and demands need to be made for the right to work for all.

[rednordman]

Nope. These are not reactionary protests, but rather legit ones. I do not care what the SWP has to say on this issue. There is a lot more to these protests than simply going against the migrant population (and it has already been stated that this is nothing against foreigners specifically: infact i'm starting to sense that they are scared to blame capitalism). At the end of the day a lot of these people protesting are going to be out of work very soon anyway and their probably very worried about it. I cannot blame them.
This is however, absolutly no excuse for fascism/racism/xenophobia of any kind and im actually rather proud to say that i havent seen/heard much of that within these protests. Yes it is rather unnerving to behold at first glance, but I do think that ultimately, these people understand that this is more to do with capitalism than anything else. After all, alot of them probably learnt that from the 1980s.
Though I do agree that these workers from Italy do have a right to come and work as others, I think what they (locals) are really protesting against, if unwitingly, is the kind of standards that this sets. I mean, if a buisness can do what they want and all in their own interests, they will always go for better and more importantly (for them) cheaper labour-no matter where it is from. Plus, such buisness practices will always pave way for short term contracts, and almost zero job security. Whether the locals where to get the jobs instead of the Italians, that is still conditions that they do not want. In reality the Italian workers should have the same mentality also, but, looking at the way things are at the moment, they are probably simply happy to have a job in the first place.
I think the point they are trying to make is that, if they cannot stand a chance at getting work that they can do, that is only a stonesthrow away from them, where are they going to get a job anywhere? because there will always be cheaper labour ahead of them no matter what. Its all profit over people isnt it:(.

[RebelDog]

Like some of the posters in this thread I think the left response should be to emphasize that these are the problems created by the bosses, their lackeys and the wider system and the only solution lies in the removal of them all and all their muck. I think most of us have conflicting emotions about this. Whilst we are excited by the wildcat actions of workers we are somewhat apprehensive about the motives behind some of the strikers actions. I've heard that the BNP have been hanging around at least one of the sites attempting to distribute their crap. If this is true then obviously this is a different situation if they are brave enough to come anywhere near striking workers.

It looks like this is an attempt by Total to undermine the organised workers with non-union labour and clearly this has to be resisted. Workers have to respond when this happens and whatever their actions there was always going to the racism stirred up by the press because there are Italian workers involved, although I think their response has been careful as they do not want to be seen to support workers actions. I think Unite have their own agenda here but of course they cannot become directly involved because it is an 'unofficial' action and hide behind that. Any union or institution that claims to represent the welfare of the workers and doesn't get involved in their struggles should fuck off out of it anyway for a start. Why should workers look to law, government or Unite for legitimacy?

I think most of the workers here are genuine and they understand the bosses and politicians dont give a fuck about them or the Italian workers. It appears the policy of Total was to exclude local labour before the tender process was complete in order to undermine organised workers to presumably have greater control and attack conditions from there. An intollerable position for the workforce. Total and Unite can hide behind the EU laws but the workforce have only their control over their labour and clearly they had had enough. We all know that this is not the fault of the Italian workers but it is obvious that denying local workers jobs from the start and literaly shipping in 'foreign' workers on a huge barge is going to cause deep resentment.

The positive of this is that we are entering a new era of workers willing to dissent and ask questions of the government and capitalism. But that is the essence of this and the wider struggle. What is the system worth to the working class if companies can do as they wish to undermine and exploit them while they hide behind the legitimacy of the laws made to benefit the business class at grave cost to communities and the wider population? Workers all over Europe are asking questions of capitalism right now and this must be the time of the working class to flex its power and fight against that demon. The idea that this is a fight for British jobs for British workers is clearly wrong and will lead to no victory for any of us or any real struggle against what enslaves us and causes us to question solidarity with our fellow European workers who toil under the same conditions. Our collective fight is with all the bosses, all their lackey unions, all their national managers and their rotten global system that puts the welfare of the business elite before all other considerations.

Its easy for people to label all as reactionary. Clearly there are dissapointing elements in this dispute but put yourself in the shoes of these workers and what would you have done, stayed at the job? These workers and millions of others are severly fucked off and its our job to ensure this energy is directed against those people who really cause all the misery, the bosses and their national and European government gangsters, and their rotten anti-working class economic system and ridiculously biased laws. This dispute has the potential to explode simply through the working class realising they can fight back and they have the strength to do so. I think this dispute could have lasting effects and it must be seen through the eyes of the european working class acting in solidarity and that means us all against the bosses for our interests, not those of Total, New Labour or Unite or any other entity that blocks our desire for lasting solutions and not more pain.

[Zurdito]

It looks like this is an attempt by Total to undermine the organised workers with non-union labour and clearly this has to be resisted.


I initially thought this. If this was the case obviously any socialist would have to support the strike. However the workers are in fact getting the same wage and ocnditions as British workers. The issue in this particular case is not undercutting local unionised labour, but just that the Italian company is bringing its own permanent workforce to this project.



At the end of the day a lot of these people protesting are going to be out of work very soon anyway and their probably very worried about it.


Actually though these are 100 new jobs, the workers are not losing their jobs to Italian workers. What the demands of the strike appear to be is that in Britain, foreign workers should be excluded from jobs like these, and British workers forcibly priveliged by the government. Obviously this is not the answer to the current crisis, just as it would be reactionary for workers in the various countries across the world where hundreds of thosuands of British construction workers have contracts, to call a strike demanding that they be sent home and their jobs given to the locals.

Just to clarify, would those here who support this strike, support such a strike against British workers in say Italy?

I agree that the underlying cause here is unemployment and the financial crisis and that socialists should strongly argue this on the protests, handing out propganda, talking to the strikers, but it's an insult for someone claim that you know what the workers on strike are "really" on strike about, when their demands are clear: British jobs for British workers.

[RebelDog]

I initially thought this. If this was the case obviously any socialist would have to support the strike. However the workers are in fact getting the same wage and ocnditions as British workers. The issue in this particular case is not undercutting local unionised labour, but just that the Italian company is bringing its own permanent workforce to this project.
I'm sorry but that is naive. Why would the company exclude British firms from winning the tender? We all know they done this but they are protected from disclosing it by law. To me, if the conditions and wages are the same why did they create what they knew would be a shit-storm? They are picking a fight with the organised workers and at the very least using foreign labour to undermine solidarity among the localised workers. From a business point of view there is a world of difference between organised workers and unorganised ones. They can better be controlled and attacked and can be used to undermine any unionised workforce. Since when did any bastard employ unorganised workers to give them the same as the unionised ones? Think.

[Zurdito]

I'm sorry but that is naive.

The workers at the plant are not getting paid less, that is a fact widely reported in the media. Sorry if the facts don't fit in with your preconceived vision but that doesn't make me naive.


Why would the company exclude British firms from winning the tender? We all know they done this but they are protected from disclosing it by law.

What do you mean by this question? Why would you expect the company to only ever give contracts to British firms in this particular case when cross-border contracts are common in the industry?


To me, if the conditions and wages are the same why did they create what they knew would be a shit-storm?

They didn't know it would be a shit-storm, the practice is common. According to the reports I read, at the time the contract was signed no-one complained. It is only know that the crisis has hit and jobs overall have become sparse, that the workers have turned against the Italian agency having this contract.


They are picking a fight with the organised workers and at the very least using foreign labour to undermine solidarity among the localised workers.

That often happens but that is not the case here. At the time the contract was signed there was no fight, because no jobs were lost, these were new jobs being created in addition to the existing contracts. You are revising reality based on what you want it to be.


From a business point of view there is a world of difference between organised workers and unorganised ones.

Do you have evidence that the Italian workers are unorganised? Where has this been reported? I heard the opposite, though admittedly only in email, though from someone who is usually solid. Where did you hear the contrary?

A strike against union-busting with unorganised cheap labour would be progressive, but that is not this strike.

[Pogue]

The workers at the plant are not getting paid less, that is a fact widely reported in the media. Sorry if the facts don't fit in with your preconceived vision but that doesn't make me naive.



What do you mean by this question? Why would you expect the company to only ever give contracts to British firms in this particular case when cross-border contracts are common in the industry?



They didn't know it would be a shit-storm, the practice is common. According to the reports I read, at the time the contract was signed no-one complained. It is only know that the crisis has hit and jobs overall have become sparse, that the workers have turned against the Italian agency having this contract.



That often happens but that is not the case here. At the time the contract was signed there was no fight, because no jobs were lost, these were new jobs being created in addition to the existing contracts. You are revising reality based on what you want it to be.



Do you have evidence that the Italian workers are unorganised? Where has this been reported? I heard the opposite, though admittedly only in email, though from someone who is usually solid. Where did you hear the contrary?

A strike against union-busting with unorganised cheap labour would be progressive, but that is not this strike.

Which is why we need to make this strike about the right things, i.e. bosses fucking everyone over.

[RebelDog]

The workers at the plant are not getting paid less, that is a fact widely reported in the media. Sorry if the facts don't fit in with your preconceived vision but that doesn't make me naive.A fact 'widely reported' in the media? Will it be widely reported when a couple of months down the line they are getting less money, working under less safety, and be told to like it or lump it due to contract constraints?


What do you mean by this question? Why would you expect the company to only ever give contracts to British firms in this particular case when cross-border contracts are common in the industry?They are simply bringing in companies without unionised labour. They knew the British ones would have been unionised. I dont expect any company to act in the interests of workers of any nationality.


They didn't know it would be a shitstrom. According to the reports I read, at the time the contract was signed no-one complained. It is only know that the crisis has hit and jobs overall have become sparse, that the workers have turned against the Italian agency having this contract.I cannot prove that but it is my contention that any use of non-unionised labour would have led to a dispute. Total like al the other companies dont give a toss about the nationality of the labour. So what do they care about when, as you concede, these workers are getting the same wages and conditions? There are clearly elements in this dispute whom have identified this with nationalty and I regret that. We know the bosses are getting away with murder why we argue over nationality. Its not about that to them. Its about maximising profits and awarding contracts to non-unionised contractors and I should not have to to reiterate on a revolutionary leftist site why that is so important to their overall welfare.


That often happens but that is not the case here. You are revising reality based on what you want it to be.The difference between you and I is that could never trust bosses to have anything other than contempt for organised workers. What is the case here then?


Do you have evidence that the Italian workers are unorganised? Where has this been reported? I heard the opposite, though admittedly only in email, though from someone who is usually solid. Where did you hear the contrary?

A strike against union-busting with unorganised cheap labour would be progressive, but that is not this strike. I'm certain they not unionised but I cannot find a link to confirm this. I will provide one when I can find one. Even so can you actually confirm they have the same wages and conditions?

[Zurdito]

The difference between you and I is that could never trust bosses to have anything other than contempt for organised workers.

:rolleyes:


I'm certain they not unionised but I cannot find a link to confirm this. I will provide one when I can find one. Even so can you actually confirm they have the same wages and conditions

Apart from the fact that not the strikers own website, or any of the sympathetic articles in the media, or the articles ont he webstie of the Socialist Party (which is pro-strike) state this fact, much less state it to be a demand of the strike, I can't find a news reporting specifically claiming that the Italian workers are not organised. If this was a central issue motivating the strike, you would be able to prove it easily.

http://www.bearfacts.co.uk/

HLVS - yes, I agree. Not being in Britain I can't do much, but the British left indeed needs to do that. I agree also that the motivation here is not nationalism, but jobs. But that doesn't mean the current specific demands of the strike should be supported.

[Bilan]

I changed the title of the thread.
Simplistic bullshit like this is a pain in the ass.
Understand the situation before labeling every worker 'reactionary'.
For heavens sake.

[Socialistpenguin]

LOT of activity gone on in the meantime. Statement by Keith Gibson of the GMB who was elected onto the strike committee here:
http://socialistparty.org.uk/latest/6849

Finalised demands of the Yorkshire strikers also located here:
http://socialistparty.org.uk/latest/6850

[Dr Mindbender]

Why was the title of this thread changed? :rolleyes:

[The Idler]

Why aren't there calls for Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley to be sacked? Or condemnation of the petty nationalism of the Socialist Party of England and Wales (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/6849)?
Permanent Revolution describes the situation as Lindsey refinery strike divides the left (http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=2544).

[rednordman]

scary! BNP are now in the mix (apparently), thoughts?...http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/02/british-wildcats-strike-support-collective-bnp-front-group/
Sorry about the link (harries place) incase some people dont like it, and i do not 100% agree with it. (still a left-wing one, just a bit of a contraversional one)

[Bilan]

Why was the title of this thread changed? :rolleyes:

Because 'reactionary' strikes is dishonest. I posted that above.

[Zurdito]

Though it is worth exposing the BNP, we all knew they were orienting to the strikes anyway. This doesn't mean we can ascribe their views to the strikers.

According to the Socialist Party, this:

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/6850


Update on the spreading strikes by construction engineers in the refinery and power industry

Report by phone from Alistair Tice (Yorkshire Socialist Party) on the mass picket at the Lindsey total refinery North Lincolnshire. Monday 2 February 2009

"The strike committee accepted the main demands of Keith Gibson and John Mckewan to put to the mass meeting today.
Keith is a Socialist Party member and on the strike committee and John is a Socialist Party supporter and victimised worker from the refinery.
The strike committee added an extra demand, calling for John to be reinstated into his job.

The demands were

No victimisation of workers taking solidarity action.
All workers in UK to be covered by NAECI Agreement.
Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available.
Government and employer investment in proper training / apprenticeships for new generation of construction workers - fight for a future for young people.
All Immigrant labour to be unionised.
Trade Union assistance for immigrant workers - including interpreters - and access to Trade Union advice - to promote active integrated Trade Union Members.
Build links with construction trade unions on the continent.
The mass meeting overwhelmingly voted for the demands put to them by the strike committee.
Prior to the meeting Keith and John (and their wives who had came to support the strikers) had seen some BNP members in the car park and told them that they were not welcome, with that the BNP cleared off.
Socialist Party members gave out over 700 leaflets putting our position (which was now the position of the strike committee) and the leaflet was welcomed. One worker (before he read the leaflet) thought that were giving out BNP leaflets and protested that he was not a racist and didn't support the BNP and was relieved when it was explained to him that they were Socialist Party leaflets and supported workers unity.
Keith is part of the negotiating committee that is now in discussions with the management at the refinery. The strike is continuing and looks as if it is spreading throughout the country at the time of writing with Sellafield and Heysham nuclear plants out. Workers at other plants, according to the BBC, have also decided to stay out, these include Grangemouth and Longannon in Scotland. Warrington and Staythope in Newark are also out as well.
The strikes are spreading from fiddlers ferry in Warrington to the Drax power station in Yorkshire."

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/6850

[Enragé]

respect for the SP, but just as i was to write up a highly laudatory post further criticising the SWP etc etc i realised

"Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available."

--> Comes down to british jobs for british workers.. or doesnt it? (please tell me it doesnt :P)

In any case, still great you were there, but more like damage control than anything else.

[Zurdito]

respect for the SP, but just as i was to write up a highly laudatory post further criticising the SWP etc etc i realised

"Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available."

--> Comes down to british jobs for british workers.. or doesnt it? (please tell me it doesnt :P)

In any case, still great you were there, but more like damage control than anything else.

Just to clarify I am not in the CWI, and I think you have a point.

I am still not sure what to make of the develpment. It seems to be a step in the right direction but you are right about stating that. What is positive is that the fact that the meeting voted for these demands contradicts the idea that these are outright reactionary or chauvinist strikes.

This does not mean there is nothing to oppose in the slogans of current strikes or the SP.

[Killfacer]

Apparently there is a builders forum called "bare facts" and they have a thread called "this is what the left thinks of us" and it has a link to this thread. Idiots like Bobkindles do more to alienate the working classes from the left than the combined effort of Stalin, Polpot and Mao.

[Killfacer]

http://www.bearfacts.co.uk/Forum/index.php?board=1.60 thats the board.

[Angry Young Man]

You spelt bear as in the growly thing.

[Killfacer]

i know. It has a picture of a bear on the site.

[Hit The North]

Apparently there is a builders forum called "bare facts" and they have a thread called "this is what the left thinks of us" and it has a link to this thread. Idiots like Bobkindles do more to alienate the working classes from the left than the combined effort of Stalin, Polpot and Mao.

Gee, Bobkindles must be mighty powerful!

Where's the thread you mention, Killfacer? I've scoured the forum and can't find it. Some interesting stuff on there, though, so thanks for the link.

[Killfacer]

Gee, Bobkindles must be mighty powerful!

Where's the thread you mention, Killfacer? I've scoured the forum and can't find it. Some interesting stuff on there, though, so thanks for the link.

I meant people like him! :lol:

[ls]

I meant people like him! :lol:

That's also what you wrote :lol: but there ya go.

Point to the thread on bearfacts.co.u please K-f, I'd like to see it myself. :) And can't find it on google or the forum.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

A bunch of polish workers have joined the strike

[Pogue]

Link Comrade Joe?

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Well most of the posts on that fourm are quite good to be honest hardly any britain no1 shite but more workers unite stuff

[Pogue]

Could you source the polish workers story please mate?

[Killfacer]

As in people who work in the polish industry or people from poland?

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/600-workers-strike-Langage-Power-Station/article-666037-detail/article.html

This fucking better spread to the south

[Pogue]

Thats good news, thanks Comrade Joe.

[ls]

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/600-workers-strike-Langage-Power-Station/article-666037-detail/article.html

This fucking better spread to the south

It looks like it will and it has there hasn't it ? Langage is in the south-west.

The article mentions a Kent power station.

I saw on BBC news earlier videos of workers criticizing the bosses but not migrants at all, it looks like this is turning round...

Even BBC news said "the workers seem to be confused about what they are striking about", it's close to becoming a proper strike.

[Pogue]

It looks like it will and it has there hasn't it ? Langage is in the south-west.

The article mentions a Kent power station.

I saw on BBC news earlier videos of workers criticizing the bosses but not migrants at all, it looks like this is turning round...

Even BBC news said "the workers seem to be confused about what they are striking about", it's close to becoming a proper strike.

I fucking hope it does, promising signs at the moment, I might have to scoot off to a picket line.

[Zurdito]

Apparently there is a builders forum called "bare facts" and they have a thread called "this is what the left thinks of us" and it has a link to this thread. Idiots like Bobkindles do more to alienate the working classes from the left than the combined effort of Stalin, Polpot and Mao.

I know the website:

http://www.bearfacts.co.uk/

Hopefully this website doesn't represent all the workers on strike, because websites like that only alienate the rest of the world from the British working class.

[Zurdito]

I fucking hope it does, promising signs at the moment, I might have to scoot off to a picket line.

does the IWW wait for a strike to start before you leaflet a factory/power station etc.?:confused:

serious question.

[Pogue]

does the IWW wait for a strike to start before you leaflet a factory/power station etc.?:confused:

serious question.

No. We organise and spread propoganda wherever we can.

Why did you ask this question whilst quoting me talking about joining a picket?

[Zurdito]

No. We organise and spread propoganda wherever we can.

Why did you ask this question whilst quoting me talking about joining a picket?

because I thought it suggested you were waiting for there to be a picket before you went down there. maybe just a misunderstanding though :)

[paul c]

The SWP go ultra-left once again. Though this strike has reactionary elements within it like the slogan BJ4BW that need to be rooted out, the core demands of the strikers are certainly not reactionary. As for the "nationalist" line that the SP has taken, well a leaflet in Italian has been prepared to hand out amongst the migrants making it clear that our gripe is with the bosses and not them and that we wish them to join us in the struggle. If the SWP's line of outright condemnation were taken up by the left as a whole then the BNP would be the only party out on the picket lines and we all know that would be a disaster. The SP, RESPECT and others have taken the correct position by saying that we agree with the anger of the workers while making it clear to them that the bosses are the real enemy not their fellow workers. And so far it seems to be going well as over the last day or their has been less evidence of those reactionary elements and a few reports of BNP members being told that they are not welcome on the pickets.

[Bilan]

Paul C, you ruined an other wise brilliant post with stupid sectarianism.
Abandon ' ultra-left'. It's dumb.

[Devrim]

Paul C, you ruined an other wise brilliant post with stupid sectarianism.
Abandon ' ultra-left'. It's dumb.

I think that this post is an excellent example of how the term ultra left is used. Basically, it just an insult that means somebody who has more left wing politics than you do. Here it is being used against the SWP, who on other threads are using it against people with more left wing politics than them.

The politics of those who are traditionally described as the ultra-left on this are quite clear, and have already been posted on this thread:
http://en.internationalism.org/wr/2009/321/immingham

The fact that the SWP along with others were so quick to condemn these strikes shouldn't come as much of a surprise either. It completely fits in with the rest of their politics.

Devrim

[Devrim]

The article from the Plymouth Herald is a superb piece of journalism:

600 WORKERS have walked out in a wildcat strike at Langage Power Station in protest at the use of foreign workers.
Jerry Pickford, regional officer for Unite South West, said the workers had walked out in support of similar action across the rest of the UK.
The union, which says it does not condone the unauthorised strike, says the entire workforce, including hundreds of Polish workers, is unofficially on strike today.


Devrim

[Killfacer]

I know the website:

http://www.bearfacts.co.uk/

Hopefully this website doesn't represent all the workers on strike, because websites like that only alienate the rest of the world from the British working class.

That's such a classic statement. Do you think people care more about what some commie thinks of them in America, or whether they are going to have a job in the morning?

[Zurdito]

That's such a classic statement. Do you think people care more about what some commie thinks of them in America, or whether they are going to have a job in the morning?

I'm not in the US.

Firstly let me be clear that my criticism is of the people who runt he bearfacts website and this is not the same as the strike itself, which has taken up demands which are not the same as the bearfacts website.

Secondly though seeing as you defend bearfacts, which is openly hostile to the italian workers, I have a question: do you think that Italian workers care if they are going to have a job in the morning, or only British workers?

Because the demand of bearfacts.com is to send home the Italian workers and give the jobs to British.

Do you want that to happen or not? And what do you want to happen to all the British construction workers in other countries? What if Italian workers start taking retaliation action demanding all British construction workers be sent home, would you support them? Because that is quite likely to happen, and posters on that forum, British workers in other countries, have posted saying they are worried about this, and asking their comrades in britain to drop the slogan.

Obviously I agree with arguing for a line which takes up the fight for jobs, showing how much Total earn and showing that they can afford to keep on both Italian and British workers, and if necessarry we can divide up working hours with no pay cut. I would say why is it that unemployment has risen 47% in Lincolnshire? Where did the profits from 14 years of uninterrupted economci growth go? So challenge the ocmpanies laying people off, let's march to them and demand workers get their jobs back, and have strikes by the employed workers there until it happens. If as bearfacts says, the workers believe this is "our" (the construction workers industry), then that line should get a hearing.

But what does that have to do with not criticising websites like bearfacts?

That website is anti-foreign worker. By not rejecting slogans that divide the British working class off from europeans, especially when the British working class is already the worst-off of any of the working classes int he advanced countries of Europe (longest workign hours, highest rate of explotiation, least rights, facing the worst recession, etc.), you would only be sitting back and watching them dig their own grave.

[Zurdito]

from bearfacts forum:
“I’m a Brit working overseas, just like many of you have done in the past - and might end up having to do in the future. Please think carefully about how you deal with your situation. The last thing we all want are bosses exploiting the divisions between workers that are based on nationality. The scum that send jobs from profitable factories in the developed world to sweatshops exploiting children and wage slaves in other parts of the world would end up having a field day with all of us if they could play us off against other Europeans.”

[Hit The North]

If the SWP's line of outright condemnation were taken up by the left as a whole then the BNP would be the only party out on the picket lines and we all know that would be a disaster.


Where is this 'outright condemnation'? Please provide quotes.


Originally posted by paul c
The SP, RESPECT and others have taken the correct position by saying that we agree with the anger of the workers while making it clear to them that the bosses are the real enemy not their fellow workers. And this from the front page of this week's Socialist Worker:


Every worker is facing the same horrors in the face of a global recession. We can’t let ourselves be divided by racism or nationalist sentiment.
We need a united fight that targets the real culprits – the bankers, the multinationals, the politicians. Let’s turn the anger on those truly responsible for this dreadful recession.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17051

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by Devrim
The fact that the SWP along with others were so quick to condemn these strikes shouldn't come as much of a surprise either. It completely fits in with the rest of their politics.

The fact that you seemingly cannot discuss any issue without taking a side-swipe at the SWP is even less surprising. :rolleyes:

However, while you're here, tell me why you uncritically support the slogan 'British jobs for British workers' and why the SWP were wrong to condemn it.

[Angry Young Man]

The union said that they want nothing to do with the BNP. I had heard that the SWP had washed their hands of the Lindsey strike. Call it thinking too much, but that supposes that they don't really want to culture out false consciousness.

[Zurdito]

Devrim, among those "others" do you count the ICC?:


Here is the ICC's recent statement on the strikes in the UK refineries and power plants.

The walk-outs and demonstrations by workers in oil refineries and power stations over the question of unemployment show the depth of anger in the working class faced with the tidal wave of redundancies brought about by the economic crisis.

This wave of lay-offs and short-time working is not confined to Britain but is engulfing the globe. From the USA to China, from western Europe to Russia, no workers' job is safe; and even when they have work, wages are being cut and working conditions worsened.

But workers around the world are showing their unwillingness to accept these attacks: there are daily strikes and demonstrations in China; at the end of January 2.5 million workers in France struck in protest about unemployment; students and young workers in Italy, France, Germany and above all Greece have been out on the streets demonstrating their rage against a society which offers them no future. The anger of the workers in the refineries is not specific to Britain but part of an international response to the deepening economic disaster.

Nationalism leads to a dead-end

However, the main slogan raised in the energy strikes - "British jobs for British workers" - can only lead the workers into a complete dead end.
The threat to the jobs of workers in the power industry or anywhere else does not come from a ship-load of Italian and Portuguese workers who are being used by a network of British, US, and Italian firms to cheapen labour costs. Capitalism doesn't give a jot about the nationality of those it exploits. It only cares about how much profit it can extract from them. But it is more than happy when workers are set against each other, when they are divided up into competing national groups. The idea of "British jobs for British workers" is directly opposed to the ability of workers to defend themselves. This is because they can only stand up for their interests if their struggles extend as widely as possible and bring all workers, regardless of nationality, into a common resistance against their exploiters. Workers in the UK have no interests in common with British bosses and the British state and everything in common with so-called ‘foreign' workers, who face the same threat of unemployment and poverty because the crisis of capitalism is a world-wide crisis.

Trade unions peddle the nationalist delusion

The main force pushing the nationalist delusion in this conflict has been the Unite and GMB trade unions who have taken up Gordon Brown's slogan - itself filched from the British National Party - and placed it at the centre of the movement. This is not the first time the unions have tried to peddle the "British jobs for British workers" line. Last year building workers on a construction site at a power plant in Plymouth were laid off by the contractor. Other workers walked out in solidarity with their comrades. The union tried to argue that workers from Poland on the site were taking "British" jobs. This rang very hollow when these Polish workers joined the strike. The union which had protested so loudly about British workers being laid off then made a deal with the bosses to get the striking workers back to work and to leave the laid-off workers unemployed.

The media have also played a big part in spreading the nationalist message. Normally they are very quiet when workers take unofficial action or engage in illegal solidarity strikes, but they have been giving maximum publicity to this conflict, constantly focussing on the "British" placards and slogans.
Although there's no denying that the workers in the oil refineries and power stations have swallowed the nationalist bait to some extent, reality is much more complex, as can be seen from this statement by an unemployed worker protesting outside a Welsh power station: "I was laid off as a stevedore two weeks ago. I've worked in Cardiff and Barry Docks for 11 years and I've come here today hoping that we can shake the government up. I think the whole country should go on strike as we're losing all British industry. But I've got nothing against foreign workers. I can't blame them for going where the work is." (The Guardian On-line 20.1.2009). Other workers in the industry have themselves made the point that thousands of oil and construction workers from Britain are currently working abroad.

The future is the international class struggle

In the face of an economic crisis of devastating proportions, it is not surprising that workers will find it difficult to find the most effective way of defending themselves. The energy workers have shown a real desire to organise themselves, spread the struggle and demonstrate in support of comrades in other plants and other parts of the country, but the nationalist slogan they have adopted is going to be used against the whole working class and its ability to unite.

The ruling class has no solution to this crisis, a crisis of overproduction which has been gathering pace for decades. It can no longer conjure it away with further injections of credit - the resulting mountain of debt is obviously part of the problem. And closing each country up behind protectionist barriers - which is the logic of "British jobs for British workers" - was already shown in the 1930s to be a way of sharpening competition between nation states and dragging workers off to war.

The working class has no immediate or local solutions to the economic catastrophe. But it can defend itself against the attempts of capitalism to make it pay for the crisis. And by uniting in self-defence, across all divisions and borders, it can start to discover that it has a historic answer to the collapse of capitalism: an international revolution and a new world society based on human solidarity and not capitalist profit.

International Communist Current 31.1.09

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/2009/321/immingham


Maybe I am missing it but what is the big difference between this and the SWP line?

[Devrim]

However, while you're here, tell me why you uncritically support the slogan 'British jobs for British workers' and why the SWP were wrong to condemn it.

I don't. I think it is a reactionary slogan.


Where is this 'outright condemnation'? Please provide quotes.

Actually I have just read the SWP piece and it doesn't go as far as SWP members have gone on here. My comment referred to Bob Kindles condemnations of striking workers, my mistake.


These protests are reactionary
... British workers and their reactionary politics
...the reactionary behavior of these workers


Maybe I am missing it but what is the big difference between this and the SWP line?

As I just said I hadn't read their piece. I judged on the comments of their members. I think that there is a very big difference between the two peices though.

Devrim

[Zurdito]

Devrim: the ICC statement was good, but something is unclear, do they support the strikes or not?

Also do you and the EKS support them or think they should be supported?

[Killfacer]

I'm not in the US.

Firstly let me be clear that my criticism is of the people who runt he bearfacts website and this is not the same as the strike itself, which has taken up demands which are not the same as the bearfacts website.

Secondly though seeing as you defend bearfacts, which is openly hostile to the italian workers, I have a question: do you think that Italian workers care if they are going to have a job in the morning, or only British workers?

Because the demand of bearfacts.com is to send home the Italian workers and give the jobs to British.

Do you want that to happen or not? And what do you want to happen to all the British construction workers in other countries? What if Italian workers start taking retaliation action demanding all British construction workers be sent home, would you support them? Because that is quite likely to happen, and posters on that forum, British workers in other countries, have posted saying they are worried about this, and asking their comrades in britain to drop the slogan.

Obviously I agree with arguing for a line which takes up the fight for jobs, showing how much Total earn and showing that they can afford to keep on both Italian and British workers, and if necessarry we can divide up working hours with no pay cut. I would say why is it that unemployment has risen 47% in Lincolnshire? Where did the profits from 14 years of uninterrupted economci growth go? So challenge the ocmpanies laying people off, let's march to them and demand workers get their jobs back, and have strikes by the employed workers there until it happens. If as bearfacts says, the workers believe this is "our" (the construction workers industry), then that line should get a hearing.

But what does that have to do with not criticising websites like bearfacts?

That website is anti-foreign worker. By not rejecting slogans that divide the British working class off from europeans, especially when the British working class is already the worst-off of any of the working classes int he advanced countries of Europe (longest workign hours, highest rate of explotiation, least rights, facing the worst recession, etc.), you would only be sitting back and watching them dig their own grave.

When did i say Bearfacts was a good site? :confused: I simply thought you're statement abotu the alienation of the world was irrelevant. BearFacts is kind of like UKIP central.

[Killfacer]

The fact that you seemingly cannot discuss any issue without taking a side-swipe at the SWP is even less surprising. :rolleyes:

However, while you're here, tell me why you uncritically support the slogan 'British jobs for British workers' and why the SWP were wrong to condemn it.

In fairness, i think both myself and Devrim were referring to the attitude of SWP members such as BobKindles on this site.

[Zurdito]

When did i say Bearfacts was a good site? :confused: I simply thought you're statement abotu the alienation of the world was irrelevant. BearFacts is kind of like UKIP central.

Are you saying bear facts is irrelevant then?

I hope you are right.

I don't think that it's irrelevant to British workers if they start getting chased off construction sites around Europe.

[Killfacer]

Are you saying bear facts is irrelevant then?

I hope you are right.

I don't think that it's irrelevant to British workers if they start getting chased off construction sites around Europe.

It looks as though the strikes are turning a bit, there have been some more promising signs than earlier in the week. Fingers crossed.

[Devrim]

Also do you and the EKS support them or think they should be supported?

What is your position on last years Türk Telekom strike, or the events at Tuzla? It is a bit of an obscure question really. I know about it, I presume Leo does, and I told chatted about it with another member a the weekend, but I would be surprised if the majority of our members knew about it even.

My feeling would be that the media, and the unions are playing up the national card. It would be neccesary to find out what is exactly going on. As I said in my first post on this thread 'I don't think this is like the Powell strikes'. Also some of the things in the media like 'hundreds of Poles join strikes against foreign workers' don't add up to me.

It is difficult to comment from another continent, but my feeling is that communists should be there arguing, and certainly not organising counter demos or anything like that.


the ICC statement was good, but something is unclear, do they support the strikes or not?

I will ask them to respond.

Devrim

[Zurdito]

What is your position on last years Türk Telekom strike, or the events at Tuzla?

I don't know about them except for what you told me and what /I read on your site (and the former sounded like a victory and a strike which I would have supported unconditionally), but then I haven't criticised any of the Turkish left over them either. ;) I am not being argumentative it just seemed fair that if you were in the discussion, you would be able to give a position.


It is a bit of an obscure question really. I know about it, I presume Leo does, and I told chatted about it with another member a the weekend, but I would be surprised if the majority of our members knew about it even.


Yes I should have asked what is your position. I expressed myself badly but the question here is that I am trying to see what you think is the difference between the ICC and SWP's logic, and what your own is.



My feeling would be that the media, and the unions are playing up the national card. It would be neccesary to find out what is exactly going on. As I said in my first post on this thread 'I don't think this is like the Powell strikes'. Also some of the things in the media like 'hundreds of Poles join strikes against foreign workers' don't add up to me.

It is difficult to comment from another continent, but my feeling is that communists should be there arguing, and certainly not organising counter demos or anything like that.


Yes but I doubt many people are goign to disagree with you on that. The question of supporting a strike is not arbitrary it is fundamental though. Let's say you had a section in Britain, with workers at Lindsey, and the public meetings voted for the slogan "British jobs for British workers". Would you then vote for the strike? would you collect strike funds? Would you campaign for others to join the strike or for public support?

Obviously neither of us would break picket lines, we would argue against that (and the SWP agrees), and likewise we would oppose any attempt by the bosses or state to attack the strike or the union (likewise). But that is not what I am asking.

[Devrim]

but then I haven't criticised any of the Turkish left over them either. ;) I am not being argumentative it just seemed fair that if you were in the discussion, you would be able to give a position.

Fair point, what I was actually trying to criticise were the posts at the start of this thread, which in my opinion were just basically attacking the workers without much knowledge of what is going on.


Yes I should have asked what is your position. I expressed myself badly but the question here is that I am trying to see what you think is the difference between the ICC and SWP's logic, and what your own is.

I am in basic agreement with the ICC. I think the differences with the SWP are about how they relate to the unions and the Labour party.


Yes but I doubt many people are goign to disagree with you on that. The question of supporting a strike is not arbitrary it is fundamental though. Let's say you had a section in Britain, with workers at Lindsey, and the public meetings voted for the slogan "British jobs for British workers". Would you then vote for the strike? would you collect strike funds? Would you campaign for others to join the strike or for public support?

The ICC has a section in the UK though it is very small. I think the reason that it is difficult to make a call on this from afar is precisely because we don't know what is going on. I don't think the scenario that you paint is very clear. I mean I have been involved in many strikes and many mass meetings, and I have never seen one vote for 'strike slogans'. I don't think that this strike is as reactionary as the media is making out. However, as I say, it is difficult to be sure.

Devrim

[Leo]

What is your position on last years Türk Telekom strike, or the events at Tuzla? I don't know about them except for what you told me and what /I read on your site (and the former sounded like a victory and a strike which I would have supported unconditionally)

On a different point, while the behavior of the unions in the UK and here seem similar, nationalism promoted by the trade union seemed more influential among Türk Telekom strikers than the one going on in England - and that despite the fact that workers were attacked as traitors to the nation and all. While I did see the reactionary nationalist slogan "British jobs for British workers" which bourgeois media apparently loved so much and shows everywhere in the TV, I did not see seas of British flags in workers' demonstrations.

[Dr Mindbender]

http://www.bearfacts.co.uk/Forum/index.php?board=1.60 thats the board.

Sorry i don't see the thread you mean.

[Zurdito]

I don't think the scenario that you paint is very clear. I mean I have been involved in many strikes and many mass meetings, and I have never seen one vote for 'strike slogans'.

According to the Socialist Party story I posted above, the strike committe put a series of demands to a public meeting, which voted on them. I have seen this happen before in rank and file assemblies, in fact I saw such a process in person on Monday, at an assembly attended by 350 automobile workers.

From what I have read, the original strike at Lindsey was called in protest that a contract had been given to an Italian firm when local workers were struggling to find employment, and the demands were that this shouldn't have happened, but that the company should contract British workers instead. The workers decided this as the demand of their strike


I don't think that this strike is as reactionary as the media is making out. However, as I say, it is difficult to be sure.

I agree that the media, bureaucracy and the right have coat-tailed the movement with their own ideology. However I do not think the demand "British jobs for British workers" is progressive. The SP members here and others who support the strike have admitted that this at least was a demand (if you don't like the word slogan) of the strike. In the case of Lindsey Oil Refinery the implications for the Italian and Portuguese subcontracted workers would be quite clear. Yet the ICC statement does not say whether or not they would support a strike which raised this as its central demand.

[Zurdito]

On a different point, while the behavior of the unions in the UK and here seem similar, nationalism promoted by the trade union seemed more influential among Türk Telekom strikers than the one going on in England - and that despite the fact that workers were attacked as traitors to the nation and all. While I did see the reactionary nationalist slogan "British jobs for British workers" which bourgeois media apparently loved so much and shows everywhere in the TV, I did not see seas of British flags in workers' demonstrations.

Fair enough but the issue here is not so much nationalism as a general sentiment amongst the working class, or the cultural values of workers in Turkey and Britain respectively (which surely is interesting, if you would make a thread on it I may well read it), but the issue of the concrete demands raised by a particular strike.

[Devrim]

According to the Socialist Party story I posted above, the strike committe put a series of demands to a public meeting, which voted on them. I have seen this happen before in rank and file assemblies, in fact I saw such a process in person on Monday, at an assembly attended by 350 automobile workers.

Demands, yes I have seen that, but slogans, no I haven't. 'British jobs for British workers' is a slogan not a demand.

Devrim

[Holden Caulfield]

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=61728858017&h=F9qP8&u=U3stl

[Zurdito]

Demands, yes I have seen that, but slogans, no I haven't. 'British jobs for British workers' is a slogan not a demand.

Devrim

emphasis mine.

really?

when workers go on strike against 100 new jobs being created and it going to an Italian company, then that is what the strike is against, and clearly the motivation of the strike is that the jobs should have gone to British workers. Otherwise the strikes owuld have taken place specifically against firings, not against the granting of the contract to an Italian subcontractor.

I don't see in that context how "British jobs for British workers" cannot be a demand. It can also work on the level of a slogan but in the context of the LOR strike it was a demand.

Before anyone tells me, I am aware of the new agreement where Total have agreed to create 195 new jobs and to share the new project at LOR between British and Italian workers. I think this shows that the strike was not motivated by xenophobia but by jobs. But this doesn't change the fact that an initial demand was "British jobs for British workers", and the fact that the ICC statement doesn't state if they would support such a strike or not.

And before we get another passive-aggressive comment from Leo, the issue is not waving of national flags which I have seen on many 100% supportable strikes along with catholic imagery and sexist or homophobic chants etc. - I don't know what kind of rose-tinted glasses you think I wear - but the concrete implications of that demand being realised, i.e. prioritising of British labour over Italian at Lindsey Oil Refinery.

[Devrim]

I don't see in that context how "British jobs for British workers" cannot be a demand. It can also work on the level of a slogan but in the context of the LOR strike it was a demand.

I don't really see how it can be a 'demand'. Which jobs does it refer to? 'These jobs for British workers' may be a demand, but to generalise is just a vague slogan.

Now I am sure that when they walked out they either did make demands or they just walked out in anger. Both of these seem possible to me. I don't think that they raised the demand of 'British jobs for British workers'. What on Earth would it mean, 'every job in the country for British workers'?


But this doesn't change the fact that an initial demand was "British jobs for British workers",

I am not convinced that this was a demand. Still less so when you have newspapers reporting that foreign workers were walking out against foreign workers. I think that this was a picket line slogan that has been picked up on by the media.


and the fact that the ICC statement doesn't state if they would support such a strike or not.

Ask them if you want to know. Post a question on their website under the article. Here is the link:http://en.internationalism.org/wr/2009/321/immingham

Devrim

[Devrim]

I have just found out what the main demand of the strike was. It was to get a substantial proportion, at least 50%, of the jobs available to apply for on site.

Devrim

[Holden Caulfield]

A seris of blogs about the strikes (http://nationofduncan.wordpress.com/)

[Enragé]

Read this excellent libcom freesheet/irregulary workers bulletin called "Tea Break", devoted entirely to the strikes http://www.libcom.org/files/Tea%20Break%20-%20On%20Oil.pdf

[Zurdito]

Now I am sure that when they walked out they either did make demands or they just walked out in anger. Both of these seem possible to me. I don't think that they raised the demand of 'British jobs for British workers'. What on Earth would it mean, 'every job in the country for British workers'?

Devrim: what specific action by the bosses (not only Total, because they contract out the contracting to a US company whose name I forget) sparked the strike?

Or was it a general walkout against the evils of unemployment with no specific demand?

ok you posted the demand above already but it is amazing that you would think that in the context of this walkout, "British jobs for British workes" was not a demand.

The reason I keep up the argument is not for fun but because your reasoning here can be used in other cases where demands remain vague.

Also where did you read that this was the specific demand? Was it so from the beginning? Did the bureaucracy decide this or assemblies? (Because in the former case your reasoning could still be used to argue that the initial wildcat strike, and therefore the true content of the strike, was not the same as the UNITE demand).

[Devrim]

Also where did you read that this was the specific demand? Was it so from the beginning? Did the bureaucracy decide this or assemblies? (Because in the former case your reasoning could still be used to argue that the initial wildcat strike, and therefore the true content of the strike, was not the same as the UNITE demand).

Communication from some one who was there.
Yes from the beginning and all the way through.
I presume as it was from the beginning the assemblies.


ok you posted the demand above already but it is amazing that you would think that in the context of this walkout, "British jobs for British workes" was not a demand.

I can't understand how you think that an abstract slogan is a demand. Really, I can't understand your point at all.


The reason I keep up the argument is not for fun but because your reasoning here can be used in other cases where demands remain vague.

Well seen as my reasoning has been that you should know what is going on before denouncing people and organising counter demonstrations, I can only think that this is a good thing.

Devrim

[Zurdito]

I can't understand how you think that an abstract slogan is a demand. Really, I can't understand your point at all.

Why was the strike called? What does "British jobs for British workers" mean in that context? Like I said I do not know if the workers voted for this demand, but in the context of Italian company Irem being given a contract and bringing 100 Italian workers to do the job, going on strike calling for "British jobs for British workers" is clearly a demand that those jobs should go to Brits not Italians. I do not think it's hard to imagine a strike meeting to vote on whether or not to raise that call, whether or not you have personally seen "slogans" voted for.



Well seen as my reasoning has been that you should know what is going on before denouncing people and organising counter demonstrations, I can only think that this is a good thing.

I agree with that, and the question is not "denouncing" the strike as you can see I have nowhere denounced the strike and no left party to my knowledge has. The question was if you would support a strike which raised the demand "British jobs...".

But anyway now we know the real demand, I can ask: do you think this strike should have been supported?

[Devrim]

Why was the strike called? What does "British jobs for British workers" mean in that context? Like I said I do not know if the workers voted for this demand, but in the context of Italian company Irem being given a contract and bringing 100 Italian workers to do the job, going on strike calling for "British jobs for British workers" is clearly a demand that those jobs should go to Brits not Italians. I do not think it's hard to imagine a strike meeting to vote on whether or not to raise that call, whether or not you have personally seen "slogans" voted for.

In my experience people demand real concrete things. Abstract slogans are not demands. I don't think strike meetings vote to 'make calls' in that way. I am not saying it can't happen. I am just saying that it is outside my experience. The actual demand that at least 50% of the hiring should take place local sounds much more like a real demand that a meeting would make. It articulates something which the workers wanted and thought that they could achieve.


I agree with that, and the question is not "denouncing" the strike as you can see I have nowhere denounced the strike and no left party to my knowledge has.

Read the start of this thread again. Lots of posters were. I was responding to people on this thread, not what the leftist might or might not say.


The question was if you would support a strike which raised the demand "British jobs...".

No, I wouldn't, but I don't think that this strike is that strike.


But anyway now we know the real demand, I can ask: do you think this strike should have been supported?

We look at it in a very different way to the Trotskyists. It is not about having a formal position of 'supporting' this or that struggle.

Should communists have got involved? As far as I can see, yes.

Devrim

[The Idler]

Apparently the slogan "Workers of all countries, unite!" is now considered "ultra-left" rather than a basic tenet anymore.

[Killfacer]

Can someone explain "ultra-left" it seems to be being thrown around a lot at the moment.

[Pogue]

Apparently the slogan "Workers of all countries, unite!" is now considered "ultra-left" rather than a basic tenet anymore.

Who are you criticising in that statement?

[Dr Mindbender]

Who are you criticising in that statement?

Clearly apologists of the ''british jobs for british workers'' slogan.

[Pogue]

Well thats doesn't include anyone on this forum then. No one here apologised for that slogan, we did however say we were not going to condemn the workers as fascists who should be attacked with the full force of our moral highground when they were precisely sort of people we have to try to appeal too.

[Dr Mindbender]

Well thats doesn't include anyone on this forum then. No one here apologised for that slogan, we did however say we were not going to condemn the workers as fascists who should be attacked with the full force of our moral highground when they were precisely sort of people we have to try to appeal too.

Well some here were quick to attack critics of the protests as being 'typical middle class lefties' out of touch with the working class. I for one, am far from middle class but i do not support the central demand of the strike to refuse employment on the basis of nationality. This demand is reactionary and there is no justifiable leftist argument for it.

I dont think anyone accused the workers themselves of being fascists, however i do think there may be fascistic elements among them crowing the nationalist sentiment of the strike.

[The Idler]

Surely socialists should make the case for socialism across borders to reactionary workers, fascists, everybody?
However, its not ultra-left to refuse to support the strike.

[Devrim]

Well some here were quick to attack critics of the protests as being 'typical middle class lefties' out of touch with the working class. I for one, am far from middle class but i do not support the central demand of the strike to refuse employment on the basis of nationality. This demand is reactionary and there is no justifiable leftist argument for it.

But as we have seen. It wasn't a demand of the strike. It was a slogan raised by some strikers. The central demand of the strike was about local recruiting, which is not actually as reactionary as 'ethnic recruiting'.


I dont think anyone accused the workers themselves of being fascists, however i do think there may be fascistic elements among them crowing the nationalist sentiment of the strike.

Well people on here were talking about 'reactionary British workers'.

I doubt they were fascists at all. I don't even think there were fascist elements. What they were putting forward was typical Labour Party and trade union politics.

Devrim

[Zurdito]

We look at it in a very different way to the Trotskyists. It is not about having a formal position of 'supporting' this or that struggle.

Should communists have got involved? As far as I can see, yes.

Devrim

I agree we should get involved, but supporting a strike is concrete, not abstract. One thing is to oppose crossing picket lines, and to resist any attempt by the bosses or the state to attack the union or strikers, or the bureaucrats to victimise workers. And obviously to participate in assemblies and campaign on the picket lines.

Another thing to campaign for others to join the strike, and to collect strike funds, as long as the demand is to replace Italians with British.

Obviously, I think doing the latter would not intiially make you popular witht he Brtitish strike workers. Some on the left seem to thinkt hat this immediate objective overrides all else. That is at best "national trotskyism", a variant of trotskyism I have some experience with (consier Nahuel Moreno or Militant Tendency).

[Devrim]

Another thing to campaign for others to join the strike, and to collect strike funds, as long as the demand is to replace Italians with British.

But this wan't the demand at all. The demand was that at least 50% of the workers be recruited locally.


I agree we should get involved, but supporting a strike is concrete, not abstract.

Well you asked me if I supported the strike. I think that that is completely abstract as I live in another continent. There is a whole thing that is part of leftism about having positions of supporting this and supporting that. It goes to the extreme with people claiming that they give 'military support' to certain groups. To anyone in the real world it would sound like they are supplying arms. Of course they are not. I think 'support' for most of the left is completely abstract.


and to collect strike funds,

Just on another point I am very cynical about people collecting for strike funds. I have been on strike over a dozen times and have never received a penny of strike pay or from any of these funds even though in one of the strikes I saw leftists collecting money 'for the strike' within ten minutes of my office.


That is at best "national trotskyism", a variant of trotskyism I have some experience with (consier Nahuel Moreno or Militant Tendency).

I understand what you are saying about the Militant. However, the more I read about this strike the less I think it was against foreign workers.

Devrim

[Hit The North]

But this wan't the demand at all. The demand was that at least 50% of the workers be recruited locally. That might be the detail of the demand but is was flown under the banner of British Jobs for British Workers, not A Fair Deal for Local Workers.

The national chauvinism which is generalised under that banner cannot be ignored or rationalised away. It has to be confronted. The alternative is opportunism.

[Zurdito]

But as we have seen. It wasn't a demand of the strike. It was a slogan raised by some strikers. The central demand of the strike was about local recruiting, which is not actually as reactionary as 'ethnic recruiting'.



whoa. yes I agree with this, the strike was not racist. It was about economic protectionism regardless of ethnicity. Those calling it racist like Richard Seymour implied, are irresponsible (the SWP didn't do this to my knowledge).

But the effect of supporting the demand to prioritise local labour meant that you could not simultaneously claim to be on the side of the Italian workers. Obviously trade unions have protectionist ideologies and workers have all sorts of ideas but in most strikes the concrete central demand is not to replace one set of workers with the other.

Regarding supporting the strike, I think the point here is to argue what you owuld do in the situation, to the left int hat country. I agree with what you say about the typical arrogant "pseudo-trot" approach of many sects to give grand delcarations on tactists for a place hours away by jumbo jet (the other side of the coin of opportunist adaption, both of which mean no real politics towards the left in the country), but seeing as you obviously do know quite a bit about this, and have good relations with the ICC in Britain and contact with someone hwo was in the assemblies, I think you could state a position especially given your declarations against the SWP.

Regarding strike funds, yes in many cases this is true, I have no illusions about the left in general, but every long strike I have been part of (not as a worker but as someone in the same party as worker leaders), could not have held out without outside funds, as well as support from local working class people.

[Devrim]

That might be the detail of the demand but is was flown under the banner of British Jobs for British Workers, not A Fair Deal for Local Workers.

Equally, you could look at what the demand was, and say that these slogans were raised by some workers during the struggle, and certainly blown up by the media. Again it is difficult to be sure from a distance.

I have seen workers raising reactionary demands during workers struggles that obviously had a class basis before.

I think that we have to be careful before we jump to conclusions.


The national chauvinism which is generalised under that banner cannot be ignored or rationalised away. It has to be confronted. The alternative is opportunism.

I think that the leaflet given out by our current on pickets and demonstrations did confront it:


Nationalism leads to a dead-end However, the main slogan raised in the energy strikes - "British jobs for British workers" - can only lead the workers into a complete dead end.
The threat to the jobs of workers in the power industry or anywhere else does not come from a ship-load of Italian and Portuguese workers who are being used by a network of British, US, and Italian firms to cheapen labour costs. Capitalism doesn't give a jot about the nationality of those it exploits. It only cares about how much profit it can extract from them. But it is more than happy when workers are set against each other, when they are divided up into competing national groups. The idea of "British jobs for British workers" is directly opposed to the ability of workers to defend themselves. This is because they can only stand up for their interests if their struggles extend as widely as possible and bring all workers, regardless of nationality, into a common resistance against their exploiters. Workers in the UK have no interests in common with British bosses and the British state and everything in common with so-called ‘foreign' workers, who face the same threat of unemployment and poverty because the crisis of capitalism is a world-wide crisis.
http://en.internationalism.org/wr/2009/321/immingham

I think that is quite clear really.

Devrim

[Devrim]

But the effect of supporting the demand to prioritise local labour meant that you could not simultaneously claim to be on the side of the Italian workers. Obviously trade unions have protectionist ideologies and workers have all sorts of ideas but in most strikes the concrete central demand is not to replace one set of workers with the other.

No, but then neither was it here.


but seeing as you obviously do know quite a bit about this, and have good relations with the ICC in Britain and contact with someone hwo was in the assemblies, I think you could state a position especially given your declarations against the SWP.

You seem a bit obsessed with having me declare a position, really. But a position for what? IU think I have been quite clear about what I think.


especially given your declarations against the SWP.

I commented on the remarks of one SWP member on this thread. I think there are problems with the SWP leaflet. One would be calling for the unions to make the strikes official, but it wasn't condemning the strikes and workers like that member was.


Regarding strike funds, yes in many cases this is true, I have no illusions about the left in general, but every long strike I have been part of (not as a worker but as someone in the same party as worker leaders), could not have held out without outside funds, as well as support from local working class people.

As I said, I have never seen any money. The longest strike I have been involved in, as a worker, was three and a half weeks (involving 180,000 strikers).

There is another issue here. The amount of money necessary to support workers in a strike that big is immense. You are talking half a million pounds/Euro/dollars/whatever to give each worker one whatever a week. And one whatever a week doesn't go far. Basically it becomes nearly impossible. If there was that sort of massive support, you would be picketing people out, not just asking them for money. Anyway, in that strike I saw leftists collecting for some strike fund. All I know is that I never received any of it.

A particulary bad example would be a group like the Militant collecting money for themselves in tins that said things like 'Militant supports the miners'.

There are a lot of things to be said about this, and also about 'long strikes' Suffice to say for the purposes of this thread I am cynical about it.

The way to win strikes is through solidarity not charity.

Devrim

[Zurdito]

You seem a bit obsessed with having me declare a position, really. But a position for what? IU think I have been quite clear about what I think.

I would think given your constant questions to trotskyism you would be glad of the platform, I would certainly be glad for someone to "grill" me in this sense because I am confident in my answers and happy to change them if shown why. Never mind though, really I am more interested in the argument and finding out our fundamental difference of position.


The amount of money necessary to support workers in a strike that big is immense. You are talking half a million pounds/Euro/dollars/whatever to give each worker one whatever a week. And one whatever a week doesn't go far. Basically it becomes nearly impossible.

fair enough though a strike fund, for a strike of 30 workers, collected by a regional party section of 70, can keep that group fed each day. true though that in this strike the balances are different.


A particulary bad example would be a group like the Militant collecting money for themselves in tins that said things like 'Militant supports the miners'.

Yes. Another is that much of the argentine left act as providers of welfare to the unemployed on behalf of the state, and then cream off pary of this to fund themselves.



The way to win strikes is through solidarity not charity.

True.

[Old Man Diogenes]

There's nothing wrong with hiring foreign workers, but in alot of cases the companies employed the workers because they'll work cheap, thus exploiting workers, or at least thats how I see it.

It has also become a propaganda tool of some of my more right-wing colleagues some placing the blame on workers, when it is not at all their fault, it is the businesses fault they have employed foreign workers because they'll work cheap rather than being there workers a fair wage.

It dismays me further that these workers will vote for the BNP because the fascists are singing to their tune. As someone commented earlier its not a matter of racism the quote, "Workers of the world, Unite!", comes to mine. Its not a fight against foreigners, its a fight against coporations.

[RebelDog]

The end result of this dispute suits the British government in order to save Gordon Brown's skin even though it breaks their core demand that labour is as free a commodity to be traded in the EU like all the other ridiculous swaps of identical 'commodities'. People don't live in prison ships to 'see the world'.

What we should learn is that the EU, or any institution of bourgeois creation, can never have anything other than misery and trouble for the working class. There is little or nothing they have we can use for our own ends. The solution lies in our own institutions.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Critical support for wildcat strikes



James Turley constrasts different left approaches to the 'British jobs' dispute



Protests against the effects of the economic downturn are becoming more and more widespread. The Greek youth rebellion, the sweeping away of the neoconservative government in Iceland, rallies across Russia, the 24-hour general strike in France, mass demonstrations in Latvia and Lithuania and now, Britain: serious industrial unrest, with workers walking out unofficially at various oil refineries and elsewhere in the energy and construction industry.

We would expect in such circumstances a number of things: government condemnations and threats; the tabloids frothing at the mouth and demanding heads on pikes; and a thousand leftwingers hovering around, telling the strikers things they already know and making demands that are either truisms or irrelevant.

This time, however, it is different. The Mail’s jealous rival, the Daily Express, led on February 2 with the headline, “On your bike, Mandy”, referring to Peter Mandelson’s criticisms of the strikers, whom he accused of bringing us closer to a depression. The Mail itself enthusiastically reported the strikes. The government responded critically, but there have been no threats to wield anti-union legislation, as might have been expected. Indeed it seems to have been acting behind the scenes to secure the compromise settlement that is now in the air.

And the left has been in a real state over it - some groups broadly or sharply opposing the strikes (Socialist Workers Party, Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and Workers Power), and others offering uncritical, or virtually uncritical, support (the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain; Socialist Party).

There are not many occasions when the left, or sections of it, can be seen coming out against a strike - but there are not a great many strikes like this one. It broke out initially in Lincolnshire, at the Lindsey oil refinery. A contract for a construction job had been awarded to an Italian company, IREM, which shipped in a corps of workers from Italy and Portugal. ‘Shipped in’ should be read literally - the workers live on the barges on which they arrived, moored in nearby Grimsby. They are driven back to the barges for their lunch. Although IREM has refused to disclose its employees’ pay and conditions on grounds of ‘confidentiality’, this is a clear case of capitalist undercutting - local union agreements and working standards are being overridden to get the job done more cheaply and profitably.

This was correctly interpreted by workers at the power plant as an attack on their pay and conditions. The unions - as long as they act in thrall to anti-union laws - are powerless, since it is illegal under both UK and EU law to strike against such actions. The walkout, when it came on January 28, was a ‘wildcat’ unofficial action - and sympathy strikes broke out in at least 19 other locations. Firstly the Humberside area, and then further afield - to the Grangemouth refinery in Falkirk, which was itself the site of a major strike in the summer of 2008; then to Aberthaw power station near Barry, in South Wales; a refinery in Wilton, Teesside; Kilroot power station in Carrickfergus, County Antrim; a gas terminal at Milford Haven, west Wales; the Fiddlers Ferry power station near Warrington; etc.

The fly in the ointment is that a prominent slogan in all these walkouts has been a direct quotation of the esteemed prime minister. “British jobs for British workers” was Gordon Brown’s promise to the 2007 TUC conference (though, as wily left philologists have pointed out, the slogan was also used by Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts). An utterly cynical and obviously empty chauvinist ploy, of course - but now thrown back in the premier’s face by the strikes. Needless to say, it is this that is at the root of the left’s unease - and rightwing glee.

A further complication is that nobody seems to agree on precisely how relevant the ‘British jobs...’ slogan actually is to the whole thing. The rightwing bourgeois media have been pushing the chauvinist angle - this is a strike against ‘foreigners’ taking ‘our’ jobs. The British National Party has promptly gotten itself involved (through a front website featured prominently and uncritically on Newsnight of February 2), although without making much obvious headway.

Those on the left directly involved, and many among the strikers, have tended to call it a dispute over pay and conditions with international implications. Indeed, the political background to the dispute goes to the heart of the EU project.



Viking and Laval



The story begins, by all accounts, over four years ago - in Vaxholm, a small island town off the coast of Sweden.

A school was to be built, and the contract was awarded to a subsidiary of Laval, a Latvian construction company. Byggnads, the builders’ union in Sweden, attempted to settle a collective bargaining agreement, but was rebuffed. Instead Laval struck a deal with the equivalent Latvian union, which - needless to say - undercut the going union rates in Sweden, the country that represents post-war social democracy’s stab at making paradise on earth.

Byggnads responded with a blockade of the site; Laval took the union to the European Court of Justice, arguing that it was an illegal restriction on its right to provide EU services. In the end, the company’s view prevailed; the outcome of the case enshrined, among other things, the confidentiality of wages and conditions, that the Posting of Workers Directive (outlining the rights of workers throughout the EU) is to be interpreted as a maximum rather than a minimum standard, and that industrial action to the contrary is illegal. A week before the ECJ’s decision, another case - Viking - established the right of private companies to sue trade unions.

The Viking-Laval combination is a recipe for what Amicus and others call ‘social dumping’ - bringing gangs of outside workers into a country for a particular contract. Capitalists always try to play groups of workers off against each other and these ECJ decisions effectively enshrine it as their right.

The building industry, conducted as it now invariably is on the basis of subcontracting, is particularly vulnerable to this practice. The present economic crisis was, in its early stages, naively thought by some as irrelevant to the ‘real economy’ - that is, material production and circulation of commodities, as opposed to the epicycles of fictitious capital in the finance industry. Even when this fiction was at all credible, it was understood that construction was the ‘exception that proved the rule’.

In Britain and the USA alike, the financial boom had increasingly centred on services related to home ownership, particularly mortgages. This boom had in turn underwritten a boom in construction. When the financial system collapsed, it was correspondingly the first sector of the ‘real’ economy to find itself in dire trouble. The sudden surfeit of underemployed construction workers is viewed by employers as an invitation to social dumping.

The strike wave has thrown into the limelight both a direly treacherous terrain for the left to navigate, and - through the Laval-Viking connection, the brazenly cynical partiality of the state at the level of both Westminster and Brussels. This ought to provide us with an excellent opportunity to highlight the international dimension of even the most basic struggles and to build for common workers’ action across borders.

But all class struggle throws down a challenge to the left - however strong it is going into the clash, and whatever the nature of the battle. And even for its present dire condition, the left has mostly been found drastically wanting. At one end of the scale, we have the smarmy cravens of the Labour soft left, exemplified by the MP Jon Cruddas. He has called for the 2012 Olympics construction project to be limited to British workers only.

The labour bureaucracy’s long-time toadies-in-chief, the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain, bitterly complained that EU law has “effectively deprived British workers of the right to seek work in their own country”, while at least having the good sense to blame the bosses - or rather, the bosses’ Europe.

Far at the other end of the scale, the Trotskyist group, Workers Power, issued a statement declaring the whole thing to be a nationalistic lash-up - “the strikers’ target is not their employers, but 100 Italian and Portuguese workers at the Lindsey oil refinery”. The comrades “unreservedly oppose” the strikes, and demand they be demobilised. The SWP does not come out openly against the action, but Socialist Worker centres its coverage on the ‘British jobs’ aspect.

The Workers Power position is simply idiotic abstentionism. There is a great deal of empirical evidence that the chauvinist element is, at the very least, not overwhelmingly dominant - see, for example, the involvement of Polish workers in the Langage walkout, and a mass meeting at the original Lindsey refinery confirmed a set of strike demands that spurned ‘British jobs’, including “building links with construction trade unions on the continent”. There is also a specific and legitimate grievance at the root of it all - the intervention of the legal-political apparatus in favour of social dumping - which has been given a chauvinist coloration after the fact.

Moreover, Workers Power is particularly afflicted by the ‘action’ obsession common to much of the far left. It is forever demanding protests, fightbacks and strikes, and is wont to dismiss anything in the way of programmatic discussion as ‘propagandism’. Well, comrades - here is your ‘action’. Workers have spontaneously acted to defend their interests, but, unsurprisingly, many of them have come into it with backward - indeed reactionary - ideas.



Confusion reigns



The Socialist Party has intervened directly in the strikes, and has a member on the six-strong strike committee thrown up by the wave. However, while the SP in a leaflet (drafted by strike committee member Keith Gibson) states, “rather than saying ‘British jobs for British workers’, we should say ‘Trade union jobs and conditions for all workers’”, it continues to downplay the danger of the ‘British jobs’ slogan. A similar line is taken by Respect, whose approach, like the CPB’s, seems to be to dismiss the significance of chauvinism altogether, and concentrate on the narrow trade union demands - this leaves the right an open goal.

And, last but not least, we have the AWL; Martin Thomas and Sacha Ismail’s initial agitational article effectively took a line similar to the SWP, but apparently the nuances of this position were lost on one comrade. Robin Sivapalan desperately tried to organise an anti-chauvinist picket of Unite’s headquarters. The AWL position is softening by the hour, particularly after the mass meeting at Lindsey refinery - apparently, these ‘new’ demands are no longer reactionary ... but they were floating around when the strike was reactionary and basically unsupportable, according to the AWL. How about admitting the mistake, comrades?

The task of communists in this dispute has been the same since workers first walked out of Lindsey. Those workers rose in brave action against a genuine attack on their class interests; and it was and is incumbent on us to foreground at every step the class nature of this battle. It was inevitable, given the involvement of foreign labour, that chauvinists of various stripes would slime their way in. The media, from the outset, focused on nationalism, not class, and the likely settlement centres on this too - according to reports, half of the IREM jobs will go to ‘British workers’ and half to Italians/Portuguese, with the pay and conditions on offer not being disclosed. Meanwhile, Brown has stated that “some way” must be found to ensure that new jobs are sourced to local workers.

The ‘British jobs’ aspect to all this makes our intervention more necessary, not less. If the international dimension gives succour to chauvinists, it also points to our primary political duty. This paper carries on its masthead every week the slogan, “Towards a Communist Party of the European Union”. This is no lofty abstraction, but is posed as a pressing (and sadly absent) necessity with every new walkout.

We have seen a united and concerted attack by the legal and political bureaucracies in Brussels and London; any fightback has to be similarly united. The call by the Lindsey strikers for cooperation between construction unions is welcome, but limited.

As a matter of urgency we need EU trade unions fighting for EU-wide common pay and conditions. That would put a stop to social dumping. But most of all we need the highest form of political organisation: precisely a Communist Party of the European Union.

The legalistic form of the attack should not go unnoticed either. The system of binding precedents and the rule-of-law state are inimical to democracy and the proletariat’s interests. They act as a restriction to the popular will, and have in this case provided a neat tool for providing the bosses with cheap labour. Apart from anything else, the strength of the legal-bureaucratic cage around the unions has been exposed anew - Thatcher’s anti-union laws and the EU’s working in harmony. Many will no doubt have been surprised to find that the ECJ has kindly provided unions with a (very short) list of things they are allowed to strike about!

Similarly, the dispute highlights the question of workers’ control. The SP correctly calls for “Union-controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available.” But it frames this in the context of Britain alone, not the EU as a whole - and thus in a way which risks feeding into the call for ‘British jobs’. We must also bring to the fore the demand to open the books. What the bosses pay our brothers and sisters is not their own ‘confidential’ affair - it is the business of our class.

Treating the issue as a narrow economic dispute is wrong-headed. The strikers have instinctively grasped the international implications of their actions - whether this realisation is derailed into British chauvinism, wasted on jollies for union bureaucrats or converted into real steps (however modest) towards European working class unity will depend on the forthright intervention of the Marxist left.



http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/755/criticalsupport.html

[Devrim]

I would think given your constant questions to trotskyism you would be glad of the platform, I would certainly be glad for someone to "grill" me in this sense because I am confident in my answers and happy to change them if shown why. Never mind though, really I am more interested in the argument and finding out our fundamental difference of position.

I am not at all concerned about being 'grilled'. I really don't understand what you are asking though.


fair enough though a strike fund, for a strike of 30 workers, collected by a regional party section of 70, can keep that group fed each day. true though that in this strike the balances are different.

What you are effectively saying then is that this is a useless strtergy in any significant strike.

Devrim

[Zurdito]

I am not at all concerned about being 'grilled'. I really don't understand what you are asking though.

If you would support the strike demanding 50% quota of British workers on the new job*. at the end of the day anyone reading this can come to their conclusion. I will leave it there.


What you are effectively saying then is that this is a useless strtergy in any significant strike.

No, because I think

1.) the strike I refered to was significant because it was qualitatively different to previous strikes in that these were subcontracted workers who in this city and industry have never launched organised resistance to suspension and firings, and

2.) because I think left groups fighting for solidarity or not (i.e. supporting the strike or not) is,in the case that we have influence, by definition going to help the strike or not, and therefore not stating what you would do if you had influence (as the ICC quote did not) does not exactly make the prospects look good for any time when they would have influence.

It is not so hard, either we campaign to support the existing strike to acheive its stated goals or not.

[Devrim]

If you would support the strike demanding 50% quota of British workers on the strike. at the end of the day anyone reading this can come to their conclusion. I will leave it there.

But then it didn't demand that, did it? It demanded 50% of workers be recruited locally. Now, I don't think that this is a particularly progressive demand in itself, but nor do I think it is an outright nationalist one. Neither did hundreds of Polish workers who struck for a very similar demand.


No, because I think

1.) the strike I refered to was significant because it was qualitatively different to previous strikes in that these were subcontracted workers who in this city and industry have never launched organised resistance to suspension and firings, and

2.) because I think left groups fighting for solidarity or not (i.e. supporting the strike or not) is,in the case that we have influence, by definition going to help the strike or not, and therefore not stating what you would do if you had influence (as the ICC quote did not) does not exactly make the prospects look good for any time when they would have influence.

To take a strike that came up on here earlier, the Türk Telekom strike, it had 26,000 workers on strike for 48(?) days. That is one 1.25 million of whatever you are intending to give them a day.

Of course, you know it is impossible for leftist groups to support any significant strikes. Yes, of course they can back small strikes, but which small strike is more deserving of their charity?

Trying to paint anything else out of this is a bit absurd.

Devrim

[The Idler]

The CPGB Weekly Worker offer "Critical Support" in their latest issue (http://cpgb.org.uk/worker/755/criticalsupport.html).

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

http://www.vimeo.com/3065190

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[RebelDog]

http://www.vimeo.com/3065190

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Disgraceful journalism.

[Alf]

The ICC's balance sheet of the strike:






Oil refinery and power station strikes: Workers begin to challenge nationalism

The wave of unofficial strikes sparked by the struggle of construction and maintenance workers at the Lindsey refinery has been one of the most important workers' struggles in Britain in the last 20 years.
Thousands of construction workers on other refinery and power station sites walked out in solidarity. Mass meetings were organised and held on a regular basis. Unemployed construction, steel, dock and other workers joined the pickets and demonstrations outside various power stations and refineries. Workers were not in the least bothered about the illegal nature of their actions as they expressed their solidarity for striking comrades, their anger at the rising tide of unemployment and at the government's inability to do anything about it. When 200 Polish construction workers joined the struggle, it reached its highest moment by directly challenging the nationalism that had surrounded the movement at the beginning.
The laying off of 300 sub-contracted workers on the Lindsey oil refinery site, the proposal that another subcontractor be hired using 300 Italian and Portuguese workers (whose labour came cheaper because their conditions were inferior), and the announcement that no workers from Britain would be used on this contract ignited a powder keg of discontent amongst construction workers. For years there has been an increasing use of contract construction workers from abroad, usually on lower wages and worse conditions, with the direct result of accentuating competition between workers for jobs, driving down all workers' wages and conditions. This, combined with the wave of lay-offs in the construction industry and elsewhere due to the recession, generated the profound militancy that found expression in these struggles.
From the beginning this movement was faced with a fundamental question, not only for the strikers involved today but for the whole working class now and in the future: is it possible to fight against unemployment and other attacks by identifying ourselves as ‘British workers' and turning against ‘foreign workers', or do we need to see ourselves as workers with common interests with all other workers, no matter where they come from? This a profoundly political question and one which this movement had to address.
From the beginning the struggle appeared to be dominated by nationalism. There were pictures on the news of workers with home-made banners proclaiming "British Jobs for British Workers" and more professional union banners emblazoned with the same slogan. Union officials were more or less openly defending the slogan; the media talked about a struggle against foreign workers and found workers who shared this opinion. This movement of wildcat strikes could potentially have become swamped in nationalism and turned into a defeat for the working class, with worker pitted against worker, with workers en masse defending nationalist rallying cries and calling for the jobs to be given to ‘British' workers with the Italian and Portuguese workers losing their jobs. The ability of the entire working class to struggle would have been weakened and the ability of the ruling class to attack and divide the class strengthened.
The media coverage (and what some of the workers were saying) made it easy to believe that the demands of the Lindsey workers were "British Jobs for British Workers". They weren't. The demands discussed and voted on by a mass meeting did not have this slogan or hostility towards foreign workers in them. Funny how the media missed this! They expressed illusions in the unions' ability to stop the bosses playing worker off against worker, but not overt nationalism. The general impression created by the media however was one of the strikers being against foreign workers.
The persistent weight of nationalism

Nationalism is integral to capitalist ideology. Each national capitalist class can only survive by competing with their rivals economically and militarily. Their culture, media, education, their entertainment and sports industries, spread this poison all the time in order to try and tie the working class to the nation. The working class cannot escape being affected by this ideology. But what is crucially important about this movement is that it saw the weight of nationalism being challenged as workers grappled with the question in the struggle to defend their basic material interests.
The nationalist slogan "British Jobs for British Workers", stolen from the British National Party by Gordon Brown, generated a lot of unease amongst the strikers and the class. Many strikers made it clear that they were not racists nor did they support the BNP, whose attempts to intervene in the struggle led to them being largely chased away by the workers.
Besides rejecting the BNP many workers interviewed on the television were obviously trying to think about what their struggle meant. They were not against foreign workers, they had worked abroad themselves, but they were unemployed or they wanted their children to have work so they felt jobs should go to ‘British' workers first. Such views still end up seeing ‘British' and ‘foreign' workers as not having a common interest and is thus a prisoner to nationalism, but they were a clear sign that a process of reflection was taking place.
On the other hand, other workers definitely underlined the common interests between workers and said that all they wanted was the chance for all workers to find work. "I was laid off as a stevedore two weeks ago. I've worked in Cardiff and Barry Docks for 11 years and I've come here today hoping that we can shake the government up. I think the whole country should go on strike as we're losing all British industry. But I've got nothing against foreign workers. I can't blame them for going where the work is." (Guardian On-line 20/1/2009).There were also workers who argued that nationalism was a real danger. A worker employed abroad warned, on a construction workers' webforum, about the bosses using national divisions "The corporate media that have stirred up the nationalist elements will then turn on you, showing the demonstrators in the worst light possible. Game over. The last thing the bosses and the government want is for British workers to unite with workers from overseas. They think they can keep fooling us into fighting each other over jobs. It will send a shiver up their spineless backs when we don't"; and in another post he linked the struggle to those in France and Greece and the need for international links : "The massive protests in France and Greece are just a precursor for what is to come. Ever thought of contacting and building links with those workers and strengthening a Europe wide protest against workers getting the shaft? Sounds like a better option than having the real guilty parties, that cabal of bosses, union leadership sell-outs, and New Labour continuing to take advantage of the working class" (Thebearfacts.org). Workers from other sectors also intervened on this forum to oppose nationalist slogans.
The discussion amongst those involved in the strike, and within the class in general, over the question of the nationalist slogans reached a new phase on 3 February when 200 workers from Poland joined 400 other workers in a wildcat strike in support of the Lindsey workers, at Langage power station construction site in Plymouth. The media did their best to hide this act of international solidarity: the local BBC TV did not mention this and nationally it was hardly mentioned at all.
The solidarity of these Polish workers was particularly important because last year they had been involved in a similar struggle. 18 workers were laid off and other workers walked out in solidarity, including the Polish workers. The union tried to make it a struggle against the presence of foreign labour, but the presence of the striking Polish workers completely undermined this.
The Langage workers thus launched this new struggle with some awareness of how the unions had used nationalism to try and divide workers. The day after they walked out a handmade banner appeared at the Lindsey mass meeting proclaiming "Langage Power Station - Polish Workers Join Strike: Solidarity", which would imply either that one or more Polish workers had made the 7 hour journey to get there, or that a worker from Lindsey wanted to highlight their action.
At the same time a banner appeared at the Lindsey picket calling on the Italian workers to join the strike - it was written in English and Italian - and it was reported that some workers were carrying posters proclaiming "Workers of the world unite!" (Guardian 5/2/9). In short we were seeing the beginnings of a conscious effort by some workers to put forward a genuine proletarian internationalism, a step which can only lead to even more reflection and discussion within the class.
All this posed the question of the struggle going onto a new level, one which would directly challenge the campaign to present it as a nationalist backlash. The example of the Polish workers conjured up the prospect of thousands of other workers from abroad joining the struggle on the biggest construction sites in Britain, such as the Olympic sites in East London. There was also the danger that the media would not be able to hide the internationalist slogans. This would have broken through the nationalist barrier the bourgeoisie had tried to set up between the struggling workers and the rest of the class. It is no surprise that the struggle was so rapidly resolved. In the course of 24 hours the unions, bosses and government went from saying it would take days if not weeks to resolve the strike, to settling it with the promise of an extra 102 jobs that "British" workers could apply for. This was a settlement most of the strikers appeared to be happy with because it did not mean any job losses for the Italian and Portuguese workers, but as one striker said, "why should we have to struggle just to get work?"
In the course of a week we saw the most widespread wildcat strikes in decades, workers holding mass meetings and taking illegal solidarity action without a moment's hesitation. A struggle that could have been drowned in nationalism began to call this poison into question. That does not mean that the danger of nationalism has gone: it is a permanent danger, but this movement has provided future struggles with important lessons to draw on. The sight of the banners proclaiming "Workers of the world unite" on a supposedly nationalist picket line can only worry the ruling class about what is to come.
Phil 7/2/9

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/2009/321/solidarity

[Zurdito]

But then it didn't demand that, did it? It demanded 50% of workers be recruited locally


No, I mistyped. I meant to say "on the new job". I have now edited it.

[Q]

As I don't see the need to doublepost the article, I kindly point to this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/british-jobs-british-t101336/index.html?p=1355468#post1355468) as a good reply to all those who think the Lincolnshire strike was reactionary.

[Boy Named Crow]

If a section of the working class wants the government to prevent other workers from entering the country legally by imposing immigration controls and using force against those who try to enter outside of the legal channels then the workers in question are xenophobic - they view migrants as the cause of economic problems such as unemployment and low wages instead of correctly identifying capitalism as the root cause and the overthrow of capitalism as the solution.

I think you're being unfair here. The workers have by and large made it clear that they have no grudge with the Italian workers that have been brought in. They have tried to stress that it is not a xenophobic or racist complaint. Unite's joint general secretary Derek Simpson said: "No European worker should be barred from applying for a British job and absolutely no British worker should be barred from applying for a British job." Their protest is clearly against the large corporation.

This is as others before me have expained a difficult time in the UK where job security is very low and unemployment is increasing at a steady pace. Now we're talking about the OIL industry here which is one of the few industries to record large profits continually year on year and have hardly been affected by the economic downturn. This corporation could have done something to alleviate the unemployment situation here in the UK by creating jobs at numerous sites across the UK. However they have decided to give these jobs to workers outside the UK.

The suspicion is that these workers are on lower rates of pay than a UK worker would be paid. Whilst this is currently not proven due to a lack of transparancy from the company - it is difficult argue either way. But knowing the way corporations work, if its another way of skimming off a little more profit then they will generally go for it. And lets not also forget that these were jobs for which British workers weren't even considered.

Unite are calling for non uk workers to be paid in line with UK rates. Fair access to jobs for UK workers and fair pay conditions for non UK workers. I can't argue against that really!?!

Sadly a number of unsavoury right wing elements have stuck the proverbial oar in and turned this into a protest about race and our fantastic british media, particularly the Daily Mail have flown the right wing flag, betraying those workers who have a genuine point to make and drowning out the truth beneath the baying for foreign blood.

[Boy Named Crow]

Small apology if my comment is slightly behind the arguement! For some reason my computer was showing me that Bobkindles' post was one of the most recent posts in the discussion - so sorry about that.:blushing:

Either way - my thoughts are there now.:)

[Killfacer]

Small apology if my comment is slightly behind the arguement! For some reason my computer was showing me that Bobkindles' post was one of the most recent posts in the discussion - so sorry about that.:blushing:

Either way - my thoughts are there now.:)

Don't worry, most inanimate objects hate Bobkindles as much as us sentient beings do.

[redarmyfaction38]

100 polish workers walked out in support of the strike in plympton alongside their british brethren.
the socialist party intervention in lincolnshire created the conditions where this kind of "internationalist" common cause could occur.
and that is the point, innit, what could have been a "reactionary" strike, throwing ordinary workers into the arms of the "corporate state" or the "fascist bnp" was redirected by ordinary working class comrades already employed in that industry.
all the bull pedalled by the capitalist state, all the nationalism pedalled by the bnp meant nothing when a fellow worker, respected because of his previous record and convictions in the face of adversity stood before his mates and said basically "this is bullshit, we're getting screwed over and they are using foreign workers to do it, our problem isn't the foreign workers, they're getting screwed over just like us".