Fightback Thursday: wave of strikes against Gordon Brown’s attacks on pay

Socialist Worker 2098, 26 April 2008
www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14729
News
Fightback Thursday: wave of strikes against Gordon Brown’s attacks on pay

The fightback started today. Up and down the country more than 400,000 workers are on strike. Teachers, lecturers, civil service workers and 20,000 Birmingham council workers are out.


The issue of pay has united workers from several trade unions to fight back together. But pay is just one factor fuelling growing anger across the country.


The strike takes place as the government is in disarray, after its attacks on working class people have produced a level of anger that means today is the biggest blow yet to the attempt by Gordon Brown impose below inflation pay on millions of public sector workers.


Up to 200,000 teachers are staging their first national strike in 20 years. A hundred thousand civil service workers have struck. Workers at the charity Shelter are on strike today.


Tens of thousands of Further education lecturers closed colleges and Birmingham ground to a halt under the pressure of 25,000 strikers.


Thousands of other workplaces are without workers as they took the day off to look after their children.


Rallies were taking place in many towns and cities bringing together workers from the different unions in a determined and defiant blow against the government.

This is great news and evidence of the new opportunities that are emerging in the UK. The workers have gone on strike because of the government's decision to impose a 2.5% limit on increases in the public sector, even though the rate of inflation exceeds this increase, such that workers are being forced to accept a reduction in pay. The prices of certain basic goods (such as the cost of transport) are increasing at a faster rate than general inflation (which is calculated using a composite of many goods) so the problem is more serious than it may appear, based on the general inflation figure.

For these strikes to be successful, the teachers will need to engage with other public sector workers, as the government will not be able to handle strikes in multiple areas of the state sector at the same time, and so will be forced to make concessions. Workers will also need to ensure that they do not fall under the control of Union leaders who may try to reach a compromise with the government and undermine militancy. How should we, as Socialists, go about achieving this goals, so we can transform popular discontent into an aggressive wave of strikes?