UCS: STILL AN INSPIRATION, 50 YEARS ON

UCS WORK-IN BANNER 

On a hot 30 July 1971, the shop stewards in Clydebank’s John Brown shipyard took control of the yard gates as the historic UCS work-in began. 

Jimmy Reid declared to the mass meeting inside: “There will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying, because the world is watching us.”

Thus began one of the most momentous showdowns by working people since the 1926 general strike.

UCS had been formed in 1968, comprising the yards in Govan, Linthouse, Scotstoun and Clydebank. The naked greed of shipbuilding dynasties had meant a refusal to invest and modernise, causing Britain's world share of shipbuilding to plummet from 80% during WWI to 5% in 1970. Mergers and mass redundancies in the 1960s ran alongside increased productivity by the workers. The 1964-70 Labour government refused to nationalise the industry, instead merging the UCS yards, with a 17% government share. 

In 1969, the notorious Tory, Nicholas Ridley, held a one-hour meeting on the Clyde with his pal Sir Eric Yarrow, owner of Yarrow’s shipyard and Scottish Tory Party treasurer. ‘Old Nick’ subsequently drafted his Ridley Memo: “We could appoint a government butcher to cut up UCS, hive off Yarrow’s and sell (cheaply) the remainder of UCS to private industry.” (December 1969)

Jimmy Reid addressing mass meeting 

Tory Spirit of Butchery 

Ted Heath’s 1970-74 Tory government proceeded in this spirit of butchery, consciously confronting workers and their rights, deliberately decimating industry and speeding up monopoly ownership of what remained. Tory Minister of Trade and Industry, John Davies, spelt it out with his infamous ‘lame ducks’ speech, declaring an end to state subsidies to industries in crisis, especially targeting Rolls Royce and UCS. 

In June 1971 the Tory government triggered the liquidation of UCS by refusing management’s modest demand for £6million to sustain it. They instead conceded £3million to keep UCS afloat until August, whilst conducting a bogus review by ‘The Four Wise Men’, comprising mostly merchant bankers. Their subsequent Report smeared shipyard workers and recommended the slaughter of 6,500 of the 8,500 jobs, with closure of Clydebank and Scotstoun, only keeping Govan and Linthouse on the basis of decimated conditions and halving of the workforce. 

The baying mob of Tory MPs who cheered these announcements badly underestimated the response of the UCS workers and hundreds of thousands who came to their side in a 14-month battle that engulfed society in Scotland and beyond. 

50,000 march in Glasgow on 23 June 1971 

Work-In, not Walk-Out 

In June 1971, the Union shop stewards from the four yards decided that instead of walking out to the Labour Exchanges (JobCentres) or being declared redundant they would occupy the yards and continue production of ships; a work-in. Their opening demands were “Not a man down the road - the right to work - not a yard will close.”

They sent delegations to the government, only to be ‘slung a deafie’. The fight was on. They called a West of Scotland conference of shop stewards, 800 strong, which announced a general strike and demonstration on 23 June. About 150,000 took solidarity strike action and 50,000 marched through Glasgow. Placards carried slogans like ‘Launch UCS - Sink Heath’ and ‘Nationalise not Paralyse - we shall not be moved’. The STUC at first called for nationalisation of the yards. 

When on 29 July the government tried to ride this storm and announced 6,500 job losses - with at least another 15-30,000 associated jobs to go - the working class of Scotland and beyond were inspired by the act of mass, militant defiance by the UCS workers. 

A conference of 1,200 shop stewards from Scotland and the North of England agreed financial support to sustain the work-in, and called a mass half-day strike and demo on 18 August. About 200,000 workers marched out of Scottish workplaces and joined the demo of 80-100,000 in George Square, the biggest since at least the days of Red Clydeside; some reckoned the largest since the Chartist movement of the 1840s. The themes of the right to work and the power of the working class in solidarity were combined with calls to kick out the Tory government. Industrial and political demands fused. 

John Lennon and Yoko Ono gave donation and solidarity

One of many Support Concerts 

Unprecedented Solidarity 

The UCS workers’ courageous defiance evoked unprecedented solidarity. Workplace collections and weekly levies came from across Scotland, Britain and as far afield as New Zealand. Combined with the 50p a week levy on the UCS workers themselves, this financial solidarity sustained the wages of the work-in and the campaigning costs. School students held jumble sales. Pensioners donated. A cleaner in Yorkshire sent a week's wages every month. 

Workers’ heads were raised because a group of trade unionists defied every law, every conservative norm, and waged the battle for the right to work from the stronghold of staying inside their own workplace. The occupied yards were their fortresses, with buses between the yards for mass meetings; a Coordinating Committee and several sub-committees, including ones for finance and publicity, and speaking tours of workplaces that trained hordes of orators. 

Even the middle layers of society were drawn to this mass workers’ movement, with virtually every local shopkeeper publicising the UCS struggle, and donations famously from John Lennon and Yoko Ono. 

Such was the ferment that Sir David MacNee, Glasgow's chief constable, phoned a Cabinet meeting to warn the government that the police couldn’t guarantee order in the city if the yards were closed. The government postponed the closure announcement by two weeks to allow them to bring troops back from Northern Ireland! 

General strikes developed against 1970s anti-union laws

Monumental Government U-turn

In the subsequent months the government tried manoeuvres to divide and conquer, especially by declaring a new Govan Shipbuilding Ltd, initially only embracing Govan and Linthouse. 

Eventually, by February 1972, they were forced into a monumental retreat. In contrast to their refusal to cough up £6million the previous June, the same John Davies told the House of Commons on 28 February 1972 that the Tory government would hand over £30million to Govan Shipbuilders Ltd, which would now also include the Scotstoun yard, and look favourably on subsidies to the impending buyer of Clydebank - the USA oil-rig giant, Marathon Manufacturing.

Months of negotiations did involve very substantial concessions by the unions, with loss of jobs and severe sacrifices of conditions, but the four yards remained and about 6,500 of the 8,500 jobs were saved. This was a massive victory compared to the wholesale butchery that any meek-and-mild response from their unions would have guaranteed. 

Perhaps the biggest significance of the UCS work-in was on the wider working class and political developments. It was part of a rising tide of industrial action engulfing the Heath government, but added impetus and confidence to it. A major factor in the February 1972 government U-turn on UCS was their bloody-nosed defeat just days prior by the miners, in their first national strike since 1926, which included the NUM's mass picket attracting 15,000 workers, which shut down the Saltley coke depot, near Birmingham. 

One of UCS worker Bobby Starrett's cartoons, a vital part of the publicity  

Wave of Workplace Occupations 

The UCS work-in inspired a wave of workplace occupations; one every fortnight at its peak! 

Many won unconditional victories, and mostly involved the even more radical tactic of sit-in strikes, rather than the continued production of the UCS work-in tactic. At Plessey’s in the Vale of Leven, the victorious sit-in included workers’ barricades!

The issue of a general strike was never far below the surface, particularly in the first half of 1972. This period included the government’s panic-stricken release of five jailed dockers' leaders from London's Pentonville prison - in the face of general strike action, organised from below despite the hesitancy of national union leaderships and the TUC. 

Young people were touched by the daring militancy of UCS, with school students staging strikes and demonstrations in the summer of 1972, over school conditions and job prospects.  

Ultimately, in a further showdown with the miners and an emboldened working class, Heath’s government was booted out in February 1974, and the incoming Labour government was obliged to nationalise at least most of the shipyards.  

Marching for the right to work 

Tony Benn amongst the marchers - driven to the left by UCS 

Mass Defiance Can Win 

The limitations of a work-in with continued production of ships – as compared with an occupation and strike - could be the subject of a whole separate article. This issue came to a head in January 1972, when the UCS Coordinating Committee reversed their earlier stance and agreed to launch one of the newly built ships (at the Govan yard) as ‘an act of good faith’, rather than a full-blown showdown with the government which had been their policy up until then. How many more jobs could have been saved and conditions protected if they had stuck to their original policy, combined with the battle for nationalisation of the yards, will never be known for certain. 

What was known at the time - by tens of thousands of working people - is that the mass defiance of occupying the yards built unprecedented workers’ unity and solidarity and forced a humiliating U-turn on a Tory government just as vicious in its desire to butcher jobs and conditions as the current Boris Johnson cabal. 

Over and beyond that, UCS demonstrated workers’ control in practice, and the managerial skills of working-class people - a glimpse of a socialist future where capitalist owners and their enforcers, in the form of senior management, would be redundant. 

Mass meeting in the occupied yards 

Lessons 50 Years On 

50 years on, as we exit the period of COVID-19 lockdowns, workers are confronted by closures, mass redundancies and systematic attacks on workplace rights, including the new capitalist pandemic of Fire and Rehire. Amongst the many lessons from UCS that need to be applied is that pleading with the bosses and their governments guarantees defeat for workers and their communities, whereas methods of mass collective struggle that brush aside the whole machinery of anti-trade union legislation can win victories. 

The brutal determination by Pladis multinational to close the McVitie's factory is a classic current example of where the methods of the UCS workforce would be required to reverse the butchery of jobs and livelihoods. 

As part of the crazed drive for short-term profiteering - through the conscious destruction of industry and the financialization of the economy - in the decades since UCS, the shipyards on the Clyde are barely a shadow of their former selves, and heavily dependent on production orders for war, rather than socially useful production. 

Socialism or Barbarism - a real and harsh choice today 

Socialism or Barbarism 

50 years on, the climate catastrophe and the capitalist economic crisis highlighted and exacerbated by COVID-19, both scream out for a green re-industrialisation of Scotland; a Socialist Green Recovery plan, embracing the skills and equipment of what remains of the shipyards. For example, to build the desperately needed fleet of ferries, and marine engineering equipment for the production of clean, green, affordable energy.

Everyone talks these days about ‘recovery’. But perhaps the most central recovery required is the working-class solidarity and fighting spirit epitomised by the UCS workers and their hundreds of thousands of allies 50 years ago. Without such a revival of collective action by organised workers and the solidarity which that would undoubtedly evoke, the capitalists and their hired governments will continue to wreak havoc and destruction on jobs, living standards, democratic rights and the very planet we live on. 

Socialism or barbarism is not empty rhetoric, but indeed the stark choice we face. And the lessons of UCS need to be studied and absorbed to help re-arm new generations of fighters, to make socialism the chosen future. 

WIELD ORGANISED WORKERS' POWER FOR A SOCIALIST RECOVERY PLAN

As Billy Bragg sang, "There is power in a union".

Or at least, enormous potential collective power, provided leadership is given on the right issues.

Tens of thousands of workers have awoken to that in recent times, with a significant upsurge in trade union membership.

Surge in Union Membership

During 2019, 90,000 workers joined a union; that's over 200,000 new recruits in two years.

The biggest increase has been amongst women workers, who now constitute 3.6 million in the UK, the highest figure since 1995.

In Scotland,15,500 joined a union last year.

Of course, to keep perspective, that still leaves only 23.5% of workers unionised, with even lower density in the private sector and amongst those aged under 35. Less than a quarter of trade unionists are under 35, whereas 40% of them are aged over 50.

Likewise, we've had several successive years of very low strike figures, and therefore low profile for collective action and the advantages of trade unionism for younger generations to observe and absorb.

That is the result of a cocktail of factors.

The most repressive anti-union laws in the western world - introduced by the Tories, sustained by Labour governments. A regime of fear, wielded by senior management buoyed up by this battery of anti-worker legislation. And all too frequently, weak, compromising leadership from the top of the unions, far too accustomed to cosy relationships with employers and a lifestyle more akin to that of the company chief executives than to the average worker who pays their union subs.

The Times They are A-changin' 

There are moments in history when sharp changes occur.

There is a tendency throughout history for workers to seek solutions to their daily privations and problems through collective industrial struggle when no political solutions appear imminent, and vice versa.

To take random examples: the 1880s were marked by a monumental surge into the unions by the most downtrodden, lowpaid, so-called unskilled workers,  previously neglected by craft-based trade unions, when they increasingly saw no salvation from the dominant Tory or Liberal politicians.

In turn, that industrial wave helped fuel the birth of independent working class political representation, creating the newborn Labour Party.

In the 1970s, disappointment with the 1964-70 Labour government and savage onslaughts by the 1970-74 Ted Heath Tory regime triggered the biggest modern wave of strike actions, increased union membership, a rise in workplace militancy, and through this showdown between rival class forces led to 1975 being the year with both the highest union membership in Britain and the lowest levels of inequality across society.

That stark statistic in itself is a profound lesson for today's young working class. Indeed 'there is power in a union', and correctly wielded it can not only combat poverty, unsafe working conditions, and bullying by management, but also reduce inequality.

Coronavirus Crisis: a New Turning Point 

The coronavirus crisis is poised to be a new turning point in trade union and working class history.

The experience of millions in recent months has taught many profound lessons.

It's demonstrated the simple fact but there's such a thing as a working class, an idea previously sneered at by the commentariat, including some self-styled lefts and socialists.

It's shown in action that the people essential to society's functioning, to the very existence of human life, are workers of multiple and varied occupations, and certainly not the remote, grotesquely overpaid company chief executives and directors or financial speculators.

More pertinent still have been the lived experiences and visible displays of the role of trade unionists in fighting for measures to save lives in the teeth of the deadly virus, often in conflict with employers and indeed governments slow or unwilling to put people before profit.

It took relentless pushing and demanding by workplace shop stewards and the best national union officials to eventually win basics like hand sanitizers, cleaning equipment, protective screens and of course PPE for the millions of workers who have sustained life and society throughout the crisis.

Unsung Heroes on the Frontline of Trade Unionism

The unsung heroes of these times, whom the Tories would never applaud on a Thursday night, are thousands of workplace union representatives who have fought for the safety of fellow workers. Often under intense pressure from senior management, and sometimes under threat of victimisation for daring to demand measures like shutdown of non-essential workplaces, with 100% pay; protection of workers' holidays; and rigorous Risk Assessments with the full participation of union health and safety reps, to help prevent a second spike in COVID-19 deaths as the lockdown eases.

It is the determined action of these unsung heroes, and the lobbying by national unions, which forced the government into the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Observing this collective effort, thousands of new workers have joined unions in the past three months.

That is the experience of most major unions.

Unison have reported 65,000 new recruits since January. The National Education Union (NEU), engaged in frontline battles in England over premature reopening of schools, has had over 20,000 recent recruits.

Previously scattered, unorganised and heavily exploited sectors, such as fast food and hospitality, have also begun to unionise, with some spectacular localised success stories in reversing employers' plans to make thousands redundant, gaining furlough with at least 80% pay instead.

A Dangerous Phase for Workers' Health 

Currently we are living through potentially the most dangerous phase of the whole crisis, where UK and Scottish governments are to varying degrees declaring against mass outdoor gatherings, but encourageing or insisting upon mass indoor gatherings - by reopening non-essential workplaces, to revive production and sales for flagging profits.

The newly enhanced profile of the trade union movement - not seen for at least a generation - needs to be organised at both national and workplace levels to insist on proper safety measures, alongside a fully-funded and staffed regime of mass testing, tracing and isolation.

This moment should be seized to push for workers' control of workplace health and safety, through elected union reps.

The Capitalist Virus of Mass Unemployment 

The other virus about to sweep the country, rooted in capitalist production methods just as much as the coronavirus, is mass redundancies and unemployment.

Millions of jobs are on life support through the taxpayer-funded Job Retention Scheme.

Around 8 million workers were at least temporarily kept in a job, albeit with 10% or 20% pay cuts in many cases, through this state subsidy of businesses.

As that scheme tapers off, the greed-driven employing class are frequently poised to slash thousands of jobs and family livelihoods.

Daily announcements by the likes of British Airways, Rolls Royce, retail and hospitality firms are a deafening wake-up call to the devastation facing the working class in the months ahead.

The unions need to rise to the challenge, not only by consciously involving members and wielding the collective 'power in a union', but also by advancing concrete fighting alternatives to this capitalist blitzkrieg.

We cannot tolerate a re-run of the devastation visited upon the working class in the wake of the 2008 bankers' crisis; a lost decade of savage pay cuts, job losses and punishment of workers for a crisis they never created.

For a 4-day Week on 5 Days' Pay 

The unions have the potential power to spearhead an alternative Socialist Recovery Plan.

That could start with the immediate demand to share out the available work through a shorter working week, but critically, without loss of earnings.

The demand, for instance, for a 4-day week on 5 days' pay would evoke massive sympathy amongst workers who have either been enduring regular 12-hour shifts during the pandemic, or gained a taste of other things in life outside the drudgery of long hours at work.

That one measure could create and save tens of thousands of Scottish jobs.

Socialist Green New Deal 

A Socialist Green New Deal built on the foundations of public ownership of key sectors such as construction, transport, energy and banking must become the clarion cry of the organised labour movement.

A recent STUC study shows the massive potential for job creation in such a scheme.

Analysis by Transition Economics - in part based on information from post-2008 investment schemes in other countries - gives precise figures of potential job creation in 23 different clean infrastructure projects in Scotland.

Overall, they demonstrate that £13billion investment in a two-year infrastructure recovery plan could create 150,000 jobs immediately.

Examples of the schemes they cite include expansion of the rail network (including for freight) with 13,700 new jobs.

Other clean, green investments include construction of cycle lanes and pedestrianisation (nearly 18,000 jobs); low income residential retrofit programme (34,000); residential retrofit programme (over 14,000 jobs); and upgrade of ports and shipyards for offshore wind supplies (almost 6000 jobs).

Wield the Power of Organised Workers 

Socialists and trade unionists need to agitate and seek to organise the collective power of the trade union movement to demand precisely such an emergency green re-industrialization plan. It will require the social, class power of the organised workers' movement to translate fine ideas on paper into living reality.

The catastrophic impact of deindustrialization over the past 40 years led to a lack of equipment for hospitals, an inability to rapidly produce such equipment, which in turn meant both the UK and Scottish governments initially resorted to the obscenity of 'herd immunity', and then an emphasis on stopping our hospitals being overrun. Leading to such tragedies as over 1,000 elderly patients in Scotland being emptied out of hospitals into care homes without being tested, and the carnage that followed.

Housing, Public Transport, Jobs 

The housing crisis has been highlighted during the pandemic, with the huge differential between the experience of those in cramped or substandard housing during the lockdown, and people even with a decent house and modest garden.

In addition to the plans detailed in the STUC study, an emergency social sector house-building plan - with a variety of types of homes for rent according to demand, including gardens for all who want one - would solve both a housing crisis and the desperate need for decent, well-paid, skilled jobs and apprenticeships.

As people return to work, the problem of ensuring social distancing on public transport serves to underline the case for democratic public ownership of all public transport and massive investment in fleets of buses, trains and ferries. Both to accommodate safe travelling and prevent a return to the appalling pollution caused by massive reliance on cars, which the lockdown has given temporary respite from, and given millions a glimpse of how better life could be if freed of both pollution and poverty.

Invest in NHS and a National Care Service 

There are plenty of other immediate areas requiring huge state investment. Not investment of public money to boost the private profits of capitalist enterprises, but public sector investment accompanied by democratic public ownership and working class control. With massive job opportunities created.

Two of many such areas are the NHS and a public National Care Service, to cut out the profiteering that kills elderly people. To instead construct a care service free at the point of need, with decent wages, conditions, and training for a vastly expanded workforce that is guaranteed collective union bargaining rights.

Underpinning this socialist recovery plan is a vast redistribution of wealth from the remote, grotesquely privileged capitalist elite to the working class, who have been seen with renewed clarity to provide life's daily essentials and all that makes for a civilised existence.

Not only those rightly classified as 'essential workers' during the pandemic, but every worker, needs to be guaranteed a £12 minimum wage rising with inflation - rather than another lost decade of pay cuts and reduced spending power, which in itself further undermines job security.

Battle Commences for a New Future 

COVID-19 throws up a profound challenge on what kind of future we want.

Nothing is predetermined in history. The future will be decided by a clash between rival living forces.

On one side the capitalists, bankers, landlords and their hired politicians, who want to return to the old abnormal, the inhumane pursuit of profit at terrible cost to peoples' lives and the planet we live on.

On the other side, the growing forces of an organised working class, who need to feel a renewed self-confidence and demand a Socialist Recovery Plan that rejects the obscenity of production for profit, and builds on the values of human solidarity touchingly displayed in thousands of small incidents during the Covid crisis.

Join the battle!

FIGHT TO SAVE EVERY TESCO JOB!

Retail giant unilaterally declares 9,000 job losses 

Tesco workers have reacted with a mixture of shock, anxiety and fury at the announcement of 9,000 job losses, and the manner in which this jobs slaughter was declared.

In what was undoubtedly a cynically calculated leak from the higher echelons of Tesco's bosses, the weekend press was full of speculation about 15,000 job losses. If they thought this would lead to a collective sigh of relief from thousands of distressed workers when the official announcement of ‘only’ 9,000 job losses was subsequently made, they were badly mistaken. Workers are rightly furious at Tesco bosses treating them, and their unions, with such utter, high-handed contempt.

An unprecedented number of retail workers are talking about the case for industrial action to stop these job losses. Unless talks with Tesco produce an acceptable, total retreat from these plans - protecting all jobs, wages and conditions - union activists and members in general are going to have to seize the bull by the horns and make it plain that they are indeed prepared for collective action. Otherwise, unless serious resistance is mounted, three times as many jobs as were infamously wiped out at the Lanarkshire Ravenscraig steelworks could be decimated.

TESCO RIP UP PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT

What does this grotty episode say for Tesco’s attitude to the oft-trumpeted partnership agreement with Usdaw?

They've arrogantly ripped this agreement to shreds, not even consulting the union, let alone negotiating their plans. Instead, unilaterally declaring their savagery via the media, proving in action that they believe in the dictatorship of big business over workers and their elected representatives.

Even the pathetically weak employment laws in this business-dominated state prescribe consultation – and meaningful consultation at that – at the formative stage of any planned changes to a business. This plan of butchery is in flagrant contradiction to that procedure, let alone the alleged partnership agreement Tesco’s signed up to with Usdaw.

As I've often written before, social partnership is the partnership of the rider and the horse, with big business in the saddle.

Tesco bosses plan to slash 9,000 jobs, closing fresh food counters in 90 of their 790 large stores. They also want to only open the meat, fish and deli counters part-time in the other 700 stores, plus cut back on staffing levels in the replenishment and layout design operations. To add insult to injury, they aim to replace staff canteens with glorified vending machines. That in itself means loss of jobs for canteen staff. And when worries about the future of their bakeries are raised, they trot out those well-worn, weasel words, “we have no plans to shut the bakeries”; aye, no plans now, but what about the next phase of cuts, if they get away with this round?

HOW IS ENDING FRESH FOOD COUNTERS ‘SUSTAINABLE’?

What does this plan do for the growing, modern demand for fresh, locally-sourced food? How does that match their soothing words about merely wanting “a simpler, more sustainable business”? In truth, it’s just the latest link in the chain of strangulation of small businesses, small farmers and food producers which the big supermarkets wield every time they move into a town or area. For instance, they wipe out local butchers’ shops and fishmongers, and now plan to get rid of fresh fish and meat counters in their own super-stores.

Of course, the immediate task of the union is to challenge Tesco’s bogus claims, and demand that there is not a single job loss, nor a penny lost in any worker’s pay, in any changes to roles in the stores that might be (belatedly!) negotiated with the unions – where Usdaw itself represents over 160,000 Tesco workers. And every store should have a proper staff canteen – not to mention protection and expansion of fresh food counters, sourced locally.

TESCO’S SKYROCKETING PROFITS

What possible justification can there be for this jobs brutality? 

Workers’ efforts have achieved 12 consecutive quarters of growth for the business, plus a successful Christmas trading period.

And this is no struggling family corner shop!

Tesco’s profits have skyrocketed in recent years, after top bosses incurred a loss of £2billion in share values by, putting it plainly, fiddling the books. Profits rose from £145m the previous year to £1.3billion in 2017, a gargantuan 800% increase. And this bounty rocketed by a further 28% last year, to £1.64billion.

In the UK and Ireland alone, the efforts of Tesco workers produced over £1.1billion in profits last year - another 31% rise on the year before.

Where have all the profits gone? That's one of the central questions workers and the union need to pursue and expose, in fighting to rip apart Tesco’s so-called business case for this butchery of jobs and conditions. They should be forced to open up their company plans and balance sheets to public inspection by the unions and financial experts. What have they got to hide, if they are merely wanting to meet changing customer expectations and “building a simpler, more sustainable business”, as they claim?

DEMAND A LEGAL MAXIMUM INCOME 

We already have a partial answer to the question of where the profits sweated from workers have gone: the bank accounts of top Tesco bosses. Chief Executive,  ‘Drastic’ Dave Lewis, enjoyed an increase of 17.5% on his income last year, to a staggering £4.9million. 

Leaving aside the combined incomes of the other directors, Lewis’s obscene greed alone justifies the policy which I successfully proposed at the 2018 Usdaw national conference (ADM) - for a Legal Maximum Income initially set at ten times the legal minimum wage. 

If that was applied to the Tesco CEO, imagine the impact of ploughing over £4.7m back into workers’ wages and job security, instead of it going into the coffers of one fat-cat.

LOW PAY AND INSECURE CONTRACTS THREATEN JOBS

Retail in general is in crisis, with multiple causes. Last year, 70,000 jobs were shed, and the British Retail Consortium forecasts a further 90,000 job losses this year. 

One of the root causes of the terrible insecurity and loss of conditions facing the 3 million workers in retail is the chronic low pay and insecure contracts imposed by the profiteers on this vital sector of the economy - which contributes at least 11% of GDP.

Low wages and low hours – zero-hours and, more commonly, short-hours contracts – strangle workers’ spending power, and thereby threaten jobs. And it's not just poverty pay in retail that causes this problem; it's a plague across all sectors.

That's why Usdaw’s centre-piece Time For Better Pay campaign is so critically important.  The demands for an immediate £10-an-hour minimum wage for all workers, and a guaranteed minimum 16-hour contract for every worker who wants it, would help fuel the economy, boost workers’ spending power and their sense of security. And it would substantially redistribute wealth from profits to pay.

Likewise, Usdaw’s campaign for a Retail Industrial Strategy is critical in resisting this jobs slaughter, highlighted by the Tesco announcement, but common to all the Big 4 supermarkets and the rest of the sector.  This calls for measures including changes to taxation to end the unfair advantages enjoyed by online traders over ‘bricks and mortar’ stores; reform of local commercial rents, business rates, public transport and car-parking, to help save our High Streets; investment in upskilling retail workers to meet the challenges of new technology; and improved productivity through decent pay and contracts.

DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF RETAIL GIANTS

But in my personal opinion, the outrageous butchery declared by the unelected, totally unaccountable profiteers also highlights the need for a radical overhaul of who owns and controls retail. 

Why should multi-millionaire owners and Chief Executives have the power to destroy the livelihoods of thousands of workers, and create havoc for entire families and communities?

Why should they be entitled to cream off £billions in profit and then ‘reward’ those workers who created this mountain of wealth for them with a P45?  

At the 2017 Usdaw national conference it was agreed to call for public ownership in such situations. That would lay the foundations for a democratic plan of action - embracing retail workers’ union representatives, local authorities and governments - to invest in town centres and other retail outlets in a fashion that maximises jobs, retail services to communities, and indeed the interests of family farmers and small businesses. 

A retail sector based on public needs and agreed priorities, rather than dictatorship by the retail giants; an end to the rule of private profit for the few over the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.  

BIRMINGHAM BIN STRIKE: AN ACID TEST FOR LABOUR

In an important victory for all workers fighting austerity, the High Court has ruled (on 20 September) in favour of Unite the union and ordered Birmingham Labour city council to withdraw the compulsory redundancy notices they’d issued to 113 safety critical refuse collection workers.

As part of the legal ruling, the union has agreed to suspend industrial action until a full Court hearing. This is, at the very least, a temporary victory for workers who faced the options of the sack or a £5,000 pay cut within weeks – from a Labour council, yes, a LABOUR council!

The battle of the Birmingham bin workers is an acid test of the readiness of trade union leaders to lead decisive action against the slaughter of jobs, wages and safety standards in the Age of Austerity. But it’s also a critically important object lesson and acid test of the role of the Corbyn-led Labour Party.

Workers angry at constant attacks on our conditions – including by local councils – should be greatly emboldened by the courageous action of the Brummie bin workers.
But the hundreds of thousands of people who have invested their hopes of something entirely different from Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership – or indeed those who now hope Richard Leonard will win the Scottish Labour leadership against the millionaire, poverty-paying, non-union employer, Anas Sarwar – have a lot of soul-searching and harsh questions to face up to from the experience of the Birmingham showdown.

Background to the Strike

Back on 16 June, Unite the union won a 90% majority for strike action by the Brummie bin workers against the Labour council’s plans – in their cynically genteel phrase – to “delete” all 122 Grade 3, supervisory jobs; the leading hands on the teams collecting household rubbish.
These safety-critical workers, on as little as £21,000, faced being fired, then offered jobs as bin collectors on £5,000 lower wages!

In a drive to save £5m a year, the Labour worthies and council officials – whose chief executive Stella Manzie is on £180,000, plus almost as much again in expenses! – also plan to turn the 4-day working week into a 5-day system. They are demanding collection from an extra 50-70 households per (shorter) day – on top of the frequently unmanageable current daily target of 1,500 households. All with the false claim of “a more effective, efficient and modern refuse service.”

As one of the strikers (of 22 years service) explained, he gets up at 4.45am, to start at 6am. Others start at 5am. They get a 15-minute concession break at 9am, during which they are obliged to eat in the bin wagon “with only wipes and hand sanitizers because of the regular management intimidation over our productivity”.
Birmingham seems to be the only council that insists on refuse collectors getting bins from the side of the house and returning them there, rather than the kerbside, closed-lid collection everywhere else. This slows down the job, but then workers are berated and bullied by management for their productivity.

Safety Critical Workers to be ‘Deleted’

The job of the Grade 3 workers the Labour council wants to ‘delete’ is safety critical.
The council want to dump their safety tasks on the drivers. But the drivers’ vision is restricted, as they operate 12-tonne trucks, twice that weight when full.

Kids run out from behind cars. Residents risk life and limb throwing rubbish in the back, where the lifting mechanism operates by sensors and can crush you to death. Motorists rushing to work are abusive on a daily basis, get too close, and in one case drove into the back of the wagon and nearly killed the loader.
Birmingham is the only council not to have a route risk assessment, despite demands by the union for years.

As well as the physical safety of the public, the Grade 3 leading hands look out for other loaders, 40-50 per cent of whom are hired as agency workers on zero hours contracts, replaced daily on routes, continually forced to waive the right to permanent jobs – in at least one case for 9 years!

This dispute echoes some of the issues around Driver Only Trains. But it’s a Labour council that’s acting like a bunch of dictatorial, Tory-backed bosses.

Labour Council Renege on Deal

Strikes began on 30 June. Through the conciliation service, ACAS, a deal was reached between the Labour council and Unite on 15 August, including:
“The council agreed in principle that Grade 3 posts will be maintained. Consequently, there are no redundancy steps in place.”
In return, the union called off the strikes and agreed “to recommend to their members work pattern changes, including consideration of a 5-day week.”

By 30 August, the council reneged on the deal, issued 113 redundancy notices to Grade 3 bin loaders, with the Labour council leader denying a deal had ever been reached – which ACAS took the unprecedented step of publicly contradicting – and claiming it was “unaffordable”.
Aside from the appalling failure to uphold an agreement, the council’s claims don’t match the £269million increase in ‘useable reserves’ in 2016 – to a total of £895million.
The same Labour council spent a fortune hiring agency workers and contractors to try and undermine the strike action.

Their betrayal of all trust in the deal they agreed through ACAS provoked the resumption of strike action from 1st September, when the Labour council handed out very real redundancy notices.

Labour Victimisation of Strikers

The Labour council’s actions suggest they are not only hell-bent on slashing wages and conditions but breaking the union too, perhaps as the prelude to privatisation.

They threatened disciplinary action again bin workers who not only took daily strike action for 3 hours, but also dared work to proper health and safety standards by returning to the depot for their breaks – instead of eating in a germ-infested bin wagon with no wash facilities.
The council threatened to withdraw all pay, not just for the 3 hours on strike, but for the entire day.
A blatant case of victimisation of workers engaged in legal strike action.

The council pumped out propaganda about the threat of future equal pay claims making the deal agreed at ACAS unaffordable. But this has since been exposed as a complete sham; cover for their cost-cutting, safety-threatening plans to ‘delete’ the Grade 3 jobs and slash wages. In the High Court case taken by Unite the union against the redundancy notices, the council’s legal team never once raised this claim of unaffordable equal pay claims.

The bin workers refused to be cowed. They voted by 92% in a 72% turnout to extend strike action by another 12 weeks. They won local support in rallies at the council buildings. They won unanimous support at last week’s TUC conference, which supported the bin workers and condemned the Labour council for reneging on the ACAS-facilitated deal.

In an appalling indictment of a Labour council, Unite initiated a food bank for the strikers this week! Now, their firm stance has helped win the High Court ruling that has forced the council to withdraw the redundancy notices.

Broader Lessons for Labour Supporters

These bin workers need and deserve our solidarity until they win an outright victory. In defence of safety, wages and conditions. But there’s also a broader issue, especially for those who’ve placed their hopes for workers’ rights and livelihoods in the Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn’s welcome elections as leader.
For all the talk of Corbyn’s Labour being anti-austerity – and winning mass support with that message in England – here we have a Labour council acting like the worst, anti-union Tories, carrying out austerity at a local level.

And just as we’ve written elsewhere, not once has the Corbyn leadership issued a clarion call on their own Labour councillors to resist Tory cuts.
Where has there been a word of criticism of Birmingham Labour council from the same national Labour leadership?

Howard Beckett, Unite assistant general secretary 

Labour Left's Silence

A very telling contrast in speeches at the TUC should be grounds for serious thought for all those pinning their hopes in Labour. Unite assistant general secretary Howard Beckett moved the Motion supporting the bin workers in a barnstorming speech, declaring:

“If Labour councillors act like Tories, we will call them Tories and treat them like Tories.”

In stark contrast, Jeremy Corbyn told the same TUC conference:

“We have a duty as a labour movement to find a resolution to this dispute as soon as possible.”

There’s not been a word of condemnation of the Birmingham Labour councillors from Jeremy that I can trace.
There’s certainly been no withdrawal of the Labour whip, nor outright expulsion, of these anti-worker, anti-union, austerity-wielding Labour councillors by the Corbyn leadership.
And many bin workers are increasingly asking where the national Labour leadership have been during the strikes and rallies; they’ve not attended any.

SSP Solidarity with Brummie Bin Workers

And at a local level, when I politely asked left-wing Labour activists about the Brummie bin strike at the recent launch of Richard Leonard’s campaign to become Scottish Labour leader, they hung their heads, and shuffled into the rally in silence.

Socialists cannot remain silent on such a critical confrontation between workers and their union on one side, and an axe-wielding Labour council on the other, with jobs, wages and safety at stake.

Political parties should be judged by their deeds, not just their words.

The dirty deeds of Labour on the Brummie bins battle should be a powerful lesson to all trade unionists looking for a socialist alternative.
And for all the Scottish Labour left’s talk of independence being a threat to working class unity and solidarity, they appear disappointingly silent on offering solidarity to Birmingham workers in brutal conflict with a Labour council – whereas the pro-independence Scottish Socialist Party hasn’t hesitated to take sides with these trade unionists in England’s second city.

RECOLLECTIONS OF GLACIER METAL FACTORY SIT-IN VICTORY

 

On Hogmanay 1996, the Glasgow Glacier Metal engineering workers were ringing the bells in elation at their victory, whilst Glacier bosses were wringing their hands in despair.

The ‘Polmadie 103’ had scored a landmark victory for class struggle trade unionism, defeating the factory’s multinational owners, Turner & Newall, after a seven week factory sit-in. 

It was the first workplace occupation in ten years, and was provoked by dictatorial bosses trying to impose a 15-point change of contract, which aimed to double company profits, cut wages by £123 a week and slash sick pay, the canteen subsidy and other benefits won over 25 years by these members of the AEEU, now part of UNITE the union.

The boss’s method of imposing this was designed to undermine the union. He picked on the youngest tradesman in the workforce, and ordered him to risk health and safety by doing two jobs at once. The lad went to his union stewards, who had prepared for this confrontation and, advising the entire workforce to ‘down tools’, went upstairs to negotiate.

As they waited outside his office, the manager sneaked down to the factory floor to declare: “Gentlemen, you are all sacked!" Four of those sacked were on holiday, while another was convalescing after operations for brain 

Advantages of Factory Occupation  

Critically, instead of walking out the door on strike, which years before had landed them in a prolonged lockout, the workers stayed in the factory, declaring themselves available for work.

This totally wrong-footed management, and gave the highly-skilled workers several strategic advantages. They seized control of a factory with £1million worth of undelivered precision engineering products, paralysing £200,000-a-day production and thereby putting pressure on the owners from customer companies. I'll never forget the irate phone call to the factory during the sit-in, when a company boss bellowed: "What's going on with my orders? I've got a f***ing nuclear power station to run!"

They psychologically brought the battle into the bosses’ domain, preventing them bussing in scabs past legally-hamstrung pickets with police assistance, as Timex had done in Dundee 1993. And above all, they were fighting for their jobs, justice and full trade union rights inside a well-heated factory, with snow-storms outside, making it one huge campaigning nerve centre.

Building Workers' Solidarity  

If the factory occupation had remained a ‘folded arms’ affair, waiting for concessions from the employers, it would have collapsed, or at best allowed some dirty deal to be hatched above their heads between the management and top AEEU officials, who had secret contact with the company as early as five days into the occupation. But this inspiring workers’ struggle was a model of strategy and tactics. Firm discipline was established by the union stewards and Occupation Committee, with a booze ban and daily mass meetings. Meals were cooked and the factory kept clean.

Role of Socialists in the Sit-in 

Some of us who later founded the SSP played a major role in this historic event.

I first called to offer practical solidarity the morning after they started the occupation. We had been in the thick of building support for the 500 locked-out Liverpool dockers for the previous 15 months, and used our vast array of workplace contacts to arrange solidarity visits with Glacier workers all over Scotland – and parts of the UK, particularly those with big engineering industries. This served several purposes, including financial survival for the workers’ families and a breach in the media vow of silence.

On the issue of whether management could evict them, we explained the law, with the help of a couple of friendly lawyers, but emphasised that the ultimate means of defence of the sit-in from potential moves - involving police, or cowboy security firms - was to build mass support in the workplaces and surrounding community, creating a potential army of defence.

Solidarity Mass Pickets  

The employers hoped to isolate the sit-in with the help of media silence, aiming to starve the workers’ families into submission as Christmas loomed large. Workplace solidarity tours helped scupper that. It also countered the danger of boredom and demoralisation setting in amongst a workforce not previously known for involvement in the wider movement. 

When management told the arbitration service ACAS that they had no workforce, we smelt a rat, suspecting imminent eviction, and in discussions with the Occupation Committee suggested an early morning solidarity mass picket, built through a leaflet around workplaces and the mailing list of the Clydeside Dockers' Support Group (which I was the organiser of). That vastly boosted morale, became a weekly feature, and peaked at a turnout of 400.

Taking to the Streets 

We then suggested a pre-Xmas demo, which attracted well over 1,000 on Sunday 15 December. One report claimed 3,000. The build-up was as important as this stirring event itself. The Occupation Committee had coopted me as an adviser, and put me in charge of a small Demo Committee. We involved the absolute majority of the men, and a few of their partners, in street meetings, issuing hard-hitting leaflets that won support, by-passed the media blackout, and swamped workplaces and shopping centres across the west of Scotland.

An ACAS boss complained after a leaflet was left unwittingly on his windscreen, because it described Turner & Newall as ‘notorious merchants of death’, citing their appalling record on asbestosis. AEEU officials went ape-shit down the phone to the union convener, who firmly rejected their instructions and printed 29,000 of the ‘offending’ leaflet. This propaganda offensive helped bring T&N bosses to heel, as they already faced dire problems with £billions of outstanding asbestosis claims and feared their notoriety being broadcast.

Supporting Locked-out Liverpool Dockers  

The workers were literally dancing with elation after the success of the demo. They then turned their attention to daily street collections in the run up to Xmas – for financial survival, but also to keep the campaign alive and in people’s minds.

The first big collection, on 18 December, raised £488 … for the Liverpool dockers. The Occupation Committee rounded it up to £600, in an act of selfless solidarity born of their own experiences in battle. On Xmas Eve, a team hit Glasgow’s Argyle Street from 10am to 5pm and collected £2,800.

Negotiations began that day, involving both full-time union officials and the factory union convener and deputy convener. T&N’s head of Employee Relations grizzled that as they negotiated, Glacier workers were on the streets with megaphones and leaflets attacking T&N. That was part of the point – to pile pressure on the company and remind right-wing AEEU officials what was at stake.

An Xmas day breakfast was laid on in the occupied factory for families and supporters – another ingenious act of defiance and comradeship by people whose talents erupted in the heat of battle. 

Outright Victory! 

By Hogmanay, the 103 workers were celebrating a landmark victory. All were reinstated, with full union recognition, and very little conceded to the bosses on their conditions of work. In a final fling at undermining union rights, the company tried to get a staggered return to work – which the AEEU full-time officials agreed to. The workers’ direct union representatives went ballistic, refused, said it was a ploy to potentially victimise leaders of the occupation, and won a proud, united return to work.

A multinational giant was brought to its knees by the tactics, skills, and impact on production by this factory occupation. Socialists played an important, constructive part, applying collective experience to living struggles, laying foundations for a united, working class socialist party - in the form of the SSP, established two years after the Polmadie 103's victory. 

Capitalists Complain! 

Such was the impact of this victorious struggle in the southside of Glasgow, that a dissident voice in the hierarchy of Turner & Newall management reproduced the article I wrote on its tenth anniversary, with a covering note bemoaning their losses.

"Even if they worked only 5 days per week, at “£200,000-a-day” this 7-week strike cost them £7 million, plus legal and administrative costs of fighting the strike. And they lost not only the strike but their former stronger position against the union.

Here’s an exquisite example of why [former Glacier Metal Company CEO] Wilfred Brown’s ideas about Works Councils make management stronger, not weaker. Had Turner & Newall had the guts to restore this strong institution — instead of the cowardice of underhanded union-busting — they would have been in a stronger position overall in their discussion with the union."

Interestingly, he advocated a return to earlier methods of Works Councils - the much-vaunted concept of 'social partnership' - rather than full-frontal union-busting methods... to achieve precisely the same cost-cutting, profit-boosting attacks on workers' terms and conditions!

As workplace closures and massive redundancies erupt 20 years on, workers and their union leaderships should study, adapt and apply the lessons from this outstanding model of how to defy the dictatorship of capital.