The spread of wildcat strikes at oil refineries and power stations, beginning in Lindsey in Lincolnshire, is the biggest such movement in Britain for years. It began as protests against the attempts of overseas contractors to undercut working conditions by bringing in their own labour force.

There are important aspects to consider when looking at this strike movement.

1. They are breaking rules. The strikes are illegal, but the strength of feeling is such that the participants don’t particularly care. They are a sign of a shift in people’s consciousness, from seeing a movement in action and sympathetically observing from the sidelines (as occurred, for example, during the Gate Gourmet dispute of 2005) to actively becoming involved in it themselves.

2. They are democratically organised. The dispute at Lindsey is run by an elected strike committee and mass meetings of workers, outside of union structures. These mass meetings vote on demands in much the same way as meetings of occupying students.

3. They have both been massively misrepresented in the media. There have been constant attempts to claim that these movements are ‘targeting’ vulnerable groups.

Many have been rightly concerned about the language used to air the workers’ grievances. The use of the slogan ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ (coined, by the way, by Gordon Brown) has led the liberal media to decry the workers as xenophobic and racist, even accuse them of involvement with the BNP. It is true that this slogan is narrow and nationalistic, and is harming the cause of the workers in the eyes of the world’s media. Yet as the dispute has gone on its tone has changed. Under the influence of a strike committee member and member of the Socialist Party, the latest demands passed by Lindsey workers at a mass meeting included:

“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.”

Undoubtedly the BNP have attempted to intervene, but have been told in no uncertain terms where to go, as one worker puts it on the strikers’ website:

“[I] would like to take a second to tell the B.*.* to f*** **f  this dispute is not against the [foreign] working lads but Total! lets not lose sight of our objectives and dont let the B.*.* hijack this keeps strong lads what we are doing is right”

It seems today that union bosses have reached a deal that they will put to their members, and so the dispute may be nearing the end of its current phase. But it raises questions about what will happen in the coming years of recession. As the neo-liberal consensus has been discredited and blown apart, the picket lines of Lindsey have become a microcosm of the battle between Left and Right which is beginning all across Europe. The mainstream parties all, predictably, line up against the workers and tell them patronisingly that while their concerns are ‘genuine’, going on strike is ‘not the right thing to do’. The way out of this crisis is for workers to organise themselves politically, reaching across borders to those who face similar problems in other countries. Solidarity for Lindsey has already come in from Polish and Italian workers, but there is still work to be done to stamp out nationalism on the picket lines. The solution to an international economic crisis can only be an internationalist workers’ response.

Filed under: socialism, strikes, trade unions on February 4th, 2009