British jobs for British workers: round three
Posted on Friday 4 September, 2009
Filed Under Trade Unions
THE far left is usually an uncritical supporter of industrial action in any and all circumstances, rightly adopting Rosa Luxemburg’s stance that ‘where the chains of capitalism are forged, there they must be broken’.
Yet the two rounds of ‘British jobs for British workers’ wildcats this year have been the only exception to this rule I can remember since the 1970s. As I argued at the time, it is vital to avoid confusing form and content; however unfortunate the formulations invoked, the substantive issue of upholding the rate for the job was surely supportable.
The controversy may now reignite, after 7,000 GMB members in oil refineries and power stations around Britain voted heavily in support of official strike action over the issue. The result of a ballot of 30,000 workers organised in the same sector by Unite is expected next week, with ‘yes’ very much on the cards.
The seven sites involved are BP’s Forties pipeline facility at Grangemouth, the Ineos refinery at Grangemouth, Sellafield, Shell’s refinery at Stanlow, RWE’s power plants at Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire and Aberthaw in South Glamorgan and Chevron’s refinery in Pembroke.
Any stoppages are likely to be co-ordinated, and the result could see power cuts across the country. This is shaping up to be the most important blue-collar strike for 20 years, and now is not the time for sterile sectarian abstentionism.
Thought for the day:
When workers rise against exploitation and oppression with nationalist slogans, you say: “The rising is correct; please change the slogans.” You do not say: “The rising is bad because the slogans are bad.”
- Ernest Mandel, in an entirely different context.
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Comments
14 Responses to “British jobs for British workers: round three”
The New Labour Project has been to create globalization in one country. Discuss.
Define what you mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre
An extreme example of working-class nativism, in the USA in this case.
I heard this idea some time ago but have forgotten the exact details. I remember that I thought it was total bollocks and I reckoned the person espousing it was a BNP member.
Getting back to the article,
The far left by and large have supported the oil refinery workers and the BNP were driven away from the action. No doubt the left will again stand shoulder to shoulder with these workers, while offering advice on what tactics, demands to make.
Hopefully this action will open the door to other workers to resist the attacks coming from the capitalists.
@mark
what a ridiculous example to highlight what can happen when people fight for decent conditions, unless you think a ‘british jobs for british workers is comparable to the mentioned massacre, sheesh
It’s an extreme example of what nativist passions in a work force can lead to. The American miners seem to have been motivated as much by defending their jobs and conditions as by racism, and the Chinese were brought in to drive wages down. Absent socialist consciousness, this kind of massacre can happen. English-language Wikipedia led with this article a few days ago.
I was in the march against the BNP in Welling in 1993, when they had one councillor in the whole UK. If you had told me that by 2009 they would be polling nearly a million votes, I might have been incredulous.
If you believe the British working man is just too moderate and reasonable to resort to ethnic slaughter, well, I hope you’re right.
“If you believe the British working man is just too moderate and reasonable to resort to ethnic slaughter, well, I hope you’re right.”
Even the SWP haven’t managed to distill prolefear with this degree of purity.
Victorystooge:
When John Tyndall got 5% in a byelection in Dagenham in 1994 – which was then a (British) white ghetto, with a fairly low crime rate, by the way -, it was clear at it wasn’t going to be that long before the BNP – out of nowhere – controlled the local council.
If they’d had enough candidates in 2006, they would have achieved it then. Did no-body else notice this? I assume no-one from the “ANL” was standing outside polling stations on that day, or they would have noticed something. If their brains were switched on. I assume William Hill aren’t taking bets on Cruddas getting replaced by Barnbrook or Griffin at the next general election.
Admittedly, some of the most grievous examples of what I am talking about come from the USA. On the other hand, I can recall being told in the most dogmatic terms by some Marxists, at least in the past, that fascists and racists can’t make any real headway among the working class in Britain. I consider this to be nonsense. If you think this is “prolefear”, be my guest.
Incidentally, any comment on the Birmingham clashes?
I should add that I work with members of an ethnic minority sometimes subject to xenophobic attacks. I am not inclined to under-estimate the amount of anti-foreigner feeling in UK society.
All roads lead to Rome.
Saw the picket lines on Sky today and the demands were the right to work and repeal the anti trade union laws.
Can I just say that the vast majority on the left support their struggle and stand in solidarity with them.
@Scratch
‘Prolefear’I love it, sums it up great:yes the english middle class left do have a real fear/dislike of ‘men with bull necks in ill fitting suits’
do you have a blog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Freedom_Party_of_Austria_propaganda_billboard.JPG
The hoarding says “social security for OUR people” (ie. Austrians)
I am in Austria, and I wonder whether this is your future.
There are many hoardings like this for Strache and his far right Freedom Party, who clearly are not short of a bob. They are explicitly xenophobic (especially anti-Turkish) and call for more security on the streets to combat crime (in a country where the police gunned down a 14-year-old suspected of breaking and entering a few weeks ago). Yet the political left, even the outside left, is actually stronger in Austria than it is in the UK.
Are you up to the challenge? Because somehow I doubt it.