BRITISH TROOPS only ended operations in Iraq at the end of May, and already a new conflict is underway in Libya. The new war has been a game-changer in a number of ways. Most obviously, it marked the “second wave” of the Arab Spring, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt appearing smooth and rapid in comparison to the drawn out street battles in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen. But it also proved to be the point at which support for “humanitarian intervention” was once more acceptable after the Iraqi quagmire.

This time, the protests were so small as to barely warrant news coverage. There were no millions on the streets of London. “Anti-war” newspapers such as the Independent contained editorials pondering “the sensitive politics of humanitarian intervention” and urging the West to “win the propaganda war.” Where they once labelled the death of Dr David Kelly a “whitewash,” they are now only concerned “if civilian deaths are verified” because it “undermines the legitimacy of the mission.”

Those touting the “humanitarian” credentials of this war make the same mistake as those who supported entering Iraq because it meant getting rid of Saddam Hussein. They presume that states can act on an altruistic basis. But, as the US and EU’s initial opposition to a no-fly zone demonstrates, the only question of any merit is “national interest.” It was when Gaddafi became too much of a liability to play his former role for western oil interests - indeed, losing control of the Eastern oilfields to rebel forces - that all parties quickly turned against him. European refineries are heavily dependent on Libyan crude oil, which is cheaper to process than most other grades.

The same is true when Western powers turn a blind eye to Saudi intervention in Yemen and Bahrain, or side with Libyan rebels whilst supporting repressive regimes elsewhere. The only guiding principle of all world powers in their foreign policy is to serve the interests of the political and economic elites.

The result is another protracted conflict, with heavy casualties on both sides and an uncertain outcome. Despite any intentions towards democracy, Western intervention leaves Libyans caught between a dictatorship, so desperate to cling onto power that it is using rape as a weapon of war, and Western free market policies which increase misery, poverty and inequality in the name of profit. Lofty talk of humanitarian intent simply doesn’t match up to reality.

STRIKE ACTION at Puerto Lirquen, Chile has seen workers blockading the port with barricades made from burning tyres. Guillermo Ascuí, the treasurer of the workers’ union said the company was guilty of serious labour abuses which had motivated the strike. Around 300 workers attended a mass meeting and decided to continue the strike until the authorities intervened to force the company to negotiate. They have so far been refusing to meet with workers’ representatives to discuss their demands.

Campaign of “disruptive action” wins temp’s unpaid wages

APRIL AND May saw the Solidarity Federation (SF) engage in an escalating campaign of  “disruptive action” against a part of the world’s largest employment agency. A successful international campaign of pickets and communication blockades resulted in an Office Angels temporary worker being paid wages withheld from him since last December.

The worker, Dan, contacted SF in March after trying to negotiate with Office Angels by himself. He had worked as a temp for them for three days in December but had not been provided with a time sheet. When he queried this, he was assured that this would not be a problem. After the job finished, he called in to Office Angels to collect his wages. To his surprise he was told that he had worked one day, not three – this despite having received a call from Office Angels at work on the third day.

SF responded to Dan’s request with a picket and a delegation sent to the Wimbledon Office Angels branch where he was initially employed - resulting in Dan being banned from all Office Angels premises. Next the London Locals of SF chose to picket the most visible Office Angels branch – Oxford Street, central London – where they spoke to management, demanded Dan be paid and informed them that action would continue until he received his full wages.

Following the visit to Oxford Street and a public call-out for escalation, Office Angels contacted Dan. He was told that “this has gone on long enough” and he would “definitely” get paid. When that didn’t happen pickets spread to branches outside London, and a ‘communications blockade’ was organised with support from around the world. The blockade saw hundreds of phone calls and emails sent to the Office Angels managers by individuals and groups, expressing their dissatisfaction with Office Angel’s unscrupulous employment practices. Thousands of leaflets were also distributed, highlighting Dan’s case and urging anyone who had suffered similar mistreatment to contact SF.

A national week of action was called, and preparations began for an international week of action against Office Angels’ parent company Adecco. The national week of action began with pickets being announced around the UK: numerous pickets in London, Northampton, Reading, Brighton, Oxford, Nottingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Bristol, and Liverpool. On the Tuesday, Dan was again contacted by Office Angels. This time they told him they had documentation confirming that he had worked two days and would pay him for those. Still not satisfied, the next day’s communications blockade went ahead as planned. Wednesday morning saw Dan contacted again. Office Angels offered to pay him for the full three days – but with strings attached. Dan refused, and the pressure was kept on. The next day, Office Angels gave in and paid Dan the wages they owed him.

SF has a long-running campaign against casualisation and precarious employment. The fight against employment agencies is, predictably, at the forefront of such a movement. While this was just a small victory, it shows how ordinary workers can turn the tables on powerful exploiters by taking action together. The pickets even got the attention of Office Angels’ Managing Director David Clubb, who issued a statement regretting the “disruptive action”. Dan’s case is just the tip of the iceberg – but it shows that temp workers can stand up for themselves with collective direct action.

The Solidarity Federation would like to thank all the individuals and groups who took part in communications blockades and organised pickets as part of the campaign, with particular thanks to the Anarchist Federation (AF), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and The Commune as well as our sister-sections in the International Workers’ Association (IWA).

THE CO-ORDINATED strikes on June 30th have put strike action back on the agenda. Business Secretary Vince Cable recently threatened to tighten the law if big strikes take place, while media commentators have been falling over themselves to label strike action a relic from a bygone age. So what are strikes, and why are they important now?

Put simply, a strike is a co-ordinated stoppage at work. In response to a grievance workers act collectively, refusing to work and attempting to prevent others from working. This can take the form of persuasion or, in instances where more is at stake, physically preventing those who seek to continue to work (“scabs”) from doing so. A picket line is a group of strikers (“pickets”) who congregate at the entrance of the workplace and attempt to enforce the strike. Usually, strikes are organised and led by trade unions – however, many of the most important and militant actions have either started out or later spread beyond union control. These unofficial actions are known as “wildcat” strikes.

Historically, the strike has been one of the most powerful weapons available to workers (see timeline below). The idea behind strike action is simple and powerful: if the terms and conditions of work are not acceptable to workers then no work shall be done.
Strikes have been recorded as long as there have been class societies. The earliest recorded strike was documented in Egyptian scrolls from 1152 BC, when artisans on Royal tombs demanded wage increases and won. Strikes have been important in winning significant reforms such as the eight-hour day and in toppling dictators (like recently in Egypt).

Much of Europe is currently seeing vigorous strike action in response to austerity measures. The rhetoric from politicians, mainstream media and captains of industry make one thing clear: bosses are terrified of strikes. Few topics muster the same hysterical, blustering condemnation than the threat of strike action. Even nominally left wing newspapers such as the Guardian are only supportive of strikes once they’re safely in the past. This fear is well founded. Their wealth and power derives from our labour. This is never more clearly illustrated than when we withdraw it, disrupting the economy and shaking the foundations they rely on.

A strike is a direct challenge to capitalist society – a society where we sell our lives hour by hour to a boss who will profit off of us. Denying them this and their control over our day to day lives is a challenge to their domination of society, and is an expression of our collective power as workers. Where normally we feel powerless and out of control of our own lives, collective action such as strikes show us the potential for change.

Most strikes begin under union control, and some union controlled disputes win significant victories. However, they also impose limits upon just how far strikes can go. Trade unions need to preserve their positions as ‘respectable’ representatives of the workforce. They are forced to act within a strict legal framework, which prevents them from escalating to more militant tactics such as occupations, or spreading the dispute to sympathetic workplaces. Often, union leaderships will only call strikes in the face of mass pressure from the membership, and these strikes often take on ineffective forms, such as the tokenistic one day strikes that most modern industrial action consists of (see chart to the right). Short strikes have limited power as they put little pressure on employers. Work can be ‘caught up’ when people return to their jobs and the status quo maintained.

When bosses or the government see a strike spreading ‘out of control’ - like the Lindsey Oil Refinery wildcats in 2009 – they rush to offer concessions. For strikes to be truly effective, they need to be controlled directly by those involved, and spread as widely and as quickly as possible. Workers can’t rely on anyone, even their own union leaders, to win for them.

High-res version here.

1. Labour call in the International Monetary fund (IMF), marking the end of the post-war setttlement and the beginning of rising inequality. This came despite several years of the TUC agreeing to hold down pay.

2. Workers respond with a wave of strikes, many of them unofficial. These culminate in the ‘Winter of discontent’ in 1978/9.

3. Thatcher’s Tory government smashes the workers’ movement, leading to a dramatic fall in strike days and a corresponding rise in inequality.

SOURCES: Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) Income and Inequality spreadsheet complied from ONS data. Gini coefficient measures inequality, where 100 = one person owns everything and 0 = perfect equality. Worldwide, Gini coefficients range from approximately 23 (Sweden) to 70 (Namibia) although not every country has been assessed.

Southern Cross: profiteers don't care

Have others been following the results of the near-bankruptcy of this major player in the private sector ‘for profit’ care homes business in Britain? In addition to major changes of ownership and some home closures causing disruption to the residents, the Guardian 17 June reported on the company’s current proposals to slash the already poor working wages and conditions of it’s staff on top of cutting some 3,000 jobs.

My friend who works in one of their homes has indicated that even prior to this, non-filling of vacancies and ‘requests’ for more flexible working were common, but this seems to be a whole new level of attack. The GMB union is supposed to be ‘negotiating’ with the company but I don’t think the full impact of all this has got across to all the workers involved, or those in other or no unions, as far as I can tell.

Also a ‘Quality Care Commission’ report just recently claimed about 25% or more of the homes were failing the minimum standards required. On top of that another similar report indicated many severe failings in ‘home support’ for the elderly and there are severe cut backs in local authority funding for home help.

Before my mother died a few years back she received mostly excellant, if time limited, home care from some dedicated, but poorly paid staff whose employer had recently been outsourced from the local authroity to a non-profit trust, but since then reports have indicated further deterioriation of staff and ‘client’ conditions. It still needed me to provide daily care in addition - which not everyone can give.

Conditions for the poor and elderly in this country are getting even worse but it is difficult for these workers to organise or strike and for the residents and others receiving help to be active in opposition to all this. If others in the ‘care industry’ or anyone receiving or trying to receive this kind of assistance can add more information or ideas that would be helpful.

Mike, Manchester

I write about the 70,000 people directly affected by the financial situation of the country’s largest care home operator. Southern Cross, which employs 42,500 staff to care for 31,000 vulnerable adults, has proposed plans to save £20 million in labour costs by making 3,000 redundancies and changes to terms and conditions. These include, but are not limited to, opting out of the European Working Time Directive, reductions in pay, an increase in hours and temporary lay-offs when there isn’t ‘enough work’.

It also seems likely that many of Southern Cross’ landlords will take over the running of the homes they own, meaning a further change in management, terms and conditions for staff. The GMB union, which represents 25% of Southern Cross workers, is in negotiations with the company but for what? Nicer pay cuts? This is what happens when we leave our most vulnerable people in the hands of profiteers.

Laura, Bristol

Beating rape culture is up to all of us

In the news recently, there have been a few articles about a cop and various politicians downplaying the seriousness of rape. These unfortunately aren’t only the words of a few ‘out of touch’ old sexist men, they reflect a wider culture that blames women being ‘provocative’ for rape, and excuses rapist men on the grounds that they have uncontrollable sexual drives.

This inspired a series of quickly organised – mainly over the internet – massive protests, starting in Canada and the United States, called ‘SlutWalk’. However, SlutWalk seems to consciously object to looking at sexism as a fundamental part of our society. They do not see themselves as part of a wider feminist tradition, and they ignore the context in which blaming women for being raped is taking place, and consequently they don’t see it as a social issue or a gender issue, but one of individual, personal choice.

The idea that women are to blame for rape is disgusting and should be challenged wherever it is found, by men as well as women. It is not a standalone issue, it is a symptom of a society engrained with sexism, on economic and cultural levels, as well as in our personal relations with each other. The occasional nod to gender equality is not enough; parliament isn’t going to hand out equality, even if it could – it’s up to us.

Jon, Oxford

A message for you Vinnie!
Dear Dr Cable,
We noted with interest and contempt your warning to trade unionists that a rise in industrial militancy in the UK will result in a hostile response from the State.

Our message to you is simple: BRING IT ON! The day the working class is intimidated by mediocre ruling-class lickspittles like you is the day ‘Hell’ freezes over.

Unkind regards,
Liverpool SF

Obama’s secret Yemen war
Dear Catalyst,
For any reader who thinks that Obama is any better than any other torturing, murdering capitalist president, both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post report that the Obama administration is planning to exploit the disorder from the civil war in Yemen by dramatically escalating a CIA-led drone bombing campaign.

In a sense this is nothing new as the US has been bombing Yemen for the last two years, including one attack using cluster bombs that killed dozens of civilians.  But what’s new is that this will be a CIA drone attack program that is a massive escalation over prior bombing campaigns.

All this under the leadership of the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009!

Gladys, Bognor Regis

We’re all ‘extremists’ now
Dear Catalyst,
I’d like to bring it to your attention that the Metropolitan Police have branded your North London Local an “extremist organisation”. Also on the list were student campaigns, socialist groups and even the Bootle Labour Party!

The Met made this claim in response to a Freedom of Information request about possible police involvement in the synchronised take-down of around 50 activist, anarchist and socialist Facebook pages on the eve of the Royal Wedding.

They refused to confirm or deny involvement on the grounds that it related to “operational policing of extremist organisations”. If this is how the police view political activity, it’s hardly comforting to learn that a quarter of the population will be on the new police national database, including millions of people with no criminal record at all. George Orwell turns in his grave.

Tim, Leeds

Catalyst: Thanks for spotting this! We have to say, very little surprises us from the Met these days, a police force which literally gets away with murder. And they recently charged Alfie Meadows, who needed life-saving bleeding on the brain after an unprovoked baton attack with violent disorder.  The state belongs to the rich, and if you don’t like it you’re an ‘extremist’. See you on the streets!

Congrats on wildcats
Dear Catalyst,
The North London Solidarity Federation wishes to congratulate our fellow postal workers in Islington on their successful three hour wildcat strike last week.

Unfortunately, Royal Mail’s harassment of workers who refuse to cut corners is nothing new and, regrettably, keeps going on up and down the country on a daily basis. Unreasonable cuts to duties coupled lay-offs have created impossible workloads. Management’s response to this situation - a situation they created - is to bully their workforce. Everyday at Royal Mail centres around the country, management try to make us work through our breaks, begin work before our shifts start, and stay on late without compensation. When we refuse—when we do our job properly—we are threatened with dismissal.

Enough is enough! Wildcat strikes are our most effective weapon and both management and our so-called union leaders know this. It is time to step it up and Make Royal Mail unmanageble. The Islington posties have taken the first step. All that’s left is for the rest of us to get on board. Congratulations again fellow workers .

(by a NL Postie)
North London SF

Write to Catalyst at catalyst@solfed.org.uk - We try to publish a range of views, with responses where possible. Comment on articles or current events is welcome. Letters may be edited and names will be anonymised by default unless you specifically request otherwise.