Junior doctors renew mandate
Will Collins, BMA Junior Doctor (personal capacity)
Junior doctors in England have once again voted to continue strike action for full-pay restoration, with an overwhelming 97% Yes vote on a 61% turnout.
While this is a clear mandate for action, turnout worryingly dropped by 11 percentage points. This should be a warning sign to the BMA leadership. Fatigue is beginning to set in.
The last set of strikes saw proper pickets at only a handful of large hospitals. Those without a local picket line were told to “focus on their wellbeing” instead.
It is these kinds of soft tactics that have demoralised nurses and lecturers in their disputes. In the process, workers have lost their strike mandates due to low turnout.
The Tories’ minimum service bill means that, at any point, our strikes could be made illegal. They have thrown down the gauntlet. We must respond.
One doctor asked when speaking with The Communist: “Is there a reason why we can’t indefinitely strike?”
This clearly reflects a mood of frustration among a layer of activists, who feel that the current methods are not enough.
The Tories are universally hated among the general population. Our strikes, meanwhile, have received widespread support.
This is an open goal for escalation. We need a mobilisation in every hospital, with ward walks and regular branch meetings to organise the most dedicated activists on the ground. This is absolutely achievable!
Another, similar drop in turnout would lose us our mandate – and with it all our bargaining power. There is a small window in which to turn this around. But turn it around we must!
Greenwich library service strike: Mobilise the members!
Pat MacDonald, Unite Greenwich Libraries branch (personal capacity)
On 26 March, library workers in Greenwich and Bromley – employed by Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) and organised in Unite – went out on a one-day strike over pay, sick pay, and temporary contracts.
GLL have tried to downplay the strike with misinformation, provoking angry responses from Unite. This has sometimes left us workers bewildered and caught in the middle.
On the day, the actual turnout of staff was quite low because of the lack of communication and organisation on the shop floor. To win a strike, it’s not enough to send emails from union HQ.
Nevertheless, the mood of the workers present was positive. Before the strike had even taken place, we’d already forced GLL to announce that they will scrap the 20% sick pay policy, whereby workers are deducted this percentage from their overall wage.
This is a good start. But we can go further.
Shop-floor meetings should be called to discuss our demands with all members, and to encourage them to take part in solid pickets at all the flagship libraries. Crucially, we need to be more involved in tactics and strategy.
Library workers have the strength to beat GLL. So watch this space, and return those books you owe – unless we’re on strike!
Coventry Amazon workers on the verge of union recognition
Alex Hill and Jazir Mohammed, Coventry Communists
Amazon workers in Coventry are very close to achieving full union recognition. They last went on strike on 19-20 March, in order to bolster their unionisation effort, and to send a clear message to the company that they won’t back down from their threats!
The workers on the picket line told us of the conditions they have to work in. They spoke of dangerous working conditions; of tough quotas that lead to frequent accidents, including workers having boxes fall on their faces.
One worker described the entire experience as ‘mentally draining’. Another referenced how Amazon’s rhetoric over safety has little to do with the actual experience of the job.
The workers recognise their importance in keeping day-to-day operations flowing, and are demanding to be valued for what they actually contribute, especially given the taxing conditions they face.
Amazon bosses have frequently deployed union-busting tactics against those struggling. Workers are constantly discouraged from joining unions, with emails sent to employees on the day of strike action saying that ‘union recognition may not be your best choice’.
Barcodes that link to cancelling union membership are scattered across the warehouses. It is clear that Amazon is intent on doing whatever it can to stop workers from organising.
All this shows that Amazon is terrified of the power that these workers would have, if united and mobilised collectively. They want to be able to continue with these terrible conditions and exploitative pay – all so that they can make themselves richer at the workers’ expense.
But the workers are fighting back.
Comrades in Coventry have been at almost every single picket in this struggle. We have witnessed the queues to join the union growing longer and longer.
We say: Stand up to the union-busting bosses! Fight for decent pay and conditions! Expropriate Bezos and the billionaires!
Wage theft plagues Gloucestershire
Jack Jones, Cardiff Communists
Eight firms in Gloucestershire have been found to have not paid their workers the bare legal minimum. One of these, Superdry, was found to owe around £75,000 in total to nearly 1,000 workers.
Of course, it’s not just in Gloucestershire where this is happening. Across the country, more than 500 firms have been named as underpaying their employees – some by quite significant amounts.
Bosses push wages as low as possible, in order to extract maximum profits from their workers. From their point of view, the less they spend on labour costs, the more goes into lining their pockets.
If this requires them to break the law, so be it. After all, being ‘named and shamed’ doesn’t really cost them a penny.
In reality, it’s the working class that creates the wealth that the capitalist class appropriates to maintain their power and influence in society. And yet all they get in return is low wages that can barely afford them the basics.
It’s time that those who actually produced this wealth were put in charge. Only then can workers, in Gloucestershire and elsewhere, end wage theft – and all exploitation – for good.
