On Wednesday, 26 July, 2000 building workers assembled in Bedford Square to demonstrate for their pay-claim. As far as the rank-and-file were concerned their main interest was obviously in the crisis over the Industrial Relations Act. With the release of the dockers on Wednesday evening the UCATT and T & GWU leadership will no doubt forget there was ever any interest in the subject THE CAMPAIGN Up to now the employers have not budged one inch. At a meeting of building workers in Bristol on Friday, 21 July, a member of the E.C. of UCATT reported to the meeting that the employers had made an offer, which when worked out had amounted to just less than the previous offer in cash terms. The Union negotiators had no choice but to reject it. " Up to now the building workers have only bared their teeth, now is the time for real militancy" were his words to the meeting. However he was unable to offer any line for struggle from the E.C. Up and down the country the same story is true.
The local Action Councils are the only bodies which have organised the struggle from start till now.
NATIONAL STRIKE The tactic of selective strikes was probably correct at the beginning. It was obviously impossible to call out every site when only about one third would have responded. It was important to gradually build up strength, using militant sites as poles of attraction for the rest. The tactic hit some companies very hard. They pushed on the Employers Federation for a quick settlement.
BUT WHAT NOW?
It is clear that the selective strike tactic is now no longer enough. There are several reasons for this. First, at this stage it is possible that many of the militants will THE INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP AND THE RED MOLE This broadsheet is produced by the International Marxist Group (British section of the Fourth International). The IMG is a revolutionary socialist organisation which believes that the struggle from the struggle against the capitalist system. We therefore support every struggle against that system, such as those for higher wages and better working conditions, and against racism, the oppression of women, and British rule in Ireland. We believe that all these struggles can only be successful if linked to a general strategy of nationalisation of all major industry under workers control and for a state based on workers power. The IMG produces a fortnightly 12-page newspaper, The Red Mole. For further information about the activities of the IMG and for a sample copy of The Red Mole, fill in the form below and send it with a 5p stamp to: IMG, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
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Address: get demoralised when they are nearing the end of their fifth week out. They see that others have been earing money all that time, yet will receive the benefits of any settlement. Secondly, many sites are campaigning not to be called out because they have the option of staying at work and seeing others win their settlement for them, (many individual militants on these sites do of course want to support their fellow trade-unionists). Thirdly, the employers who have not been selected are sufficiently strong to stop the "let's settle caucus" from having much sway. They probably subsidise them anyway.
"STRIKE NOW...
Now that there are 26 thousand building workers out on strike there is the basis to call them all out. Mass pickets could be arranged, as there have been in London on some sites. Already, certain areas like Bristol have stopped everything. The scaffolders were the first to come out, and the Action Council followed this lead from the Bristol Strike Committee. By the mass meeting the following day four companies had offered negotiated settlements. The scaffolders agreed not to go back on any site still in dispute. ...WHILE THE IRON'S HOT" But this is not the only reason for calling a national strike now. The Tory Government is in deep political crisis, and the five dockers are out of jail. But the Tories have also managed (through the decision of the Law Lords) to get back to the position they were in before the Appeal Court judgement. That means that the principle of free trade unionism is still in deep jeopardy. THE PROBLEM FOR BUILDING against the employers, the Industrial Relations Act and the Tory government cannot be separated I would like more information about the IMG and a sample copy of The Red Mole. The problem for building workers has not so much been how to protect their unions but how to build them. This is the first time that building workers have been able to put enough pressure on their Union Executives for them to be anything else but company unions. the first time there is a national fight on a real problem for workers in the trade. Building workers have never been able to use the militancy on some sites to win big wages for the whole industry. That was because of low basic rates (sixteenth in the D.E.P.'s table) and site by site bargaining for bonuses. UCATT AND THE T & GWU The present claim attacks the reasoning behind the bonus system. With reasonable basic rates there can be no division between workers and the struggle against the Lump can begin in earnest. But the T & GWU faces fines and costs of over £80,000 and UCATT has an overdraft of £60,000 already. In that situation these unions are going to be very wary of letting their militants step out of line.
CONCLUSION It is in the direct interests of building workers to follow the lead of the dockers and the workers in the West of Scotland. If they are ever going to make their Union into an effective instrument of struggle, they must defend it now by calling for the strike to continue until the repeal of the Act. Secondly, to make sure that the TUC does not drop the struggle, building workers have to call for a conference of the rank-and-file in liaison with the dockers.
CHARTER Charter has a special responsibility in all this. Keeping the rank-and-file movement organised is essential if pressure is on the leadership to cane their militants. Also urgent is the development of a programme for Charter which enables militants to work out a strategy for dealing with the attacks of the State. Basically what is being fought out by the building workers is not just the problems of the building industry but the problems created by the capitalist system (as the effects of the Act show). support from the trade union bureaucracy; no union national executive other than that of the "blue' NASD (which is excluded from the TUC) made the strike official, although the national council of the National Graphical Association has called a one-day strike against the Act on Monday. Indeed, while the strikes were spreading the TUC leaders were preparing to visit Heath in Downing Street, and leader of the main docks union, Jack Jones of the T & GWU, was doing his best to ensure that his joint report on the docks would provide a means of defusing the situation. Rather than give any lead in the situation, the TUC delayed any decision on action until it became clear that unless it did something a substantial proportion of its membership would simply by-pass it anyway. So came the belated call for a one-day token stoppage on Monday, not against the Act even but simply to call for the release of the dockers. Throughout the strike it was clear that their main concern was to keep open the way to a continuation of their talks with the Government and CBI about the economy and conciliation procedures SUPPORT GROWS Still support for the strike continued to grow on Tuesday and Wednesday as shop stewards and regional union executives took matters into their own hands. In London, the demonstration on Tuesday and the subsequent barricading of the road outside the prison had a big effect, with more building sites coming out, Heathrow workers voting for a 24-hour stoppage from 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning, white-collar workers at the Royal group of docks coming out and then the decision by London Transport workers to stop work from midnight on Tuesday. On Wednesday further groups of workers in London voted to join the strike, in particular Southern Region train drivers and ticket collectors at Waterloo who thereby pushed the ASLEF executive into calling a meeting to discuss action on Thursday.
Outside London, too, support grew rapidly. Miners at some pits in Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire were already on strike, and by Tuesday a total of 35,000 South Wales miners had voted to strike with more pits still balloting on the issue. Seventy five South Wales miners travelled up to London on Wednesday to join the picket outside the jail. In Sheffield all the major engineering firms were brought to a halt; in Wales steel-workers at Shotton came out, along with blast-furnacemen at Port Talbot and construction workers at Baglan Bay near Swansea; in the North-West representatives of 250,000 engineering workers voted for a one-day strike on Monday; in Liverpool 10,000 road haulage drivers including some from Heatons voted to strike; in Glasgow workers struck at the headquarters of Scottish television; aircraft workers at BAC Weybridge voted for a 24-hour stoppage; Somerset miners voted to come out; Aberdeen trawlermen joined fish porters already on strike; and so it went on. Most significant, perhaps, was the action of workers in Hull where 300 shop stewards from more than 20 unions voted to recommend immediate strike action through ant the city.
ACT IS REAL ISSUE With the release of the five, the strikes ended. The task now is to explain that their release was only a limited victory, and that what is at stake is not so much individual instances of the use of the Act, but the very existence of the Act as a whole. That is the only way to prepare an ongoing struggle which will not be diverted by the manoeuvrings of the ruling class. Martin Meteyard