Class struggle roundup - 8 January 2023
Nurses and anti-strike laws in the North, nurses consider strike action in the Republic, and more.
Northern Ireland
Following strikes by thousands of nurses in Northern Ireland, the Royal College of Nursing responded to news that the British government may bring forward legislation curtailing the right to industrial action in certain sectors.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said the proposed anti-strike law“is a symbol of is that the government are losing the argument,” he told BBC Breakfast.
“They’ve lost the argument on austerity and pay and the state of our national public services.
“And instead, they want to close that argument down by closing down the unions and stopping us from campaigning against poverty.”
Mr Lynch said the Bill, which will be introduced in Parliament in the coming weeks, amounts to a threat to sack union members if they refuse to go to work.” (via Morningstar)
Éire
Irish Nurses and Midwives consider industrial action. According to a statement to members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), the “Executive Council have sanctioned the beginning of consultation with you and your colleagues on a campaign of industrial action in pursuance of safe staffing levels that are underpinned with legislation and clinical facilitation in all hospitals to ensure a safe skills mix.” The EC lays the blame at the feet of HSE management and the FF/FG/G government for poor planning and an inadequate response to a predicted crisis in emergency departments.
The Irish Medical Organisation, whose members include consultants who may be asked to work weekends to assist during the trolley crisis, tweeted that the crisis “was entirely predictable and caused by over a decade of insufficient investment in capacity & stafffing to meet the needs of our population.”
Nurses will consider strike action if overcrowding 'crisis' does not improve, via breakingnews.ie.
INMO to consult with members on industrial action, via The Journal.
Ambulance service workers to be issued strike ballots. Paramedics in the National Ambulance Service affiliated with SIPTU are to be issued ballots including potential industrial action due to chronic under-staffing and pressures put on workers during the winter months, The Journal reports. Workers should begin receiving ballots early this coming week. SIPTU states under-funding as the primary issue, claiming the service needs “at least an extra 2000 staff along with 120 new ambulances to provide the level of service that is now needed,” and the NAS is “at breaking point.”
Tech jobs at risk in Ireland and around the world. A number of tech companies announced major layoffs in 2022, a trend which is forecast to continue in 2023. This may affect thousands of workers in Ireland. According to The Irish Examiner, executives that misjudged their company’s growth potential may try to secure profits for shareholders by attacking workers at companies such as Stripe, Meta, Twitter, Intel, Salesforce, Intercom, and Amazon. Tech workers are largely unorganised, however, there have been efforts to form white collar unions at companies like Google with the Alphabet Workers Union forming over the past couple of years with minimal impact.
Bacik on Starmer’s edict on MPs attending picket lines. Irish Labour leader Ivana Bacik criticized British Labour leader Keir Starmer over his decision to ban members of parliament from attending union picket lines. It’s a pretty nothing story since Irish Labour — despite Bacik’s claims that she belongs to a “Connelly-ite republican party,” which is only true in a technical sense — has betrayed the working class, instead opting for a professionalized, de-fanged trade union movement, austerity, coalitions with the right, and expelling more progressive members. That Labour politicians have to discuss whether or not their elected representatives should stand with workers on picket lines shows how bad they’ve become as parties on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Working from Home legislation delays. Workers may see delays in work from home and other flexible arrangement rights based on proposed legislation, according to the Irish Independent. Previous legislation was derided by workers and trade unionists for being a way to reject a worker’s request to work from home. The new legislation is supposed to be better but, you know, I guess we’ll see.
Other links
In “Working Class Militancy in Kerry, 1921-1923” on Rebel News, the publication of the Socialist Workers Network, Kieran McNulty writes that:
Most academic historians have chosen to concentrate almost exclusively on the military struggle and the political machinations of the nationalist leadership during the Civil War, ignoring the struggles of organised labour. Indeed, labour historian Emmet O’Conner has argued that ‘public history … remains inordinately engrossed with nationalism’. Kieran McNulty aims to address this omission, analysing the labour movement in Kerry during the years 1921-23.
The struggle against capitalism is a political struggle, writes Joe MacNulty in Socialist Voice (CPI):
“Under capitalism, the only way of ensuring that Irish workers can protect and indeed improve their living standards is through pay increases. The only way to ensure pay increases is by utilising their collective industrial muscle through the trade union movement.
“Many Irish workers do not see the relevance of trade unions in today’s economy. Many have succumbed to a sense of fatalism, believing they are lucky to have a job and that they have no choice but to accept what the bosses offer. Others have bought in to the spin that we are all one big team, united in a common endeavour.
“Capitalists, despite the propaganda spewing from their influencers in the media, do not employ people out of a sense of philanthropy: they employ workers merely in order to enrich themselves by appropriating the surplus value produced by workers. The recent job losses in the tech sector show that no worker, no matter how hard they work, is guaranteed a job under capitalism. The only way to resist job losses is through trade union organisation
…
“Because of the weakness of the political left, there is a danger that some may slip into syndicalism and see trade union action as the vehicle for overthrowing capitalism and building socialism. Trade union struggles can lead to improvements in pay and conditions; they also expose the nature of capitalism and the capitalist state to those involved. However, the struggle against capitalism is a political struggle, and as Marxist-Leninists our task is to campaign for class politics within the trade union movement, and within all organisations of the people that come into conflict with capitalism.”
Are unions ready to take a chance?, via Socialist Voice (CPI).
Twenty-six workplace deaths in 2022, down from 38 in 2021, via The Irish Examiner.
First workplace farm fatality of 2023, via RTE News.
IWU affiliated workers in ESB lose on all test cases over withheld pay with WRC, via RTE News.
International
Collection of industrial and labour photobooks via Financial Times.
Amazon workers at UK warehouse to strike on Jan. 25 - via Reuters.
“British workers belonging to the GMB trade union at an Amazon warehouse in central England are set to walk out on Jan. 25 over a pay row, the union said on Wednesday, warning that further dates will be laid out ‘in the coming weeks.’"
Sunderland bus drivers win 11 percent pay rise, via ITV.
UK bosses earn average yearly wage in few days of the new year, via RTE News.
Global Class Struggle, via WSWS.
Thank you for the most recent news and updates.