Electricians´ success should give confidence that we can fight, and we can win

national | workers issues | feature Thursday July 16, 2009 12:27 by Joe Higgins MEP - Socialist Party info at joehiggins dot eu

Workers need fighting, democratic trade unions

TEEU Members on strike outside Guinness

Here Joe Higgins, the Socialist Party MEP for Dublin, talks about the recent electricians´ strike, the disgusting attacks on it by the bosses and media, and how we can all learn from the success of the electricians.

You would think from reading some newspaper articles and editorials that workers go on strike to deliberately wreak havoc on whichever sector they work in, or on society in general.

Take the 10,500 strong electricians strike last week. "Strike flies in the face of reason" pompously declared an editorial in a daily newspaper. An economic commentator went one better, calling the strike "insane and delusional". Former Minister of State and current Chief Executive of the Construction Industry Federation, Tom Parlon outshouted them all when he said that "we cannot let the lunatics be in charge."

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The reality is that workers generally undertake strike action as a last resort after giving it serious consideration. In such cases they can ill afford the sharp decrease in income which follows days or weeks on the picket line. They are also conscious of their fellow workers who may not be directly affected but stay out in sympathy.

While last week's electricians' strike naturally commanded the major headlines, there are other groups of workers who are desperately fighting employers who are taking advantage of the present economic crisis to cut wages and sharply deteriorate working conditions.

One such case is a group of 34 workers on strike at Marine Terminals ltd. They reacted to a situation where compulsory redundancies were being made with the company selecting those who were to go, while those allowed to stay on faced a wage cut.

The stark fact is that if workers don't stand up to employers implementing cuts in jobs and wages, there will be a generalised onslaught pushing down living standards.

The outcome of the electricians' strike offers a valuable lesson in that respect. If the electrical contractors agree to the Labour Court proposal of a 4.9% pay rise, the electricians will have won an important victory through their strike action.

Going into this dispute, the employers wanted to enforce a 10% pay cut on electricians and effectively dismantle the Registered Employment Agreement (REA). As a result of the action, the REA is still intact and a 4.9% pay rise appears to have been won.

The lesson is crystal clear for all to see - the "race to the bottom" can be halted by determined industrial action backed up by solidarity by fellow workers. Other groups of workers who face pay cuts or redundancies can follow the good example set by the electricians - reject the notion that workers should pay the price for this recession and take collective action to defeat attacks.

The bosses' representatives are now issuing spurious warnings about the threat to our economy if other workers follow the electricians' example. In fact, workers taking action to defend their pay and conditions is to the benefit of working people across the economy.

The electrical contractors engaged in a cut-throat exercise of undercutting each other and wanted their workers to pay the price. If the electricians had accepted the pay cut, the consequence would be less money spent in shops and on services, more people made unemployed and the vicious downward circle would continue.

Instead, by defending their rates of pay, electricians have struck a blow for the living standards of all working people across Ireland.

Another positive result of this strike is a rehabilitation of the notion of solidarity. This is a term which has been dragged through the mud recently, with the advocacy of so-called "social solidarity", which in reality means working people carrying the can for the economic crisis.

However, the electricians' dispute showed that the true sense of solidarity between working people is alive and well. A crucial reason for the electricians' success was the solidarity of other construction workers - where the majority respected the picket lines and refused to cross them, even when threatened with dismissal.

These workers understood that the basis of trade unionism is "an injury to one is an injury to all" and that if the electricians were defeated, they were next.

The agenda of the Fianna Fail/Green Party Government is to savage the wages and living standards of workers, both public and private, in response to an economic crisis for which they bear no responsibility. The success of the electricians' action lays down a firm marker against that strategy.

The solidarity that was so crucial to the success of the electricians can now be built on to defend all workers in construction who are particularly vulnerable at this time. Representative committees of workers which link up all the trades on major sites need to be put in place as there will be many more attacks on their jobs and wages.

For working people and the unemployed generally, the electricians' success should give confidence to resist the various pay cuts, redundancies and cutbacks that the employers and the government seek to impose and to demand an alternative strategy entirely.

Ray McLoughlin, member of the TEEU executive Committee (personal capacity) and leading member of the Socialist Party, speaks on the 10,000-strong electricians strike