March 15th will be important for stepping up industrial action. On February 1st workers from different jobs and industries came out on strike together. This time the number of different sectors taking action has increased.
Teachers at schools, sixth forms and colleges are already on strike, as are junior doctors.133,000 civil servants are due to strike, as are London Underground workers. Amazon workers will also be striking on the day.
However, union bureaucrats are continuing to sabotage struggle. Postal workers won’t be coming out on March 15th and neither will most rail workers. Neither will nurses and ambulance workers. The nurses’ union, the RCN , called off strikes as did UNISON representing various hospital workers.
The RCN called off strikes in Wales at the beginning of February over a ballot to accept a 6.5 pay deal, well below inflation, plus a lump sum while in England strikes were called off without even a pay offer. In Scotland a deal for a below inflation pay offer of 7.5% was agreed for 2022, with a 6.5% offer for the current year being pushed by the RCN leadership.
The Unison, GMB and Unite unions stopped strikes by ambulance workers on March 5th, and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy halted strikes of 64,000 physiotherapists and support workers.
This shows that what we in the ACG have been saying all along is proving to be true. Union bureaucrats are halting strikes whilst they negotiate below inflation deals. This has seriously affected strikes by health workers and transport workers and education workers in Scotland. The education workers union the NEU stopped strike action in Wales and called for acceptance of a below inflation 11.8% pay offer.
This shows that what we in the ACG have been saying all along is proving to be true. Union bureaucrats are halting strikes whilst they negotiate below inflation deals. Even more reason to develop organisation at a grassroots level, to create strike committees and establish joint liaisons between workers in different sectors in order to take control of the struggles.