crisis and class struggle in spain

Millie reflects on the crisis in Spain and the recent general strike

The recent boom in the Spanish economy was based on a real estate bubble and most new jobs were in construction and bars and restaurants.

When the crisis started, Spain had one of the biggest public deficits in Europe. The creditors started suggesting that Spain couldn’t pay their debts and was near to bankruptcy, and the credit rating was changed so the cost of the loans went up drastically. The government launched an austerity programme which involved cuts in services, the end of a recent 400 euro a month dole for people who didn’t have access to the contributions based system, and a pay cut for all public sector workers, whether temporary or permanent. So this was an assault on conditions for workers in the public sector.

waste disposal – towards zero waste by 2020

Dave Spencer writes on the failed Coventry incinerator project

A number of local Councils, including Coventry, have recently scrapped plans to build new giant £1 billion PFI waste incinerators.  These were being encouraged by the last New Labour government that believed in an “energy from waste” strategy – that is burn waste and turn the heat generated into energy for the National Grid. Obviously the prohibitive cost of PFI schemes has hit home with the local Councils.

To save money by scrapping these schemes is all very well but what is the alternative strategy for waste disposal?  The giant incinerator planned for Coventry, right in the city centre, a few hundred yards from my house, was due to take waste from leafy Warwickshire and snobby Solihull and from anywhere else that couldn’t be bothered to organise their own.  You can imagine the gleam in the eyes of the PFI private firms as more and more bin lorries came trundling down the M6 and the A45.  But Friends of the Earth backed by local residents’ groups campaigned against the plans and we won.  We are now left with the old incinerator about which our local councillor told us, “I’ve been assured by Council officers that the smoke coming out of the old incinerator chimney is cleaner than the air it’s going into.”  Ha, ha, ha.

fighting their attacks, defining our alternative

On 11^th September The Commune hosted a conference ‘From Meltdown to Upheaval’, discussing the effects of the crisis and the existing working-class response. The purpose of the day was not just to rhetorically condemn the cuts and celebrate resistance, but rather to help define our demands and means of organisation.

This website will feature reports based on the discussions at the day’s workshops, starting with the two below on ongoing struggles and community and voluntary organising.

a miserable case of british ‘justice’

Sarah Taylor reflects on the case of a French migrant worker in a battle with her employer and the courts

In late August I attended a court case of a female factory worker who was suing her employers for negligence. How I came to be there in the first place is not important, but what I observed and saw that day made me want to share the experience. I have attended a few court cases as an observer in the public gallery.

The case involved a French migrant worker who was suing her employers for negligence in a personal injury case.  She had been told to lift a container off a factory conveyor belt and in the process had badly injured her wrist. She testified that she was instructed to do so by an aggressive line manager whose bullying and aggressive behavior had made her working life miserable. After the injury had occurred she had decided to seek compensation since it had rendered her unable to work for some time.

where does resistance come from?

Sheila Cohen reviews Workplace Conflict: Mobilization and Solidarity in Argentina by Maurizio Atzeni (Palgrave Macmillan 2010).

This is a book which should be read by anyone interested in and committed to rank and file activism. There are two obstacles – the price, which as with so many “academic” texts is absurdly high [1] and the English, which can be hard to get your head around. This is no fault of the Italian author, but the publisher clearly has not forked out for the necessary editing – which, at £60 a throw, is a bit of a cheek.

The content and theoretical approach of Workplace Conflict make it more than rewarding, despite these obstacles. In fact it is something of a landmark in the analysis of working-class consciousness, carrying as it does theoretical and strategic perspectives which depart from the static and non-dialectical approaches found in more conventional analyses. This is a book which can suggest ways forward for the rank and file working-class movement.

big flame: doing things a different way

Big Flame was a revolutionary socialist feminist organisation active in Britain between 1970 and 1984. Sophie Walker and Joe Thorne examine the group’s legacy.

Why revisit the experience of Big Flame?

Earlier this year, we read Beyond the Fragments: a 1979 collection of essays by three women active in feminist and socialist groups in the 1970s. It is three decades since the authors argued for the left to reappraise how we organise in light of insights from the women’s movement. Whilst necessarily a product of their experiences in that particular historical moment, there is much in their critical consideration of political organisation which matters today.

‘not one train left the depot’

Ahead of Spain’s 29^th September general strike, Millie Wild spoke to a Madrid Metro worker about the recent movement against 5% pay cuts.

The Madrid metro went on strike this summer in defiance of the anti-strike laws of “minimum services”, up against a massive media hysteria campaign and a virulent legal attack by the employers. The wage cut is not only an austerity measure but an attempt to weaken the entire collective bargaining process. The Metro strike was important for the strike methods, the open strike assembly, the militancy of new workers, and the solidarity shown by others, so we interviewed one of the metro train drivers, from the union Solidaridad Obrera.

Background to the strike

In the spring the government, as part of the austerity plan, moved to cut public sector workers´ wages by an average of five per cent. We had previously signed a “convenio”, an agreement, which was for four years. These convenios have never been broken before. The metro workers were not originally part of this austerity measure but the right wing regional president of Madrid included the metro and other semi-public workers such as the water company in the pay cut.

The workforce consists of 7700 workers, drivers, maintenance workers and station staff, half of whom are young workers who started in the last few years.

The first asemblea general

We began with assemblies in the different sections and then moved to the general assembly. The general assembly of the strike works as follows: the decisions are taken on a basis of open voting by a show of hands. You do not have to be a member of a union to take part and vote in the assembly. Workers from other workplaces can attend and speak but not vote. The strike commitee is made up of two delegates from each union (ie. not decided by proportional number of affiliates.)

In the first general assembly there were about 5000 people. There were delegates in solidarity from the Madrid bus drivers. Some workers had brought their partners and kids. We had to take away all the chairs as there was no room. The heat was unbearable, people were standing in the corridors. The proposal was made to have a one day strike with minimum services, (ie. fifty per cent of trains would run) and then if the regional parliament approved the plan to reduce wages then there would be two day strikes without minimum services. (tr. minimum services are an obligatory level of services which are imposed on strikers in certain important services and which mean that strikes don´t ´cause too much disruption´.) The assembly voted 100% in favour of the all-out strike (with two abstensions!) There had not been a 24 hour strike without minimum services in the metro since 1987.

On 28th June, the first day of the strike, with servicios minimos, the regional parliament approved the wage cut and so the next day the workers moved to an all out strike.

All out strike

People started picketing from 3am. Not one single train left the depot, the strike was a 100% success. Thousands of pamphlets were distributed at stations asking for solidarity with the strike. At one picket line, there were 15 bus company workers on the picket line in solidarity, and forty squatters from Madrid´s social centres movement. The strikers were amazed at this level of support from outside the Metro, and the mass pickets had a really big impact on morale.

The company opened disciplinary proceedings against one thousand two hundred workers for not carrying out the servicios minimos. The company then said that they were going to open the line from the airport to the centre of Madrid. A massive contingent of police went to the start of the line. The company pressured drivers on temporary contracts, telling them their contracts would not be renewed unless they drove these trains. The TV were announcing live on the news that the line was going to open. The strikers reinforced the picket lines and convinced the drivers not to open the line and not one driver took out a single train.

Second day of the all out strike

Again the strike was very successful but the media were attacking the strikers with all guns blazing, strikers were on the defensive, there was a mass denunciation of the strike. At the general assembly, two of the unions in the strike committee didn´t want to continue the strike. In the end the strike continued for the next two days but with servicios minimos.

Negotiations

At this point the company contacted the strike committee and said they wanted to start negotiations, but their condition for negotiations was for the strike action to stop forthwith. Four out of the five unions in the strike committee were in favour of calling off strike action. Solidaridad Obrera wasn´t, they said they wouldn´t change their position unless the general assembly asked them directly. And in the assembly they said that they weren´t in favour of calling off the strike. However in the assembly there wasn´t a general will to continue with the strike owing to the attacks by the media and a general fatigue, and the assembly voted to stop the strike and open negotiations.

The company were intransigent that there could be no agreement without a pay cut. Four of the five unions agreed to this. At this point Solidaridad Obrera said that they were not prepared to accept the agreement, and so two proposals were put to the general assembly.

Seventy per cent of the assembly accepted the proposal but a large minority of thirty per cent voted against it. Many people who voted to accept it said that they did so out of fear and weren´t happy about the settlement. The mainstream unions said that the 1200 disciplinary proceedings would not come to anything, it was just to placate public opinion, but if the strike action continued, well, they couldn´t guarantee anything. They then turned around and signed an agreement which, for the first time, accepted that the disciplinary proceedings could go ahead after the strike finished!

Attacks by the regional government and Metro management

In August the regional government started legal proceedings against all five unions, and the members of the strike committee personally, claiming compensation of six and a half million Euro for damages. Metro management is also continuing with the disciplinary proceedings against drivers.

The unions have opened counter-proceedings, and an agreement has been made to call an emergency general assembly the moment any worker is sanctioned in these disciplinary proceedings.

The real importance of this strike has been how it was carried out. The participation of young workers, with no experience of strike action, was excellent. This strike has broken out in the context of an austerity campaign in which the government wants to impoverish the working class in order to pay back the debts they have taken on from the banks. To do this they want to attack the whole collective bargaining process. These types of disciplinary actions are not usually followed through after the strike has finished, normally they are shelved. This and the claim for damages against the union shows that the workers are now being attacked for the stand they have taken and we need a strong and united campaign of action to defend them.

fire brigade: will london burn?

The inside story of what is really happening in the London Fire Brigade, as told to The Commune.

16^th September 2010 and the London left descend on the London Fire Brigade Headquarters to join the mass lobby of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) monthly meeting called by Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and Unison LFEPA Branch.

the FBU are perceived as militant, but we need to break down the division between 'frontline' and 'support' staff

The headlines of the ’left’ press only tell part of the story: ‘FBU up the ante in contract dispute’ (Morning Star 17^th September), ‘London Firefighters ready to strike against dismissal threat’ (Newsline 18^th September), ‘Brutal bosses? Time to fight back!’ (The Socialist 23^rd-29^th September) and ‘The ballot is on to save fire jobs’ (Socialist Worker 25^th September).

issue 18 of the commune

The October issue of The Commune is now available. Click the image below to see PDF or use the list of individual articles as they are posted online.

Contact us at uncaptiveminds@gmail.com if you would like to buy a printed copy (£1 + 50p postage) or set up a subscription. (£12 a year UK/£16 EU/£20 international.

News

lib dems to slash council services – David Huckerby reports on Sheffield council, which has announced 8,000 lay-offs

french workers fight for their future – A Rebetiko article on the 3-million strong days of action against a two-year rise in the pension age

progress for UCL cleaners – Greg Brown reports on a partial victory for the Living Wage campaign

‘not one train left the depot’ – Millie Wild speaks to a worker involved in the Madrid Metro strike

ed miliband is no ed militant – David Broder is unimpressed with the left’s reactions to the Labour leadership contest

deadlock in venezuela vote – Claudio Testa explains the weaknesses and remaining power base of the Chávez government

Workplace and local reports

fire brigade: will london burn? – job losses set to hit fire cover, ‘frontline’ staff and support workers alike in London Fire Brigade

cuts to hit hard in peckham – Sharon Borthwick reports on the impact of the crisis in Peckham and the changing social composition of the area

on the picket line at sandwell waste depot – report from a recent strike action by refuse workers near Birmingham

Theory

reports from september 11th conference ‘from meltdown to upheaval’:

– working group on organising ongoing struggles

– working group on community and voluntary organising

– working group on ‘is the university a factory?’ – by Sebastian Wright

are the cuts necessary, and does it matter? – Oisín Mac Giollamóir responds to a debate on whether UK capitalism ‘needs’ to make the cuts

unison stirred by government cuts onslaught – Matt Mansfield reports on an anti-cuts conference in Glasgow staged by Unison

where does resistance come from? – Sheila Cohen reviews Workplace Conflict: Mobilization and Solidarity in Argentina by Maurizio Atzeni

big flame: doing things a different way – Sophie Walker and Joe Thorne revisit the experience of 1970s revolutionary socialist feminist group Big Flame

Our network and events

the commune: a view from the periphery – a letter from Martin Bashforth, from York, on the potential and role of The Commune

political platform of our network

the commune around britain

women at the cutting edge…

Lib Dems to slash council services

Barry Biddulph reports on Sheffield council’s planned cuts

Even before Clegg and Cameron give the detail of their savage cuts in their ironically named ‘spending review’, the Lib Dems’ favourite council Sheffield has put itself in the vanguard of austerity by announcing its intention to unilaterally terminate the contracts of over 8,000 council workers.

The gloves are well and truly off. Up to 40% of the council budget will be slashed in the next three years. Spending is to be reduced by £219 million, 15% going in the first year, starting in April. Front line services will disappear or diminish drastically.

the wire faces inwards: ‘the security is to keep us in!’

Sharon Borthwick reviews Rivethead, a ‘book of tales from the assembly line’

Revealing a talent for writing poetry at school does not relieve Ben Hamper of his birthright.  Duplicating his father and his father’s father he awaits, ‘to be pronounced fit for active drudgery’ by the medics. It wasn’t the plan. As a child at factory open days, he bore witness to his father’s crappy lot at the General Motors plant in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. But failed stints at other ventures led him through GM’s grounds, past the barbed wire. Later a fellow “prisoner” becomes absorbed by the fact that the wire faces inwards, ‘the security is to keep us in!’

Other means to incarceration are the good wages, ‘that pay stub was like a pair of concrete loafers.’ Not that the security lasts, the men are regularly laid off due to economic downturns, though Jimmy Carter tops up their dole packets to the extent they can make light and even party right in the face of unemployment. Not so in the Reagan years, of course. Back at the plant amidst the noise,’very close to intolerable’ and the heat,’one complete bastard’, the men are ground down by still more humiliations. ‘Quality’ becomes the company’s new byword and a man donning a cat costume becomes quality’s personification.

the ‘social wage’ and the hackney nurseries campaign

Camille Barbagallo and Nic Beuret look at the role of public services and how the cuts axe is falling

Childcare services in the UK are under attack. Childcare services across the country are being defunded, abolished and downgraded. In this article we start with the specific cuts in Hackney to nursery places and analyse these cuts in the context of the gendered nature of the ConDem’s austerity budget. We explore both what enables these cuts to happen now and what their effects will be and conclude with some reflections on possible paths of resistance within the current crisis of care.

Let’s be honest – the public services that are being cut include things that we need, but we hate how they are given to us: like unemployment benefits. They also involve jobs that we rely on but resent having to do. But what is also true is that they are part of a ‘social wage’ fought for and won by pervious generations.

london forum on big flame

This August The Commune in London has staged a series of meetings on communist organisation, and we have already looked at the examples of Kamunist Kranti in India and 1960s-70s Italian group Potere Operaio.

The final meeting in the series is on Big Flame, a  British libertarian Marxist group in the 1970s. The discussion will be led off by a worker active in Merseyside car factories at that time. All welcome – the meeting is from 7pm on Monday 30th August at the Lucas Arms, Grays Inn Road, near King’s Cross (note change from original venue).

is unison ready to fight the cuts?

A UNISON branch official looks at the attacks on the left within the union at a time when public sector workers face major cuts

This summer Dave Prentis won his bid to become General Secretary of UNISON for the third time with 67.2% of the vote (based on a very poor 14% turn out). As a speaker at conference Dave Prentis often talks left.

However, despite his fine words, he has been at the helm during a period when the left have suffered serious attacks from the leadership. Several very well known and respected left wingers in UNISON have faced harassment and even expulsion on trumped up and unfounded charges. Some of these instances are well known amongst the wider labour movement.