Today, Monday 16th February, 170 workers on the M25 motorway are taking 24-hour strike action. Ben Gliniecki of Unite Community (personal capacity) discusses the latest strike by transport workers in Britain, and the way forward for workers who are being made to pay for the crisis of capitalism.
Today, Monday 16th February, 170 workers on the M25 motorway are taking 24-hour strike action. The workers, who are responsible for maintaining the motorway and keeping traffic moving, work long hours (sometimes more than 50 per week) outdoors in all weathers and among fast-moving traffic. They are also responsible for clearing the motorway after accidents and crashes which can be very distressing work. Despite these difficult working conditions, average pay is £25,000 and no pay increases have been given for the last four years despite rising living costs. Some of the workers are also subjected to harsh contracts of employment which, among other things, do not provide paid leave for the first three days of ill health.
Meanwhile, Connect Plus Services (CPS), the employer, has a 25-year contract to maintain the M25 and is currently making a £7 million surplus each year. CPS contracts out to three major firms, one of which is the notorious construction firm Balfour Beatty, infamous for being involved in the blacklisting of workers involved in trade unionism. Leo Quinn, the CEO of Balfour Beatty, a man who never risks his life or health to keep traffic moving on the M25, earns £800,000 per year with bonuses and a pension on top of that – 32 times what the workers are earning.
It is not surprising that, when Unite balloted its members, 97% voted in favour of strike action. The workers are demanding a £30,000 basic wage, sick pay from day one and recognition of Unite by the employer. The workers have resolved to go on strike for one day every week until their demands are met.
Such militancy in the face of poor treatment of workers by absurdly wealthy bosses is exactly what is needed among all sections of the working class. Since the slump of 2008-09, the rich have gotten richer while the rest of us have seen living and working conditions deteriorate. We are being made to pay for a crisis of the system that makes them money. If we want to maintain our standards of living we have to fight back against the bosses and their capitalist system.
24 hours of strike action each week is a good start; but for it to really hit CPS and Balfour Beatty, the strike needs to be for a longer continuous period of time, especially given the nature of the work done by these M25 workers. An indefinite strike by these workers would cause the motorway to grind to a halt entirely. This would prove a powerful point – that it is the workers who really keep society moving. Is Leo Quinn and his £800,000 pay packet going to come and grit the roads and repair the central reservation? I doubt it. It is the ordinary men and women who make up the 99% who carry out all the work in society – it is us who should get the benefits from that, not parasites like Leo Quinn.
But for 170 workers, a week-long or month-long strike seems like a daunting prospect – few workers can afford to lose that much pay unless they are guaranteed a victory. This is why Unite must link up with other transport unions such as the RMT, TSSA and others to build for co-ordinated strike action in the transport sector. A recent bus strike in London had a great mood of militancy about it from the drivers, but unfortunately the union leadership called off the next round of strike action as a “gesture of goodwill” towards the bosses, despite having won no concessions at all, in a move that was all too reminiscent of the behaviour of the union leaders during the Tube drivers’ strike last year.
Instead of half-hearted action from unions leaders followed by capitulation, transport unions need to link up and strike together to prove the power that the working class has in society: without trains, cars and buses running, industry and production would come to a standstill, hitting the bosses where it hurts – in their profits. We need a strategy to win – to fight all the way for the pay, working and living conditions that are rightfully ours – this is what will give us confidence to take longer and more effective strike action.
If our fight is to be successful, workers from all sectors, not just transport, will need to link up and strike together – a 24-hour general strike is the order of the day. Let’s see what David Cameron, Leo Quinn and all the other Tories and big business bosses have to say when millions of workers refuse to work until their living standards are guaranteed, their jobs are secure and the capitalists are made to pay for their own crisis.
In reality, the logic of capitalism dictates that the ruling class can’t behave in any other way than they are at the moment – the only thing the system allows them to do is exploit workers harder and harsher than their competitors. Ultimately then, it is the task of the working class to fight the capitalist system as a whole. We hold the revolutionary potential to fundamentally transform society and it is by our unity, collective action and class solidarity that we will be able to fight for and win a better, socialist world.
