Strikes Are The Best Direct Action

Strikes by workers, in the days before I was born, would always have gone by the mantra: “An injury to one, is an injury to all” That meant if any group of workers balloted for industrial action, no one passed the picket line in solidarity with their fellow workers and no one wanted to be a ‘scab’ passing the picket.

No cleaners, receptionists, security, no other workers would pass the picket. But since the 1980s, when Charles Haughey waved boardroom and directors salaries at the trade union leaders, culminating in a sellout support for the 1990 Industrial Relations Act and the whole “Social Partnership” framework were wages barely went up while the union bureaucracy was sitting down with IBEC (the employer’s body) and government.

Union density has reduced, due to understable cynicism. But in isolated periods of time workers have broken through the pessimism of trade union leaders. 

Why are strikes the ultimate direct action? They turn off the tap of profit for the bosses and the government. Whether your fighting low wages or against genocide in Gaza, shutting the system down gets the attention of the powers that be.

How do we as card carrying members push the unions Irish Congress of Trade Unions into breaking the 1990 Industrial Relations Act? Fast forward to the Right2Water anti-water charges movement. Fine Gael and Labour wanted to impose draconian water charges up to €500+ and privatisation of Irish Water. (Uisce Eireann)

Unite the Union, Mandate and and the Communications Workers Union supported the Right2Water protests. Workers advanced the first battle = non-payment of bills. Tens of thousands of workers were willing to break the law but the union leaders were squeamish about calling for boycott.

The working class estates organised against the implementation of water meters. Workers and their families and friends to stop the meter companies (owned by Denis O’Brien) gaining access to working class communities to stop van loads Garda from baton charging workers back into their homes. They organised street meetings and community hall meetings.

This mass movement made the government stop in its tracks. Imagine there had been strikes by key workers, like the water workers, coordinated with the mass protests on the streets? The government would have crumbled in half the time.

Could the 1990 Industrial Relations Act be defeated by anger over 16,353 housing waiting list and/or the attempt by Michael Martin/Simon Harris and the Michael Lowry group to get rid of the TripleLock on neutrality and have our children and grandchildren sent to Ukraine and other regional wars?

The short answer is yes! The water charges shows that tens of thousands can break the law and the state did nothing in response. They couldn’t. If we combined that defiance with the strike weapon no government could stand against us.

Workers in Italy shut the country down in protest against genocide in Palestine. French workers recently did the same against austerity.

Strikes give workers a taste of our power. That opens up a path to a new society. To put the working class in the driving seat - it has to come from mass direct strikes and protests. 

We in the Red Network understand the path to worker militancy is a tough one, but we will keep screaming about the need for deep, organised work engaging in working class communities and in the workplaces, fighting for bottom up trade unions and like minded people to support our hard work.

To get to were we want to be and getting the whole cake instead of tiny little crumbs - requires a lot of hard debates to get to a planned socialist economy driven by the working class. No short cuts allowed!