wildcat strikes

The world economic crisis has hit the construction industry very hard. The Office of National Statistics Bulletin for the 2^nd quarter 2011 says that the total volume of new orders for building contracts is at their lowest level since 1980. Faced with this slow-down, one of the major UK Construction companies, Balfour Beatty Engineering, issued 90 day notices of termination to some 890 employees on the 14^th September. 7 other major electrical contractors also announced their intention to withdraw from the national industry agreement, proposing to split electricians from one grade – where they’re paid £16.25 per hour – into 3 grades ranging from £10.50 to £14 per hour. For those downgraded to £10.50 this will amount to a 35% pay cut. There was an immediate reaction from the workforce, with co-ordinated unofficial action taking place at several major construction sites across the UK.

The June strike movement by construction and maintenance workers on 30 energy industry construction sites across Britain, demanding the reinstatement of their 640 sacked comrades at Lindsey oil refinery, Lincolnshire, demonstrated the collective strength of workers' solidarity.

Now the G20 London Summit is over, what is the message that the rulers of the earth is they can deal with the economic catastrophe facing the capitalist system.The present crisis of overproduction, however, has its roots not, as the economic experts claim, in any kind of temporary ‘imbalance' in the world economy, but in the basic social relations of capitalism.

The killing of two soldiers and a policeman in Northern Ireland in early March was only news to the extent that the shootings were ‘successful'.

The lesson of the 1984 miners' strike for the working class today is that all unions, with their rule books, their bureaucracy, sectional and corporatist set ups, and relations with the Labour Party, are part of the state and work against the self-organisation and extension of struggles under the control of workers themselves.