Solidarity is dead

Solidarity is dead:

by Samuel Mack-Poole

It will not have missed anyone’s attention that the recent strike amongst workers from Transport for London brought the economy in the capital to a crashing halt last week. I, for one, was extremely pleased at the result, as the true value and muscularity of a workforce is demonstrated by a strike. A lot of people, usually readers of The Sun newspaper, are against strike action, and they would challenge me as to why I fully support the strike.

So, let me elaborate.

Have you ever worked with someone whom was very good at their job? I’m sure we all have. However, when that person is absent from their work, be it through sickness or holiday, you notice their absence tremendously; it’s almost like there’s a human shaped hole in the workplace. I always feel that if someone is an efficient colleague, it’s when they’re not in that you realise their true worth. This self-same logic applies with regard to the strike dispute.

When the tube doesn’t run, there is chaos on the streets of London.  People find it impossible, or nearly impossible, to get to work on time – or at all. Therefore, it should be recognised that the true value of the workers for Transport for London far exceeds the remuneration they acquire. They are worth billions to the economy, so you would think that as they perform such a vital role, they would be valued by society. Sadly, the very opposite is true.

When Transport for London workers go on strike, we invariably see that their pay is compared to teachers, nurses, and policemen/women.  This, in itself, is startlingly odd. Right-wing commentators, and their slavish drones, suddenly maintain that they now care about the pay of the public services. However, when teachers went on strike last year, I saw the self-same people bemoaning the teachers’ holidays, rather than supporting their pay demands. It really is hypocrisy of the highest order from the right-wing gutter press.

Nevertheless, what I have addressed is merely an argument of envy and distraction. I mention envy because many on the right like to throw that argument about in debates, but it is the right which envies legitimate workers’ rights more than the left envies the corrupt bankers’ bonuses. Also, I mention distraction due to the fact that pay is not the root cause of the strike, but the unfair working conditions which the management of Transport for London is trying to foist upon its workers. Yet, instead of this argument prevailing, all we see is the right-wing media dominating the agenda with their faulty reporting of the truth.

The consequences of this for society are dire. Solidarity is now dead. We have the now late Margaret Thatcher to thank for this, since she destroyed the printers’ unions in the 1980s. It was a momentous blow from which the British left never recovered, and it’s not likely that in 2015 that with such a well-oiled propaganda machine that a truly left-wing Labour party will be able to be elected.

The average man (or woman) on the street no longer empathises with his brothers or sisters as he (or she) has been totally indoctrinated by neo-conservative ideals which has led to individualistic thinking to become paramount. It really is a tragedy, as no man is an island, after all.

To return to an earlier idea, I believe the culture of right-wing envy is imbued in negative individualism. Let me elaborate: any public sector which has above average pay or working conditions is treated  with a haughty, supercilious eye by those in the private sector. The right-wing individual is immured in a sense of toxic befuddlement – it is not due to the fact that teachers have long holidays that he (or she) is time poor. In the same way, it is not due to the fact that Transport for London workers are paid well that that he (or she) is remunerated poorly. Instead of being mean-spirited, perhaps workers in the private sector should celebrate workers’ rights (as few and as far between as they are) and campaign for their own, too.

The rationale should not be My pay and working conditions are extremely poor, so your working conditions and pay should be, too. We should not attack each other, as this is exactly what the fat cats in big business desire. A divided working class and middle class, and a divided private and public sector,  is exactly what the richest 1% of society wants. There’s a reason that many socialists have a fist as their banner, and that’s due to the fact that a united work force is undefeatable. Nevertheless, if one finger is removed from that fist then it immediately loses its vitality and very quickly diminishes into a lethargic nothingness.

The tragedy is that fewer and fewer people think along these lines. The average individual is no longer able to see further than their naval, and despite the fact that wages have fallen in real terms over the last five years,  they cannot awake from their slumber. Yet, to carry this somnolent metaphor on, they represent the sleeping giant in this country.

Let’s just take one example, that of shop workers in the retail sector. It is not exactly a secret that workers in that industry suffer the poorest levels of pay and conditions in the country. It is no coincidence that they are the least unionised workforce in the country. Nonetheless, I would argue, quite passionately, that they perform a crucial function within society. Without your Sainsbury’s worker, you wouldn’t have milk in your fridge or toilet paper in your bathroom.  Thus, if the retail workforce unionised itself and went on strike, we would soon see their wages rise and conditions improve.

We would also see how important their work truly is.

To conclude, I would recommend anyone to support a strike. Although I dislike binary logic, if you don’t support a strike, you are implicitly supporting a system which does not give a damn about you, which seeks to exploit you, and then wishes to get rid of you as soon as you are no longer useful. A good colleague of mine once said to me, “You may be in love with the institution, but the institution will never be in love with you.”

Let those salient words resonate within your psyche.