THE Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said yesterday that the government should ban strikes by workers in essential services, adding that this was just one of a number of ‘high stakes options’ open to government.
Among the other options was a tightening of the industrial relations laws, under which, even today, it is virtually impossible to have a legal strike.
A further option was compulsory arbitration, which would amount to a ban on the right to strike.
Recognising the power of the trade unions, Mike Emmott, the CIPD’s employee relations adviser, however advised caution: ‘Both sides have heavy duty weapons available to them but neither has much to gain from deploying them. Unions, government, frontline workers and public alike have far more to gain from a strategy focused on building trust and avoiding conflict.’
The ‘high stakes’ of the options emerge, when consideration is given to a situation where the government throws down the gauntlet and is defeated by an illegal strike action, and falls, immeasurably strengthening the working class, and its determination to take the power and put an end to capitalism.
This is why even the CIPD considers, even now, that both sides have far more to gain by ‘building trust and avoiding conflict’.
A TUC spokesman said yesterday: ‘The government would do better to invest in jobs and growth than pay attention to the CIPD’s unworkable proposals on industrial action law.’
Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary added: ‘It beggars belief that these fat cat directors, who presided over a decade of boardroom excess and greed, have the barefaced cheek to attack the rights of people who actually work for a living.’
Dave Prentis, Unison’s general secretary, said: ‘The government, meanwhile, would be wise to concentrate on economic recovery rather than picking a fight with the unions.’
Despite some colourful language the union leaders basically plead with the Tories not to do it.
However, the Tories have to do it since British capitalism can only survive the capitalist crisis with a cheap labour slave wage economy, with no Welfare State. Bosses like BA’s Walsh are now fighting struggles through to a finish, while trade union leaders plead for peace!
The left wing of the trade union bureaucracy, led by the RMT, is being pushed forward by the anger of the working class, and does want to go from words to deeds.
At the TUC conference, the RMT is moving a resolution calling for generalised strike actions to be coordinated between the unions, alongside mass community actions, in a movement inspired by the Poll Tax movement of the late 1980’s.
They do not call for a general strike or for the trade unions to take any illegal action to bring down the coalition. They hope that the scope of the mass movement will be enough to make the coalition change its mind.
They are in fact already pulling their punches. The anti-Poll Tax movement got rid of Thatcher but did not get rid of the Tories, because there was no need to, since the Poll Tax was not vital for the future of British capitalism.
Destroying the Welfare State is a vital strategic need for the future of British capitalism.
Defending the Welfare State requires the working class to take the power and bring in a workers government.
This means the trade unions calling a general strike and organising the communities through establishing Councils of Action to support a general strike with a revolution to overthrow the coalition.
To maintain the Welfare State the working class must take the power, unlike the Poll Tax struggle.
The issues are great, the stakes are high. This is why there is no way to resolve the crisis in favour of the working class without a socialist revolution.
