Workers and youth hold mass protest against racist EDL

Thousands of trade unionists, young workers and students, and anti-racist activists protesters gathered in Whitechapel, East London yesterday to protest against a threatened rally by the far-right English Defence League.

Racists were firmly driven out of this borough in 1993 thanks again to united action, but with poverty and unemployment on the rise, and the Tories whipping up fear and hatred against young people as a cover for their cuts and socially destructive agenda, the EDL felt bold enough to return.

However the protest organised in defence of the community, and in particular the action of the RMT union, have shown that these attempts are hitting the brick wall of working class organisation.

The Guardian reports on the action taken by the RMT, who made clear that they were not going to compromise safety by transporting the EDL on tubes to Liverpool Street as they originally planned. The Guardian also reports today that "staff at King's Cross station closed the entrance to the tube, preventing the majority of the EDL supporters gathered outside from travelling to the demonstration around Aldgate East tube for around half an hour".

The article also quotes Claire Laker-Mansfied, 22, of the campaign group Youth Fight For Jobs, said: "We should have the right to defend our community against racist thugs and their racist lies about jobs and housing."

Bristol Socialist Party is clear that only united mass action - linking up trade unionists, the unemployed, community groups and students - can defeat both the the far-right such as the EDL and BNP, and the equally sociopathic ConDem government.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/03/english-defence-league-london-demonstration

1911: Strike For Liberty

100 years since the 1911 railway strike

By Alex Gordon, RMT. Reprinted with author's permission from RMT News August 2011

August this year sees the centenary of Britain’s first national railway strike.  August 1911 was a turning point in trade union organisation, which created the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR), Britain’s first industrial union in February 1913 and hastened the Labour Movement's awakening everywhere. 

The causes of the 1911 strike are familiar today.  Wage levels fell 10 per cent between 1900-1910, while prices rose and bosses used anti-union laws to stop workers taking strike action. 

The August 1911 rail strike was one element in a huge upsurge of worker militancy between 1910-14 known as ‘The Great Unrest’.  Overall union membership doubled to 4.1 million.  Numbers of strike days rocketed from 2 million in 1907, 10 million in 1911 and 41 million by 1912.  The ‘Triple Alliance’ of miners, dockers and railworkers forged through industrial solidarity in 1913 became for a while the most powerful organisation ever created by British workers to fight for their interests. 

The frustration and anger of railway workers built up from 1907 when the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants’ (ASRS) ‘All Grades Movement’ to cut working hours, raise wages and secure union recognition was diverted into a ‘Conciliation Scheme’ that left pay and conditions unchanged. 

Tom Lowth, of the General Railway Workers’ Union (GRWU) said: “It does not look to me like a very satisfactory settlement” and he was right.  By August 1910 Lord Claud Hamilton, Chairman of the Railway Companies Association boasted: “The union of course is not recognised in any way.  Not a loophole as far as I can see has been left open for them.” 

The following month in September 1910 a full-scale, workers’ revolt broke out led by the South Wales Miners’ Federation against the Cambrian Coal Combine. 

On 9 January, 1911 Liverpool ship-repairers struck for better pay and the National Sailors’ and Firemens’ Union held mass meetings in London, Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton, Hull, Glasgow, Grimsby, Dublin and Manchester under the slogan “War Is Now Declared: Seamen Strike Hard and Strike For Liberty on 14 June 1911”. 

A 72-day national seamen’s strike began in Southampton on 9 June 1911 and spread like wildfire around British ports.  In Liverpool, Tom Mann the charismatic leader of the National Transport Workers’ Federation (NTWF) was invited to chair the strike committee.  Mann arrived at Liverpool docks on 14 June 1911, while the government sent 3,000 troops to occupy the city and anchored a Royal Navy gunboat in the Mersey. 

The ASRS leadership tried to negotiate a return to work by rail workers.  However, the rail companies were intransigent against demands for a 2-shillings per week wage increase and a reduction from 60 to 54 hours per week.  Unofficial railway strikes continued to spread from Hull, Bristol, Swansea and Manchester through June and July. 

On “Bloody Sunday” 13 August 1911 a mass strike meeting at St George’s Plateau outside Liverpool’s Lime Street station was attacked by police from Birmingham.  The Liverpool strike committee declared a general strike from midnight 14 August. 

Tom Mann announced: “A strike of all transport men of all classes; of railway workers, passenger as well as goods men, drivers, stokers.  It will mean all connected with the ferry boats, tug boats, river tender men, Dock Board men, Overhead and underground railways, flatmen, bargemen, dockers, coal heavers, crane men, elevator men, warehouse workers, carters, and in fact every conceivable section and branch of the great transport industry in Liverpool will down tools until this business is settled.” The strike initiated by seamen drew in 66,000 transport workers of all sectors who brought the Port of Liverpool to a standstill. 

The following day 15 August a joint meeting of the Executive Committees of four rail unions (ASRS, GRWU, UPSS and ASLEF) made a joint call for a national rail strike unless the railway companies agreed to immediate negotiations. 

The government offered rail bosses “every available soldier in the country” and on 17 August unions declared a national rail strike in the famous ‘liberty telegram’, which proclaimed: “Your liberty is at stake.  All railwaymen must strike at once.  The loyalty of each means liberty for all.” 

(1911 railway strike - the first in British history - commemorative medal)

Around 200,000 rail workers took strike action.  Organised attacks on parts of the rail system included 1,000 workers besieging a working signal box at Portishead, Bristol.  Tracks were ripped up and telegraph systems damaged.  In Derby troops ordered to defend the railway station fixed bayonets and charged unarmed rail workers leading to pitched battles.  In Long Eaton strikers impounded trains and it took 100 troops to release them.  Chesterfield station burnt to the ground. 

(Leicester Junction - the rail strike was strongest on the Central Railway)

The most violent scenes took place in Llanelli, South Wales.  Strikers blocked the South Wales mainline stopping the Irish Mail.  Magistrates read the Riot Act as strikers and their supporters sang “Sospan Fach” ("Little Saucepan") the song of Llanelli Rugby Club.  Troops then opened fire on the crowd killing two workers who supported the striking railwaymen. 

On 18 August the government offered a Royal Commission to discuss industrial relations and union leaders immediately called the strike off, although it took days for workers to return to work in Manchester, Newcastle and other centres. 

The Royal Commission reported in November and failed to meet any of the strikers’ demands.  However, the significance of the strike lay in its demonstration of the industrial power of transport workers acting together across shipping, docks, railways and road transport sectors.  The events of 1911 also demonstrated the willingness of railway workers of all grades to act together in solidarity to achieve their aims and undermined the grip of craft sectarianism, which the railway companies relied on to divide and rule their workforce. 

Most importantly the 1911 strike pushed leaders of three railway unions (the ASRS, GRWU and UPSS) to put aside their differences and to have the courage to start merger talks, which led in just over 12 months to the National Union of Railwaymen, one of the largest and most important trade unions in 20th century British labour history. 

Alex Gordon,

President RMT

11 July 2011

Further reading:

‘Pulling Together: A Popular History of RMT’ (available free to RMT members from b.denny@rmt.org.uk );

Philip Bagwell, ‘The Railwaymen: The History of the National Union of Railwaymen’ (London: Allen & Unwin, 1963);

Bob Holton, ‘British Syndicalism 1900-1914: Myths and Realities’ (London: Pluto Press, 1976)

NSSN anti-cuts debate: Alex Gordon, Bristol RMT

National Shop Stewards Network conference - 22nd January 2011

A very succesful meeting between representatives of the Socialist Party and Bob Crow and Alex Gordon of the RMT took place on Wednesday of last week in preparation for the National Shop Stewards Network conference on Saturday 22nd January 2011. A statement was agreed which is below. Please circulate as widely as possible. The conference itself is being held between 12noon and 4pm at South Camden Community School (by Euston Station), Charrington Street, London, NW1 1RG - all anti-cuts campaigns, TU branches, trade councils and workplace and community organisations are welcome to send delegates.

Statement on meeting between Bob Crow (RMT general secretary), Alex Gordon (RMT president), Bill Mullins (Socialist Party and co-organiser of the NSSN) and Linda Taaffe (Socialist Party and secretary of the NSSN) 

A successful meeting was held which illuminated our agreement on a number of issues, including the vital importance of striving to convince the whole trade union movement to mobilise in a broad, united campaign against austerity cuts around the slogan of ‘No to all cuts in jobs and services’.  Bob Crow and Alex Gordon agree with the proposal of the NSSN steering committee of 4 December 2010 to launch an anti-cuts campaign around that slogan.  We also agree with the recent proposal made by Matt Wrack (FBU, General Secretary) that fighting trade unions can and should take a leading role in this debate by initiating a broad based anti-cuts conference and inviting the various campaigns and organisations to participate in building a genuine and democratic campaign which could establish itself as an important focus of leadership in the coming period. 

A number of misunderstandings were clarified. Linda Taaffe and Bill Mullins explained that the steering committee was not proposing to change the constitution of the NSSN in any way, but was only arguing for an additional campaigning anti-cuts committee to be founded in order that the NSSN can play a full part alongside community organisations and political parties in building a united movement against austerity cuts.  They also explained that the steering committee was not proposing that the NSSN, nor the anti-cuts campaign (were it to be set up by the conference on 22^nd January), would stand candidates in elections.

The meeting agreed to urge all opponents of the cuts to attend the anti-cuts conference on 22^nd January in order to take part in the discussion on what the NSSN steering committee is actually proposing.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

http://www.shopstewards.net/conference.2011.htm

RMT Strike - Report from Cardiff

The Socialist Party supports the RMT in their dispute and sends greetings of solidarity...

Report from Cardiff by Alex Gordon, RMT President - 


Strike and picket lines are going brilliantly. The RMT drivers are out 100%, and the vast majority of ASLEF drivers have refused to cross picket lines in Cardiff. We had pickets out at 1AM this morning to meet drivers booking on for the earliest turns, and all refused to cross the lines. Arriva Trains Wales have given up any hope of running a service on the Valleys and have suspended it completely until Tuesday the 28 December. On the mainline, although they hoped to be able to run a service, it has been decimated by the actions of RMT drivers striking and their ASLEF colleagues refusing to cross picket lines, and the number of services run out of Cardiff up to 06.45 was a fraction of what would normally be running in and out of the main station in the Welsh capital on a Monday morning.

Picket lines have been operating in several locations around Cardiff Central to cover as many entrances as possible, as management have tried to set up booking-on points at alternative locations to circumvent the picket lines - unsuccessfully in most cases!! Picket lines have also been organised at Rhymney Depot at the top of the Rhymney Valley, where not a single driver booked on for duty this morning, and Treherbert Depot at the top of the Rhondda Valley. The service down each valley would ordinarily carry large numbers of people into Cardiff in the morning peaks and throughout the day for shopping.

The resolve of the strikers is absolutely solid and their morale is very high, and they are prepared to take as many days of strike action as is necessary to force ATW back to the negotiating table with a realistic pay offer, realistic terms and conditions, and without the strings that the company seem to believe must form part of any offer they make.

In a splendid display of unity from other workers and Trades Unionists, members of Cardiff Trades Council, the UCU union and the PCS union all came out to the pickets to show solidarity at 04.00 this morning.