Organise.

            So many strikes called by unions end up as a sell-out by the unions, they seem to see themselves as part of the system, and negotiate from that position, so I doubt they will do anything to bring the system down. The case of the striking metalworkers in Cadiz, Spain, is just another sell-out by unions. This strike not only had the support of the workers but also the support of the local community and wider afield, but the unions settled for what most consider an insulting deal. So the workers with reluctance go back feeling once again the union has sold them out to the bosses.

The following from Angry Workers:

         But the die is cast: the media celebrate the ‘agreement’ in style, and confusion and frustration, if not demoralisation, reigns.
         Nobody is happy with the agreement, but the workers come back to work resigned, treating the unions treason like business as usual. At this point, it can’t even be considered a treason anymore.
         However, the 220 CYMI workers, a Dragados subcontractor with some of the most precarious contracts with not even union representation and left out of the infamous agreement decided to keep striking for almost two weeks in total until they got rises of between 200 and 400 euros.
        There has been some more strikes all over Spain that normally end with similar results but it feels like more workers are starting to get pissed with the whole situation. The question is if the workers will find the way to self-organise in a way that allows them to put up a fight on their own terms. Some union bureaucrats are having a hard time to keep the workers in line, like this CCOO representative telling this group of cleaners that the strike has been called off and them telling him to fuck off. Instant classic.

          Perhaps the road to take for those workers wishing to take control of their conditions would be to follow the example of the Clyde Workers Committee from the Clydeside in 1915.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Glasgow's Bloody Friday.

     Glasgow, January, 31st. 1919, "Bloody Friday", remember it, celebrate it, be proud of it, and all those ordinary people who took part in it.

    From my post last January 31st. I'll probably repeat it next year, and why not.

      A date that should be etched in the psyche of Glasgow's working class and its struggles for that better life, January 31st. 1919.
(http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7510) That was one of the many times the British state has shown its readiness to turn the military on its own citizens.
After WW1 there had been a struggle for a 40 hour week, in support of this a large demonstration was held on George Square, for some unknown reason the police started a vicious attack on the crowd, this in turn created outbreaks of violence across the city, at that point the state put troops on the streets of Glasgow.
However, these events never happen in isolation, they do not pop up from a tranquil environment, they are part of an ongoing connected struggle, a struggle that still continues to this day. Bloody Friday was not "an event" it was part of that chain of struggle between the desires of the ordinary people and the unyielding demands of the wealthy and powerful. It has not been finalised yet, there are more "events" going to happen along the way in this process. We should learn from our history that the powerful and wealthy elite will do what is necessary to defend their privileged position. Troops on the streets is not a symbolic display, it is a very real statement of intent. The Liverpool strikers during the Transport Strike of 1911 (https://libcom.org/…/1911-liverpool-general-transport-strike) found this out brutally, as two of the strikers were shot dead on the street by the military.

  Extract from The Rent Strike To Bloody Friday: Strugglepedia:

Glasgow's Bloody Friday 1919
Like all the events in political struggle it is difficult to trace the thread back to what brought it to this stage, Bloody Friday 1919 is no different. This was not just an attack on a large demonstration in Glasgow, it was the culmination of a series of radical events in Glasgow and the Clydeside area where the state showed its brutality. Perhaps we could even take it back to the 18th century and the radicals like Thomas Muir and others. However we can certainly take it back to the rent strikes of the first world war, the forming of the Labour Withholding Committee, (LWC) The Clyde Workers Committee (CWC) and the political climate of that period.
The Rent Strike
In pre First World War Glasgow there were a large number of empty houses, by the year 1915 all were occupied by incoming workers to the munitions and allied war industry trades. A shortage of workers and materials saw a lack of maintenance and the housing stock deteriorate rapidly. At the beginning of the war the landlords tried to implement large rent increases, at the receiving end of this were 7,000 pensioners and families whose men were fighting in France. This brought about the formation of the "Glasgow Women's Housing Association" and many other local "Women's Housing Associations" to resist the increases. A variety of peaceful activities were used to prevent evictions and drive out the Sheriff's officers. There were constant meetings in an attempt to be one step ahead of the Sheriff's officers. All manner of communication was used to summon help, everything from drums, bells, trumpets and anything that could be used to create a warning sound to rally supporters, who were mainly women as the men were at work in the yards and factories at these times. They would then indulge in cramming into closes and stairs to prevent the entry of the Sheriff's officers and so prevent them from carrying out their evictions. They also used little paper bags of flour, peasmeal and whiting as missiles directed at the bowler hatted officers. These activities culminated on the 17th of November 1915 with the massive demonstration and march of thousands through the city streets and on to the Glasgow Sheriff's Court. The size of the demonstration caused the Sheriff at the court to phone the Prime Minister of the day, this resulted in the immediate implementation of the "1915 Rent Restriction Act" which benefited tenants across the country.
The Labour Withholding Committee
This happened in a time of war, so it was obvious that by 1915 Glasgow and Clydeside had a very large class oriented militant grassroots movement and had forced the Government on this occasion to act in their favour. The rent strike was mainly a women’s organisation but the men were proving to be just as militant in the workplaces. Around the same time in 1915 during a prolonged period of considerable economic hardship for most industrial workers, Clydeside engineering employers refused workers demands for a wage increase. The insatiable demand for war munitions had lead to a rapid rise in inflation and a savage attack on the living standards of the working class. Workers were demanding wage increases to offset these repressive conditions. At this time Weir’s of Cathcart was paying workers brought over from their American plant, 6/- shillings a week more than workers in their Glasgow plant.
The dispute between workers and management at Weir’s rapidly escalated into strike action. The strike was organised by a strike committee named the Labour Withholding Committee (LWC). This committee comprised of rank and file trade union members and shop stewards. It was they who remained in control of the strike rather than the officials from the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE).
The strike started in February 1915 and lasted almost 3 weeks. At its peak 10,000 members of the ASE from 8 separate engineering works were on strike throughout Clydeside. The officials from the ASE denounced the strike and backed the government’s demands to resume work. It was this double pressure from the government and their own trade union that drove the workers from the various engineering works in Glasgow to form the LWC to give the workers a voice and to organise the strike to their wishes.
Although the strikers demands were not met, its importance is in the fact of it forming the LWC. A committee formed from rank and file union members that determined policy in the work place and refused to follow the directives from union officials when those directives conflicted with the demands of that rank and file.

Continue reading HERE:

http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php…

       https://radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.com/…/the-rent-strike-t…

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

DO A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL, AND WHAT DO YOU GET???

            It becomes sickening, to see the ordinary workers being attacked by right-wing ideology, come out fighting with tremendous solidarity and then be “sold-out” by the well paid union bosses. Time and time again we have seen the workers come out prepared to fight for their conditions and time and time again the union bosses have done a “deal” where the workers get nothing or at most a pittance. This latest “deal” over pensions means that the workers, who came out in their hundreds of thousands on Nov 30 to show their resistance to the government's pension plans, will now be forced to accept what the government wanted in the first place. Pay more into your pension, work longer to get it and end up with less. Unless of course the workers ignore their unions, organise and continue the fight. The grass roots are against this pension “deal” and it will be up to them to continue the fight. They could take a few lessons from The Clyde Workers Committee and keep control of the situation by means of grass roots organisation.

         History tells us that the workers cannot rely on the well paid union bosses when it looks like a real fight, the union bosses have too much to lose, fat salaries and perks, which no doubt will include a decent pension. When ever there is a ground swell from the ordinary people the unions do the governments bidding, they don't want to upset the apple cart. We can go back over the history of the working class struggles and see the pattern. One of the most galling examples of workers eager to continue the fight but being “sold-out” by the union bosses was of course the 1926 General Strike. As far as the union bosses are concerned, it seems that nothing has changed since then.

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - CLYDE WORKERS COMMITTEE.

THE CLYDE WORKERS COMMITTEE.

THE SPARK, THE FORMING OF THE LWC.

In 1915 during a prolonged period of considerable economic hardship for most industrial workers, Clydeside engineering employers refused workers demands for a wage increase. The insatiable demand for war munitions had lead to a rapid rise in inflation and a savage attack on the living standards of the working class. Workers were demanding wage increases to offset these repressive conditions. At this time Weir’s of Cathcart was paying workers brought over from their American plant 6/- shillings a week more than workers in their Glasgow plant.

The dispute between workers and management at Weir’s very rapidly escalated into strike action. The strike was organised by a strike committee named the Labour Withholding Committee (LWC). This committee comprised of rank and file trade union members and shop stewards. It was they who remained in control of the strike rather than the officials from the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE).

The strike started in February 1915 and lasted almost 3 weeks. At its peak 10,000 members of the ASE from 8 separate engineering works were on strike throughout Clydeside. The officials from the ASE denounced the strike and backed the government’s demands to resume work. It was this double pressure from the government and their own trade union that drove the workers from the various engineering works in Glasgow to form the LWC to give the workers a voice and to organise the strike to their wishes.

Although the strikers demands were not met, its importance is in the fact of it forming the LWC. A committee formed from rank and file union members that determined policy in the work place and refused to follow the directives from union officials when those directives conflicted with the demands of that rank and file.

THE MUNITIONS ACT.

The government alarmed by the February 1915 strike, summoned trade union leaders to a special conference. The result of this conference being the now notorious Treasury Agreement. The outcome of which was that all independent union rights and conditions including the right to strike, were abandoned for the duration of the war. It also allowed the employers to “dilute” labour. Meaning they could employ unskilled labour in skilled jobs to compensate for the growing labour shortage, due to the every increasing demand for munitions and the endless slaughter of young men at the front. The Munitions Act also made strikes illegal and restrictions of output a criminal offence. The Munitions Act also allowed for the setting up of Munitions Tribunals to deal with any transgressions of the act.

October 1915 saw one such tribunal, the outcome of which was that 3 shipwrights from Fairfield Shipyard on the Clyde, one of which was MacPherson, a Glasgow anarchist, were sentenced to one months imprisonment for their refusal to pay a fine imposed because of their strike action in support of two sacked workers. The imprisonment of the 3 shipwrights prompted the official union representatives to call for a public enquiry. However, the LWC, which had reformed after the February 1915 strike, were seeking immediate strike action. A rather shaky and uneasy peace remained while official union leaders and the rank and file LWC waited for the government’s response. With the lack of any response from the government, the LWC decided, with the full backing of the workers, to act on their own by issuing an ultimatum to the government; If the shipwrights were not released within 3 days there would be widespread industrial action throughout the Clydeside until their release.

Three days after the LWC ultimatum the shipwrights were released. It was later discovered the the imprisoned men’s fines had been paid. The general feeling among the LWC and others was that the fines had been paid by ASE officials in an attempt to prevent widespread industrial action on Clydeside over which they could exercise little or no control.

THE CLYDE WORKERS COMMITTEE.

This victory lead to the LWC deciding to form a permanent committee to resist the Munitions act. It was to be called the Clyde Workers Committee, (CWC) and organised on the same democratic principles as the LWC. It would have 250-300 delegates elected directly from the work place, it would meet weekly.

This was a seismic sift in the employee/ management working relationship on Clydeside. Up until then shop stewards in the industry merely existed as card inspectors and implementers of national and district committees policies. However, after the forming of the CWC in 1915, increasingly it was the workers through the CWC that controlled the policy on the shop floor and in negotiations, much to the consternation of the official trade unions. The CWC in 1915 stated; “We will support the officials just as long as they represent the workers, but we will act independently immediately they misrepresent them.”

As the CWC had no faith in the official trade union to protect the workers interests, when the government Dilution Commission, in January 1916, arrived in Glasgow to attempt to implement “dilution” in the munitions factories it was the CWC who sought to negotiate a more radical policy with the commission in an attempt to secure greater workers control over the process of “dilution”. Although by this time the CWC was responsible for representing the workforce in 29 Clydeside engineering works, the Dilution Commission refused to recognise its authority and declined the CWC’s offer to meet and discuss proposals for implementation.

ARREST AND DEPORTATION.

Between January and March 1916 the Dilution Commission met little or no opposition from workers and trade unions elsewhere on Clydeside. During this period it however little or no progress was made in the Clydeside engineering industry. A situation that the government felt that it could not tolerate much longer.

A management decision at Beardmore’s engineering works Parkhead Glasgow, to refuse shop stewards access to new “dilutees” brought about strike action in March 1916. In the following four days workers at three other munitions factories came out in sympathy with the Beardmore strikers. These events on Clydeside were creating a degree of nervousness in the government and the Dilution committee who were afraid that the actions of the syndicalist inspired CWC would impede munitions production and possibly spread to other areas.

On order of the government on March 24 1916, the military authorities arrested and deported Kirkwood, Haggerty, Shields, Wainright and Faulds, the Beardmore shop stewards. On the same day they arrested and deported McManus and Messer two shop stewards from Weir’s of Cathcart, one of the factories that came out on strike in Sympathy with the Beardmore strikers. On March 29 the military authorities again swooped and arrested and deported Glass, Bridges and Kennedy, 3 more shop stewards from Weir’s.

The shop stewards were sent to Edinburgh where they had to report to the police three times daily. These restrictions were kept in place until 14 June 1917. It was obvious to all that the arrested shop stewards had been abandoned by their official trade union, they were also refused any union benefit during the deportation. These deportations broke the resistance to the implementation of “dilution” in the Clydeside engineering industry, it also realised the government’s aim in bring about the demise of the CWC for the duration of the war.

Following the end of the war there was a fear of mass unemployment due to the demobilisation of the troops and the demise of the munitions factories. The common view held by the majority of workers in shipbuilding, engineering and mining was that a drastic cut in the number of hours in the working week, with the same war time pay levels was the only solution.

On January 1919 the CWC held a meeting of its shop stewards from shipbuilding and engineering, from this meeting the “Forty Hour” movement was born, and the decision was taken to go with the miners in their demand for a reduction to the weekly hours to help absorb the increase to the workforce and the reducing number of jobs.

More on Glasgow's workingclass history here STRUGGLEPEDIA. 

Further information; GlasgowDigital library.

Posted by John Couzin.

Thebook Radical Glasgow.

Thewebsite Radical Glasgow.

ann arky's home.

THE CLYDE WORKERS' COMMITTEE.

The following is a short extract from a recent article in "The Commune", you can read the full article HERE. 

SOLIDARITY.

"A week on, the feedback from the TUC demonstration seems broadly positive. To seasoned marchers, it might have seemed like just another trudge along Embankment – but for many it was their first demonstration, and the sheer weight of numbers carried some exhilaration with it.

And yet, we remember: eight years ago, on those same streets, there were twice the numbers, or more.  And what difference did it make? Labour ignored us, the war went ahead. And, if they can, the present government will ignore us in their turn. We know, if we are honest, that orderly demonstrations in central London will not stop the cuts. Such demonstrations pose no threat to the profit or power of the ruling class: and this, we know, is what makes the difference.

Our task now is to sharpen exhilaration with analysis, and ask: what will it really take to stop the cuts?"

 

      Glasgow, like most cities with an industrial history, has experience of workers taking control of industrial disputes by means of workers on the shop floor as opposed to allowing the union officials dictate the line of action. This principle was what gave The Clyde Workers' Committee, CWC, such strength and success. What started as The Labour Withholding Committee, LWC on Clydeside at the beginning of the first world war soon developed in to CWC as the workers realised that the only way that they could guarantee any sort of success was for the workers to dictate the direction and timing and all other aspects of any industrial action. Relying on the established unions with their top officials who are no more than another aspect of  industrial management was doomed to fail as compromise is the only game the know.

   

      In saying that, any battle to stop the cuts can only meet with temporary success as the system will inevitable claw any gains back again, at a later date. To end the cuts we have to end the system under which the cuts are deemed necessary. In other words, as long as we have capitalism, the workers will have to struggle to even maintain their standard of living. Under the present system, stopping the cuts this year, just means that there will be another "crisis" and the issue will have to be resolved again.

     

       The workers aims for a decent life free from the fear of deprivation, and the aims of the corporate world for ever increasing profits, are totally and utterly incompatible.

 

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