Which Side Are You On
In two weeks time the UK will see the biggest coordinated day of strike action in decades; as many as 26 different unions representing everyone from chiropodists to teachers to tax inspectors may be out on strike in reaction to the government’s plans to slash public sector pensions. Even the headteachers union (the NAHT) will be out, for the first time in its 114 year history.
But one union who won’t be supporting the strikes are Voice. You may not have heard of Voice before, I haven’t yet spoken to anyone who had heard of them before this week, but they represent around 30,000 teachers across the UK (for comparison the NUT represent around 375,000 members). One reason you might not have heard of them is Voice don’t take industrial action. Ever. It’s their ‘cardinal principle’. In fact, it’s their reason for existing:
Voice’s position is quite clear … members don’t go on strike. It’s why we’re here.
Now, of course, no one really wants to go on strike. Who wants to stand around outside on a picket line from the early hours of the morning at the end of November, potentially getting up much earlier than usual to set up before your colleagues arrive, in whatever weather, whether rain, or wind or snow, and watch people like Voice (scabs) saunter past into the warmth? And to do all that for the loss of a day’s pay and pension contribution. It’s not an appealing prospect. And it does cause disruption, often to people who didn’t really cause the problem, your clients, customers, students or the public. But it’s that very disruption that produces an effect. Because a strike also disrupts management and employers; it costs them money and time. And that gives it power, power to force concessions you wouldn’t otherwise be able to achieve.
Voice’s General Secretary Philip Parkin seems, however, to have risen to direct a national trade union without ever having realised this. In a blog post yesterday, responding to criticism they had received online, he stated
One contributor to our blog site wrote that: “the nature of a strike is to cause disruption” – and here was me thinking that it was to draw attention to a cause.
But, as Phil Dickens responded on Libcom, a strike isn’t about drawing attention to a cause:
If you want to draw attention to a cause, you need a protest or a stunt. Colourful banners and inventive chanting will make people look twice and give you the opportunity to say “here, look at this…” You can do that easily enough without having to lose a day’s pay or to form picket lines outside your workplace on a cold November morning. But, as the demonstration on March 26 exemplified, that is pretty much all you will achieve. On that day, half a million people voiced their anger on the streets and drew attention to their cause in the most spectacular fashion. At the end, the government still said “We’re not going to change the basic economic strategy.”
Instead of protest, as a way to force concessions from the state and the bosses, anarchists argue for direct action. The reason for this is quite simple – peaceful protest doesn’t work.
Voice have been quite upset, it seems, by the abuse they’ve received (from Philip Parkin’s blog post again):
So why do some of them think it’s perfectly acceptable to abuse Voice and its members on Facebook and Twitter? Why do they think that it adds to the quality of the debate or brings a resolution closer by calling Voice members “scabs” – or worse – because they won’t be going on strike?
We respect the right of others to strike and they should respect the right of our members not to. Some refuse to do that but respect doesn’t mean – as some seem to think – expecting everyone to agree with your views and that all other views are wrong. Respect means having regard and consideration for others and their views.
Why don’t we respect them? Because this isn’t just some academic debate. People’s future livelihoods are being destroyed and Voice want us to limit ourselves in the action we use in defence. Moreover, for all their claims that they respect the right of others to strike they are at pains to present themselves as the more responsible and conscientious party
We believe that those involved in education and childcare should make the best interests of children and students their first priority. Voice is respected for resolving problems by negotiation, not conflict. We do not undertake industrial action because we recognise its negativity and the damage caused to the interests of those for whom our members are responsible.
Scab isn’t just a random insult, it’s not just a form of low abuse. It’s a term with a very clear meaning and Voice clearly fall under it. To scab is to undermine a strike, to cross a picket, to destroy the solidarity needed for effective action, to bolster the economic and moral position of the employer and to cover the work of those on strike.
Voice don’t just encourage their members to cross pickets, and to make clear in advance to employers that they will be available for work—to clearly disassociate themselves from the rabble outside the gates—they tell their members—in a standard letter for members to use on the Voice website—to volunteer for extra duties.
I understand that I can be directed to undertake some extra duties if that direction is a reasonable one in all the circumstances.
The lesson, really, is quite simple. If you don’t want to be abused for being a scab, don’t scab.
“Bright Green used to be a rather sensible blog.”
Well some people here are talking sense, others, er, not so much.
Sorry for repeated comments, but am furious at the audacity of it. Absolutely furious. Bright Green used to be a rather sensible blog.
And Voice have NEVER gone out on Industrial Action but ALWAYS support other unions, always make sure their workers are supported in not covering for those who are on strike. Always. I’d rather be on their side than yours, and there arent many people on your side. No matter how many videos of scab beatings you masturbate over.
Researcher at university? Did you finally manage to wangle a job in time to use it as justification for bullying?
When puberty ends, you have some experience of having to keep a roof over other peoples heads, and have a job slightly more important than wanking about claiming other peoples causes as your own, and evicting people from ‘your cause’ you will cringe. In meantime, the grown ups wont be listening to you and you may get the response a word like scab warrants. Oh I forget you want revolution, as long as it is all aimed politely at you. Bright Green- you want to publish this rubbish go ahead. You’ll go the way of Liberal Conspiracy and the Labour blogs.
OH and Alasdair. I hope when you shout scab you get an actual response. Your continued waffling about the revolution and how glorious, is the waffling of a silly little boy who has never seen violence, yet wants it brought into this movement to satisfy your little fantasies. Lets see if you are quite so keen when people react as normal people would to your obnoxiousness. Or will you again be whining that it wasnt an academic enough response for. You are a leech who has leeched off the cause of those striking all year and now demand the right to bully the weakest. Poverty has always been used to break strikes. The macho intimidation of scab bullying ensured that the people who paid the heaviest price in teh circumstances leading to strikes, hose with no protesction, ended up in hospital- punished by their own side. You are a disgusting little boy. Grow up.
Alasdair, correct me if I am wrong but you are not a teacher. Last time I saw you you were a phsyicist at the Greeen Party conference. And now you want to declare your right to incite scab bullying on grounds of solidarity? While your radicalisation has been very amusing, your attempt at justifying why you have the right to start shouting scab is beyond me.
The word scab has a very long history, there are places and times it is appropriate. Self important wannabe lefties claiming right to abse women they never met, not it. Just makes you a nasty little bully. Get your own cause you want to bully people in name of it.
Why the need for such vitriolic comments about scabs? You’re in a well paid profession and getting a nice day off so it doesn’t matter much too you. I struck as a teacher on the tragically few occasions the lame-arsed NUT bothered to do so, and it was always great as I got a day off – I was always after four days a week anyway but they’d never let me do it.
I’m from a mining family and I don’t feel the need to publicly say those sorts of things when there’s no real need. You come across as rather fey pretenders trying to be something you’re not..
I’m a lecturer at an FE college and I will be striking from delivering 6 hours teaching as well as marking, planning and administration.
Billy Elliot’s Dad’s a wanker, but the actor who played him bought a copy of Freedom off of us a few years back. Glamorous Anarchy Fact.
I’m a researcher at a university. I’ll be on strike, losing a day’s pay and a day’s revision for my PhD viva, which is the next day.
Doug and Alasdair,
what do you do for a living, and what will you be striking from, if that’s not too personal?
“After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab.
A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of Hell to keep him out.
No man has a right to scab so long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab has not.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust or corporation.
Esau was a traitor to himself: Judas Iscariot was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country; a strikebreaker is a traitor to his God, his country, his wife, his family and his class.”
Jack London, speech to Oakland Socialist Party, 1903.
How is this “green and progressive” when its rhetoric is stuck in the 1970s, it displays posters that use foul and abusive language, and it quotes those who believe that “Instead of protest, as a way to force concessions from the state and the bosses, anarchists argue for direct action. The reason for this is quite simple – peaceful protest doesn’t work.”?
HypocriteWatch: Exposing hypocrisy
not sure what’s hypocritical here. how is being green and progressive in any way contradictory to being anarchist? i’ve never claimed to have a problem with “foul and abusive language”; we ran a competition at the end of last year for “dick of the year”. and what’s stuck in the ’70s about the language of basic solidarity and trade unionism? have you a more modern, and less hypocritical, way to refer to scabbing?