The revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia have inspired millions of people around the world.
In Tunisia mass demonstrations routed the police of dictator Ben Ali – then a general strike drove him out of the country.
Dragged into a spiral of mass unemployment, of price rises and poverty, the poor, the youth and the workers of the Middle East have risen up.
All over the world, people are watching and learning. The revolution is spreading to other Arab countries like Jordan and Yemen. And further afield, beyond the Middle East, hundreds of millions of people are willing the protesters on. Because everywhere people are being thrown into poverty by the crisis of the capitalist system.
And the same crisis faces Britain too. More than a million job losses predicted because of Tory cuts. More than a quarter slashed from spending on local services we rely on. Prices soaring, housing benefits capped, incapacity benefits slashed, desperation and homelessness set to surge.
Here in the UK, we may not live under the 30-year rule of a dictator … but we didn’t vote for this government and its vicious cuts package. We’ve been landed with it by dirty deals between coalition politicians who broke their promises for power.
We too had a whiff of revolutionary energy last year when young people stormed the Tory HQ and carried on marching and protesting for over a month.
But no such energy was to be seen at the TUC’s special summit on 28 January to discuss action against the cuts. Coming out of the meeting the very first thing TUC leader Brendan Barber’s told the press was ìno one is talking about a general strike.î And Labour’s Ed Miliband, flying in the face of reality, said general strikes are
“…not the way you change governments. The way you change governments is through the ballot box.”
Well, if we wait until the next election, this illegitimate government will have smashed our services and jobs and sold off the bulk of the NHS and schools. But as Tunisia and Egypt show, it doesn’t have to happen!
The union leaders are ruling out a general strike for a reason – they know it would be effective, they know it could win, and they know … that it would be illegal. Under Thatcher’s anti-union laws, preserved by Blair and Brown and about to be used by the employers and the government, any strike is unlawful if it is called for political purposes.
So the union leaders say they will try to coordinate lawful disputes over pay and conditions in their members’ respective workplaces. The obvious problem with this is that each section can be bought off one at a time. No lasting coordination can be achieved without workers from different industries declaring they are striking for each other, not just themselves – which is the very thing that is illegal.
Political action
We are banned from taking political strike action against the government’s political attack. This is just as unjust, just as dictatorial as any one of the repressive laws of Ben Ali and Mubarak. The way to challenge them was to rouse the people’s anger in a political campaign against them, and then bust the laws in practice through mass action, making them unworkable, shattering them to pieces through huge marches on the streets and general strike in the workplaces.
And that is what we need in Britain today.
Some cynics will say ìwe’d all love a general strike but calling for one won’t make it happen.î Sure, but NOT calling for one won’t make it materialise either. The answer is to campaign for it openly, on the streets, on demonstrations, in public meetings, on the web and facebook, everywhere we can make our voice heard. If Brendan Barber keeps saying ìno one is talking about a general strikeî we can show him on the mass TUC demo on 26 March 2that he is wrong. Tens of thousands of us have to shout back “Yes, WE are!”
