The Agitator column
For many years the left has fought for increases to strike funds. During the globalisation years, these funds dwindled as bureaucrats kept strike action at an all-time low.
With the return of mass strikes in 2022, many unions have replenished their strike funds. And as the left has made gains in certain unions, the allocation of strike pay has increased: in Unison, from £25 to £50 a day; in Unite, up to £70 a day.
But in the recent spate of school strikes across London, the National Education Union has been offering teachers up to 100% of their pay lost due to strike action. While there will be some money lost to their pension contributions, this essentially amounts to a cost-free strike.
Of course in most strikes there are some cases of genuine hardship due to the loss of one or several days’ pay. This is certainly true for very low paid workers, some part-time employees or those in dire straits due to debts, one-off expenses, ill health, etc. But branch hardship funds are the traditional way of dealing with these difficulties.
Consciousness
Across the board replacement of wages by strike pay, however, raises more problems than it solves. At root it takes away any sacrifice made in struggle. It can encourage members to take it as a free day, without the need to picket, without the urgency to win the dispute quickly, or indeed without any effort to spread the action to other groups of workers.
For socialists the importance of strikes is not only in fending off the bosses’ attacks. After all trade union battles are often fought and refought as bosses try to claw back our gains. All victories are temporary.
The imprint of a strike on workers’ consciousness, however, can be life changing. Some strikers will go on to become lifelong activists. Others, who were waverers before, will become keen supporters of action next time. Others still will deepen their relationships with workmates, making solidarity second nature.
As well as this basic raising of class consciousness, there are other downsides to full strike pay. It makes the winning of solidarity action more difficult; anyone who refuses to cross a picket line or touch scab goods will be taking more risks than the original strikers.
It firms up the bureaucracy’s control of the dispute. They can turn off the tap of strike pay whenever they want to pressure workers into accepting a rotten compromise. They can prevent the spreading of the strike by withdrawing strike pay if the dispute goes national. And they can mitigate against workers from other unions joining the strike. Remember, it will be rank and file militants who want the strike to go further and the officials who want to keep it small, isolated, local. That makes full strike pay a double edged sword—with the sharper edge pointing at us.
