The workers, the unions, and the crisis

Written by NEIL FAULKNER

The working class is central to any project for revolutionary change. Yet today strikes are at an historical low. How do we help transform the bitterness at the base of society into action?

The working class has to be central to any serious project for revolutionary change. That is because, in a modern industrial society like Britain, the working class a) forms the great majority, b) produces the wealth of society, c) is concentrated in large workplaces, and d) has the potential power to cripple capital and the state. Quite simply, workers, and workers alone, could one day overturn the system and remake the world. As students, protestors, activists, whatever, we can make a difference – but, on our own, we cannot break the power of the corporations and the nation-states of global capitalism. Only as workers do we have that potential.

Yet, in Britain at least, the working class is a sleeping giant. Despite 25 years of racketeering ‘neoliberal’ capitalism, despite credit crunch and financial crash, despite growing inequality, unemployment, stress-loads, and bullying, most workers are keeping their heads down. Strikes are few and usually no more than token protests. Much more common – even as bankers pocket seven-figure bonuses and politicians charge taxpayers to maintain their mansions – is workers accepting more work for less pay in the hope of holding onto their jobs. The bitterness at the base of society is palpable. But it is not organised and militant. It remains a sullen, murmuring, resentful, but passive discontent.