Whatever the media and politicians may claim, last week's 48h strike in the London Underground - the first system-wide strike since 2007 - was well supported. Above all, it was the first large-scale response to the bosses' attacks on jobs and wages.

In this case, a Labour-Tory alliance - with the government responsible for funding the Tube and London Mayor, Boris Johnson, for managing it - is trying to force through up to 4,000 job cuts, together with a 5-year pay deal, which would result in a cut in real wages.

Of course, these cuts are really part of the "hidden" cost of the bankers' bailout. Now that hundreds of billions of pounds of public money have been handed out to the profit sharks who caused the crisis, politicians want to get us to foot the bill for their "deficit" - by targeting both the jobs and wages of public sector employees and the public services used by all workers.

This was what the Tube workers were striking against last week - and right they were!

Many more battles to come

The odds are that this will not be the end of the story and that the Tube workers will have to step up their action in the coming weeks.

But there is no reason why they should be fighting in isolation, because many more workers in every industry are facing the same predicament.

First, there are other public services and public service workers who are under threat. On Friday this week, workers in the London Postal Area of Royal Mail are due to stage a 24-hr strike over the same sorts of issues.

At Royal Mail too, thousands of jobs are under threat. Despite the rise in unemployment, the government is stepping up its job-cutting policy among postal workers. As a result, for instance, many in deliveries end up having to do the equivalent of what was previously the job of 2 or 3 of them - an exhausting and impossible task! In fact, Royal Mail workers are so fed up with this situation that the ballot for industrial action was won by a record 91% majority, on an unusually high turnout.

And, of course, it is not just across the public sector that the bosses' axe is out, nor that workers are resisting the cuts. Earlier this month, for instance, British Airways' ground handling staff voted down a deal involving a pay cut by a 6-to-1 margin. At the same time, BA cabin crews are facing the threat of 2,000 job cuts. This may put industrial action on the agenda at BA as well.

In fact, there is hardly any workplace, private or public, where the bosses are not threatening or implementing cuts, under the pretext that we, workers, should "share" the burden of the crisis.

Using our collective strength

But the bosses want to have their cake and eat it. In the past when profits were soaring, was there ever any question of workers "sharing" this bounty? Of course not! In fact, while the profit sharks were lining their pockets, they kept turning the screw against us. So, today, the least they should do would be to pay for their own crisis!

Instead, the bosses are going on the offensive against our conditions, right across the economy, with the government showing them the way. Well, if the bosses are united in their attacks against us, this means we have to be at least as united in our resistance. Anything short of using jointly our ability to fight across all sections and industries can only spell failure in this battle against the profiteers.

Lest we forget, this week marks the 25th anniversary of the "Battle for Orgreave", during the miners' strike. On 18th June 1984, the miners were forced to back off in front of Thatcher's massive police forces. This turning point, marked the beginning of 9 months of an increasingly protracted and bitter struggle, which the miners fought in vain.

Yet, none of this was inevitable. The miners were militant and determined, but they fought on their own - when, in fact, Thatcher and the bosses were out to reduce the fighting spirit and resistance of the working class as a whole. Against the concerted offensive of the bosses, the working class would have had to unite in a common fight back, instead of going along with the union leaders' policy and leaving the miners to fight on their own.

Today, as we are also facing an all-out offensive by the bosses, the miners' experience should be a weapon for us - a reminder that, if we want to stop the sharks in their tracks, we will also have to stop the union leaderships from isolating and atomising our resistance. Our strength is our numbers and the fact that, all together, we produce, move and sustain just about everything. Fighting back all together is a necessity!