Hardly a week into the New Year, and Cameron and his government were already back on the offensive, with their "Trade Union Bill" going through its last stages in the House of Lords. And this time, unlike what happened with Osborne's tax credits cuts, the "highnesses" are not likely to force a postponement of the Bill out of sympathy for striking workers - as they did out of compassion for the poorest households. The very idea that workers should have the right to take their fate into their own hands in order to defend their own interests against their capitalist exploiters is definitely far too radical for them!
The significance of this, however, does not lie in this tedious parliamentary process, but rather in the fact that, so many years after Thatcher's anti-strike legislation was introduced, Cameron still finds it necessary to turn the screw another notch.
Their worst fear - our collective action
Of course, Cameron's objective in pushing this Bill is partly to do with his usual reactionary demagogy - which is designed to placate his party's right wing and to please its well-off electorate.
But there is more to this Bill than just this crass politicking. Despite the new obstacles it is meant to create for us in defending our interests, its introduction can only be an encouragement for all of us. Indeed, it shows that whatever they may claim, the capitalists and their politicians still fear the capacity of the working class to use its collective strength to take strike action and threaten their profits. And so they should!
There is no better illustration of this fear than the government's hysteria over the junior hospital doctors' strikes in the NHS. Health minister Jeremy Hunt's hypocritical attempt to discredit the doctors' strike by asking what would happen if it coincided with a terror attack, is an act of panic - from a government which is terrified by the exposure that this strike is giving to their austerity policy and mismanagement of the NHS.
Maybe also, in the back of his mind, Hunt fears even more that, taking their cue from the doctors, all NHS workers might decide that they've had enough - and that the time has come for them to put a stop to the crazy working conditions which are forced on them. And they would be right!
Likewise on the London Underground. Ahead of the three 24-hour stoppages announced for January and February, the politicians and media are shedding tears again over the "chaos and misery facing commuters". But what they fear most is that these commuters might feel solidarity with the Underground strikers - because, in addition to already facing "chaos and misery" daily, due to the dire state of this overcrowded, overpriced transport system, they also face the same kind of attacks on their own wages and conditions!
No law can stop our fights
Significantly, TUC leaders did not even try to organise a national protest against this Bill. Instead, they organised token lobbies of Parliament together with an "e-petition" (apparently their latest gimmick to avoid organising real action in the streets!). And, just as they did with the previous anti-strike laws, we can expect them to use the new one to justify their failure to organise any kind of fightback.
But this does not mean that the working class is disarmed - far from it. The class struggle is, above all, a matter of the relationship of forces. And no matter how many anti-working class laws the bosses have in their arsenal, there is nothing they can do when hundreds of thousands - or millions - join forces to take to the streets or to strike.
This year will mark the 90th anniversary of the 1926 general strike in Britain. This strike took place at a time when the situation of unions was far more precarious than today. Union officials had no facility time and no bargaining framework. There was neither check-off system nor direct debit for them to get their members' dues. The bosses often tried to sack union members and stoppages had to be organised in order to counter their attempts.
Yet, these obstacles did not prevent workers from organising themselves. And, on 4th May 1926, they brought the country to a standstill.
The strike lasted just 9 days and it was defeated. But this was only because the TUC leaders were allowed to control it. Had the tens of thousands of strikers who rose to the occasion in order to run the strike at local level, elected their own representative national strike committee, the outcome would probably have been very different.
Of course, conditions have changed since then. But what hasn't changed is the collective capacity of the working class to mobilise and organise its ranks - including in the most difficult situations. And this is our best and only weapon!