Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials, 23 June 2009

Last week, London Postal workers staged a 24-hour strike - but the government managed to use a legal technicality to stop 3 of the largest offices from taking part in the action.

Earlier the same week, one of Europe's richest companies (Total) sacked 900 workers without having to comply with any legal requirements.

These are the rules of the game. To boost their profits they can do what they want. But to defend our livelihoods, we must jump through endless hoops - and even if we do, they find other obstacles to put in our way.

This time around, however, their system is coming up against the resistance of a section of workers. At the time of writing, at least 9 power stations and refineries are still affected by unofficial walkouts against the sacking of the 900 workers at the Lindsay Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire.

These workers were sacked when they responded to a threat of redundancy against 51 of their fellow workers, by walking off the job.

Obviously, Total was caught by surprise by the wave of solidarity which immediately developed right across the industry.

So much so, that they had to climb down and retract the 900 sackings, but they then came up with a process whereby 647 workers were meant to reapply for their jobs. Which of course allows the company to embark on a selective sacking exercise.

This hasn't worked. Workers turned up to the plant and collectively burnt their dismissal notices and re-application forms.

The solidarity action is still going on, even while Total is said to have agreed to talks. This is probably the only language that the profit sharks at the likes of Total can understand. These workers deserve our support.

This kind of solidarity response on the part of workers is not just vital in the face of threats against jobs. Because even those of us whose jobs are not yet threatened, are directly faced with attacks on wages and conditions, which really cannot be tolerated anymore.

Willie Walsh, the CEO of that other ultra-wealthy company called British Airways, has made headlines by daring to demand from the BA workforce that they should volunteer for unpaid work and/or unpaid leave! And this, in the context to a plan to cut 2,000 cabin crew jobs!

The blackmail exercise is obvious: if you do not volunteer, you might just be one of those who is cut. And coming from someone who earns £14,700 a week, as his "basic", such cynicism is a deliberate provocation. But in fact, what Willie Walsh has been boasting about, most other companies are doing in an indirect and even concealed fashion.

When car companies sack hundreds or thousands of agency or fixed term temps, and then crack the whip at their remaining workforce to make them work more, what is it, except making them work for free, for part of the time?

When postal delivery workers are made to do the rounds which used to be done by 3 of them, without even the right to claim for overtime when it takes longer, what is it, except being made to work for free?

Even the government's official statistics show that nominal wages have fallen by 5% over the past 12 months. What does that mean, if not that the bosses are making millions of workers work more and longer, for free?

Yes, enough is enough. This is a feeling that hundreds of thousands of us have, across the different industries. This is a feeling that needs to be expressed!

But so far, any expression of anger from working people has been carefully channelled by the union leadership into days of action (in the best of cases), with no follow-up. They do this under the pretext that we workers - who produce everything in this society - should abide by the laws made by the same people who are slashing our jobs, cutting our wages and insisting we work harder.

In fact these profit sharks really know only one "law" - the law of the jungle, where the strongest win. That is why we should apply this law to them. When we join ranks and use our collective forces, together, across all industries, there is no question about it. We are stronger - and we will beat them.