Post by RedFlag32 on Mar 12, 2006 12:46:16 GMT
Belfast postal workers
Any news report from Northern Ireland automatically assumes that society there is rigidly divided a©long sectarian lines. In February a two-and-a-half-week-long unofficial strike by postal workers gave the lie to this as 800 Protestant and Catholic workers spontaneously came out against management bullying and harassment.
It started with a walk-out to prevent disciplinary action being taken against fellow workers – first at a mainly Protestant sorting office, then a mainly Catholic one.
The Communication Workers Union showed their true colours and opposed the strike. In Belfast a spokesman said “we repudiated the action and asked them to go back to work, pointing out that the action was illegal”. In Derry a local CWU official said that “under no circumstances” would there be a strike there so long as the strike was unofficial.
The workers showed that they didn’t need union permission to organise their struggle. A week into the strike they held a march that went up the Protestant Shankill Road and down the Catholic Falls Road. In many cases workers were going down streets that they’d never been down before. This was a real expression of workers’ unity, against the ruling class’s constant attempt to divide and rule.
However, the unions were not inactive. After two weeks there was a march from one of the picket lines to a rally at Belfast City Hall, where leftists provided placards, union and leftist speakers queued up to take their places on the platform, and a range of republican, leftist and loyalist groups honoured workers with their presence.
There have been other expressions of united struggle in Northern Ireland in recent years. But these have largely been limited to areas such as the health service, and did not spill out onto the streets. The open unity of Protestant and Catholic workers on the Belfast streets in this strike revived memories of the great unemployed demonstrations of 1932, where proletarians from both sides of the divide came together to fight cuts in the dole. But that was in a period of working class defeat, and today there is a much deeper potential for finally throwing aside the divisions that have for so long brought comfort to the capitalist order.
Socialist Worker proclaimed Royal Mail’s agreement to “an independent review of employee relations and industrial relations in Belfast” as a great victory for workers. If workers have any illusions in such a review it will hamper any future return to struggle. The great gain from the recent strike has been the experience of a united struggle undertaken outside the control of the unions. This gain is not just for the postal workers involved but for every worker inspired by this expression of class unity. 4/3/06
en.internationalism.org/node/1715
Any news report from Northern Ireland automatically assumes that society there is rigidly divided a©long sectarian lines. In February a two-and-a-half-week-long unofficial strike by postal workers gave the lie to this as 800 Protestant and Catholic workers spontaneously came out against management bullying and harassment.
It started with a walk-out to prevent disciplinary action being taken against fellow workers – first at a mainly Protestant sorting office, then a mainly Catholic one.
The Communication Workers Union showed their true colours and opposed the strike. In Belfast a spokesman said “we repudiated the action and asked them to go back to work, pointing out that the action was illegal”. In Derry a local CWU official said that “under no circumstances” would there be a strike there so long as the strike was unofficial.
The workers showed that they didn’t need union permission to organise their struggle. A week into the strike they held a march that went up the Protestant Shankill Road and down the Catholic Falls Road. In many cases workers were going down streets that they’d never been down before. This was a real expression of workers’ unity, against the ruling class’s constant attempt to divide and rule.
However, the unions were not inactive. After two weeks there was a march from one of the picket lines to a rally at Belfast City Hall, where leftists provided placards, union and leftist speakers queued up to take their places on the platform, and a range of republican, leftist and loyalist groups honoured workers with their presence.
There have been other expressions of united struggle in Northern Ireland in recent years. But these have largely been limited to areas such as the health service, and did not spill out onto the streets. The open unity of Protestant and Catholic workers on the Belfast streets in this strike revived memories of the great unemployed demonstrations of 1932, where proletarians from both sides of the divide came together to fight cuts in the dole. But that was in a period of working class defeat, and today there is a much deeper potential for finally throwing aside the divisions that have for so long brought comfort to the capitalist order.
Socialist Worker proclaimed Royal Mail’s agreement to “an independent review of employee relations and industrial relations in Belfast” as a great victory for workers. If workers have any illusions in such a review it will hamper any future return to struggle. The great gain from the recent strike has been the experience of a united struggle undertaken outside the control of the unions. This gain is not just for the postal workers involved but for every worker inspired by this expression of class unity. 4/3/06
en.internationalism.org/node/1715