In the union, for many years, I fought against the Trotskyist takeover of my union. By nature, I am a libertarian, and, politically, I resent very much the situation whereby a small, but dedicated, cabal, of politically motivated activists have reduced a once great voice in industrial relations to a voicebox for fringe parties and movements, to the extent where a mere 10% of members bother to vote now in annual elections.

There is the history, albeit simplistic and abbreviated. Now to the dilemma.

For years now, this cabal has pursued an industrial action policy mainly centred around pointless one day strikes and political extremism. We have had yet another ballot for strike action, and on a turnout of 28%, 61% of members supported strike action. In other words, only 17% of members supported a further period of strikes, and, of those, I can say absolutely that 10% represented the activist base of the union. 

In my office, it is likely that support for the forthcoming strike on Budget Day (a gimmick, really. I am a taxman) will amount to about four souls out of about 100.

For the first time in my life, I am thinking about not supporting the action. I lost more money last year striking than the government took off me in increased pension contributions. 

So, I have a dilemma. The question to prog archive members is a simple one. Solidarity, or "scabbing"?

What's the reason for wanting to strike? you should not care about numbers, whether 10% or 50% or whatever support the strike or not, you just need to think of the motivation, if you believe that it is worth striking for, go strike, if you think it's not really fair then do not strike.

On a side note, I support the right to strike but I have never followed a strike in my life.

As you may know Iberia employees are striking because they believe that British Airways is softly killing Iberia after having taken it over. I know not enough myself to forge an opinion on the subject, multinational corporations are always a tricky subject, regardless where they are from.

Hi Jim. Thanks for this. 

I was heavily involved in the campaign to save local tax offices, DWP offices, and Land Registry offices when I was active in PCS, so yes, I am aware of the issues you refer to. Our local campaigns were fast and furious, and generally quite effective. We did not win every battle, of course, but we did save some local offices, and negotiated, in HMRC, new centres of excellence which have, and will continue, to provide quality jobs for years to come. A bloodbath, yes, but we did retrieve some good out of it. How? By negotiation, political campaigning, public backing, not by strikes. The support I had from the national union was almost pitiful.

PCS has become nothing more than a voice for so called extreme political activists. They think they are radical, whereas they are merely trying their best to win the wars we lost in the 1980's. we might not like the fact we lost, but the world has moved on. Members cannot see the point of losing even more money in pointless action. They want action that delivers. One day strikes never have, and never will.

I agree with you, BTW, that scabbing is a hateful term. It is, though, a commonly recognised one.

As for Martin, I am aware of him, and have heard him at various meetings, but cannot claim to know him very well. I am sure he would say something similar about myself.

This is, I know, a short post. I could go on for much longer, and am more than happy to do so from a standpoint of more than 28 years of civil service TU activism if you wish, either on the forum or by PM?

Cheers

Steve

Hey Gerard. This is one of those rare instances of a group of workers striking against a British takeover. Here, it is usually the other way around.

However, it is a common thing here that foreign companies taking over entities will always seek to cut costs. Greedy multinational capitalism. It sucks.