A Big Burning Issue
John Bird - co-founder of 'The Big Issue' - is someone I've got a lot of time for - a man with a strong social conscience who speaks his mind - and a lot of common sense.
John wrote an article for one of the newspapers at the weekend - a deeply personal and thoughtful article.
About the wisdom and purpose of strike action - and the politics of the current public sector pensions dispute.
Anyone who supported the original fight for equal pay in 1968 has my respect - so here's what John Bird had to say.
Union bosses are not acting in anyone's best interests
"When I see the banners, the marches and the determined faces of striking public-service workers, my heart sinks. Trade union folklore will tell you that you can win strikes, wring concessions out of reluctant employers and create solidarity.
But none of these ideas makes sense when applied to Britain’s public sector in today’s troubled economic climate.
We all have a vested interest in ensuring the health of our public sector. We are all, even the strikers themselves, the employers in question.
By encouraging their members to withdraw their labour, union bosses are not acting in anyone’s best interests. The unions’ attempts to ring-fence the public sector with promises of future security has, largely, not won sympathy and respect.
In fact, the unions risk demonstrating that the services they provide are not as crucial as they may assume and that the nation can do well enough without them. They are leading workers into a trap in which the likely outcome is not a better pension but the loss of their jobs.
As an idealistic young man, I joined the picket lines and marches for many different causes. The first one I got involved in was a one-day strike in 1968 for equal pay for women.
I was working for British Leyland as a drill operator and we marched in solidarity for the right of equality. Most of us were men, yet we marched for women because we believed that for equal work women should be entitled to equal pay.
The feeling was heady. The sense of solidarity and belonging was enormous, especially for a 21-year-old like me who came from prison and homelessness. The cause, we felt, was worthy. As a result of the protests – and others like them – including the famous strikes the same year by the women at the Dagenham Ford factory in Essex, change did come.
I also shared burning braziers with miners on cold mornings in the 1972 and 1974 miners’ strikes. I rejoiced when the 1974 strikes crippled Edward Heath’s Government and led him to be ousted as Tory Party leader.
A few years later I marched in support of women driven by their exploitation to strike at the Grunwick film processing laboratories in North London.
There were battles won but, long-term, an economic war was lost because, ultimately, an indifferent public moved on and began buying Toyotas and other foreign cars and using different forms of energy because they were cheaper and more reliable.
Then, as now, a few active, often permanent members of the union decided our course of action. We, the collective whole, the mass, were wheeled out to be used. Many of those union leaders were committed to advancing our cause. There may have been some wreckers out to make capitalism unworkable but back then most union activists just wanted to see an improvement in the conditions of working men and women.
Nonetheless, it was not a democratic system and striking was a crude tool. Throughout the Seventies, when I marched for and supported many causes I believed to be in favour of social equality, I was living in a trade union bubble in which we measured our success by the number of people on our protests.
We would see members of the public who looked confused or annoyed but it was only gradually that their indifference to our causes really registered. Over time, I also could not fail to notice that, despite our self-satis¬faction, nothing in real terms was changing. It was during the miners’ strike of 1984-5 that I turned away from strikes for good. I watched as, under Arthur Scargill’s messianic leadership, a union I had previously supported bullied its members into supporting action which led to the demise of the coal industry.
The movement was appallingly run and it proved that forcing a stand-off with the Government didn’t work. I realised that if I wanted to help people, voluntary work was a much more effective route.
The middle class has swelled to encompass the majority and we lead increasingly separate rather than community-based lives.
The Eighties taught us that, often, strikes have the opposite results from those they desire. The demise of the British car industry was another long-term consequence of what can happen when strikes backfire. Consumers knew they could not rely on British manufacturers and took their business elsewhere.
Now, it’s a different world from the days when striking was at its height. The notion of a huge working class united by a sense of exploitation no longer exists. The middle class has swelled to encompass the majority and we lead increasingly separate rather than community-based lives.
Yet if you were to believe the union leaders who have rallied their members to strike, nothing has changed at all. You would have thought that after Thatcher’s mauling of the unions in the Eighties they may have learned new tactics for achieving their ends, but it appears not.
here has been no movement towards a more democratic use of collective bargaining, just the same numbers of politically active members of unions determining the ground on which the majority of members will operate.
Their response to the financial crisis and a Tory Government they instinctively abhor is to fall back on the strike, which they still seem to believe is the only weapon in their armoury.
Now, though, those few, belligerent, ideologically driven individuals who are responsible for the strikes are not fighting to improve conditions, although they claim otherwise. Their actions are incredibly foolish and risky. It would be terrible, although not unfeasible, if last week’s teachers’ strike led the Department for Education to conclude that, actually, schools are overstaffed.
A few years ago I spoke at a trade union conference with union leaders and activists about training and education for their members. I travelled to branches to talk about how, through education, people could increase their job prospects and improve the lives of their families.
I was encouraged by the enthusiasm of union officials to invest in addressing the parlous level of education of their workers. It looked as if they may be prepared to help improve the social mobility of their members and share some of their advantages.
The union movement seemed to me to have gone through a transformation. It appeared to be becoming a true democratic movement for propagating the interests of its workers.
But now, looking at the recent wave of strikes, it seems that this progress was simply a false hope. Disappointingly, unionism has slipped back 30 years. The aim is political. It appears to be to take on this Government.
If the trade union movement wants to help its members, it should be telling them the truth, however grim. It does not matter who caused this present crisis. We are all in it together.
The public sector cannot be protected over and above the private sector in the current climate. If workers want to guarantee their jobs, they need to react economically rather than politically because the future, as never before, is uncertain."
John wrote an article for one of the newspapers at the weekend - a deeply personal and thoughtful article.
About the wisdom and purpose of strike action - and the politics of the current public sector pensions dispute.
Anyone who supported the original fight for equal pay in 1968 has my respect - so here's what John Bird had to say.
Union bosses are not acting in anyone's best interests
"When I see the banners, the marches and the determined faces of striking public-service workers, my heart sinks. Trade union folklore will tell you that you can win strikes, wring concessions out of reluctant employers and create solidarity.
But none of these ideas makes sense when applied to Britain’s public sector in today’s troubled economic climate.
We all have a vested interest in ensuring the health of our public sector. We are all, even the strikers themselves, the employers in question.
By encouraging their members to withdraw their labour, union bosses are not acting in anyone’s best interests. The unions’ attempts to ring-fence the public sector with promises of future security has, largely, not won sympathy and respect.
In fact, the unions risk demonstrating that the services they provide are not as crucial as they may assume and that the nation can do well enough without them. They are leading workers into a trap in which the likely outcome is not a better pension but the loss of their jobs.
As an idealistic young man, I joined the picket lines and marches for many different causes. The first one I got involved in was a one-day strike in 1968 for equal pay for women.
I was working for British Leyland as a drill operator and we marched in solidarity for the right of equality. Most of us were men, yet we marched for women because we believed that for equal work women should be entitled to equal pay.
The feeling was heady. The sense of solidarity and belonging was enormous, especially for a 21-year-old like me who came from prison and homelessness. The cause, we felt, was worthy. As a result of the protests – and others like them – including the famous strikes the same year by the women at the Dagenham Ford factory in Essex, change did come.
I also shared burning braziers with miners on cold mornings in the 1972 and 1974 miners’ strikes. I rejoiced when the 1974 strikes crippled Edward Heath’s Government and led him to be ousted as Tory Party leader.
A few years later I marched in support of women driven by their exploitation to strike at the Grunwick film processing laboratories in North London.
There were battles won but, long-term, an economic war was lost because, ultimately, an indifferent public moved on and began buying Toyotas and other foreign cars and using different forms of energy because they were cheaper and more reliable.
Then, as now, a few active, often permanent members of the union decided our course of action. We, the collective whole, the mass, were wheeled out to be used. Many of those union leaders were committed to advancing our cause. There may have been some wreckers out to make capitalism unworkable but back then most union activists just wanted to see an improvement in the conditions of working men and women.
Nonetheless, it was not a democratic system and striking was a crude tool. Throughout the Seventies, when I marched for and supported many causes I believed to be in favour of social equality, I was living in a trade union bubble in which we measured our success by the number of people on our protests.
We would see members of the public who looked confused or annoyed but it was only gradually that their indifference to our causes really registered. Over time, I also could not fail to notice that, despite our self-satis¬faction, nothing in real terms was changing. It was during the miners’ strike of 1984-5 that I turned away from strikes for good. I watched as, under Arthur Scargill’s messianic leadership, a union I had previously supported bullied its members into supporting action which led to the demise of the coal industry.
The movement was appallingly run and it proved that forcing a stand-off with the Government didn’t work. I realised that if I wanted to help people, voluntary work was a much more effective route.
The middle class has swelled to encompass the majority and we lead increasingly separate rather than community-based lives.
The Eighties taught us that, often, strikes have the opposite results from those they desire. The demise of the British car industry was another long-term consequence of what can happen when strikes backfire. Consumers knew they could not rely on British manufacturers and took their business elsewhere.
Now, it’s a different world from the days when striking was at its height. The notion of a huge working class united by a sense of exploitation no longer exists. The middle class has swelled to encompass the majority and we lead increasingly separate rather than community-based lives.
Yet if you were to believe the union leaders who have rallied their members to strike, nothing has changed at all. You would have thought that after Thatcher’s mauling of the unions in the Eighties they may have learned new tactics for achieving their ends, but it appears not.
here has been no movement towards a more democratic use of collective bargaining, just the same numbers of politically active members of unions determining the ground on which the majority of members will operate.
Their response to the financial crisis and a Tory Government they instinctively abhor is to fall back on the strike, which they still seem to believe is the only weapon in their armoury.
Now, though, those few, belligerent, ideologically driven individuals who are responsible for the strikes are not fighting to improve conditions, although they claim otherwise. Their actions are incredibly foolish and risky. It would be terrible, although not unfeasible, if last week’s teachers’ strike led the Department for Education to conclude that, actually, schools are overstaffed.
A few years ago I spoke at a trade union conference with union leaders and activists about training and education for their members. I travelled to branches to talk about how, through education, people could increase their job prospects and improve the lives of their families.
I was encouraged by the enthusiasm of union officials to invest in addressing the parlous level of education of their workers. It looked as if they may be prepared to help improve the social mobility of their members and share some of their advantages.
The union movement seemed to me to have gone through a transformation. It appeared to be becoming a true democratic movement for propagating the interests of its workers.
But now, looking at the recent wave of strikes, it seems that this progress was simply a false hope. Disappointingly, unionism has slipped back 30 years. The aim is political. It appears to be to take on this Government.
If the trade union movement wants to help its members, it should be telling them the truth, however grim. It does not matter who caused this present crisis. We are all in it together.
The public sector cannot be protected over and above the private sector in the current climate. If workers want to guarantee their jobs, they need to react economically rather than politically because the future, as never before, is uncertain."
