The war against our class is being waged relentlessly and now officially endorsed by the government’s bankers, the Bank of England. According to the bank’s new governor Andrew Bailey, organised workers should not flex their collective muscle against inflation and poverty wages because if they win, it will be at the expense of those less organised without muscle.
For this we read ‘if you fight against our profits and austerity, we will punish your elderly, you’re sick, your children and your poor.’ As we write, pretty well every sector of transport is preparing to strike, with the government already calling those who simply refuse overtime, of taking illegal industrial action.
The government knows the stakes are high but while it accuses workers of harming the public, the public (nurses, posties, teachers, refinery workers, firefighters and the mass of other producers) look on in solidarity and hope. Imaging what winning might look like is turning this into a summer of solidarity!
A distinct set of circumstances created by capital is coming together at the same time and is, out of necessity, not just affecting everyone but unifying their demands. This hasn’t happened since the ‘70s with Callaghan’s Labour government pay-freeze policy. It’s not us harking back to the 70s, it’s those in power. Their wars and their inflationary attack on wages have put us all in the same boat and they wonder why people are beginning to row together.
Assuming that fuel calculation is modestly right, all workers, if we don’t win, will watch our exploitation grow as our standard of living rolls back.
This is life or death for those of us without work, but even those of us on minimum or ‘living wage’ will not earn enough in one day to meet our basic needs with 20% inflation for lowest earners on heating, cooking and hot water. We will have to work one day a week solely to not starve or freeze! What else has to be met in a debt led, rental economy with spiraling inflation to satisfy them?
Labour, our apparent ‘legal’ alternative, has shown its true colours sacrificing our struggles for their quest for power through respectability. “We are not a party of a protest but a party of government” they proudly proclaim. We hear you, we all hear you, those without work, those on poverty wages, we the public, inconvenienced by our need to struggle against you as well as the Tories.
Demands are shaping on a collective scale as crisis continues to affect us all. The bosses intend to win, but we intend to win too and what they call inconvenience, we recognise as our common struggle. Our class IS bringing solidarity to a summer of action and discontent.
AnarCom Network 