No matter how hard I tried I couldn't find the Wall Street Journal's account of the massive strike of public sector workers in Britain that took place yesterday. By most accounts some two million workers struck in defense of pensions and against the austerity measures being introduced by the government to pay for the crisis of their system and the sumptuous feast the financial sector has had over the past period. In the US which has the most "unfree" a word the capitalist media likes to throw around here when talking about the rest of the world such news is not the best news. But I eventually found a 21/2 by 1 inch column on page 15.
My local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle has a slightly longer article on page 8, the big news being the killing of a cop in Vallejo who was chasing a robbery suspect. A huge picture with Marines, rifles pointing skyward dominates the front page with a story about what a good family man the policeman was. No one wishes death on any family but the reason for such coverage has everything to do with propaganda about the state, its role and its forces as opposed to the misery such an act brings to a family of human beings. People are shot, kicked out of their homes, lose their jobs, raped in prison and mutilated daily in these United States and if they organize to resist this state sponsored terrorism the cops will be there to drive them back and defend the system that perpetuates this terrorism. Just yesterday we were told of the increase in homeless children across the bay in San Francisco, like the famines of Africa, such a situation is market driven, not an act of nature.
The strike in Britain yesterday showed the power workers have when we take a day off work; somewhat more threatening to the 1% than camping out at city hall. In Scotland, less than two percent of schools remained open while as many as 85% of schools were shut down or severely affected by the strike in England, Wales and Northern Ireland according to reports. Sky News reported that the prime minister's press secretary was among a small number of “volunteers” at Heathrow Airport helping out on border control. There is major public support for the strikers. Even non emergency surgeries were cancelled.
Below is a video response from a talk show host in Britain that has caused a bit of a stir and apparently brought forth an apology. But like here in the US, the response by the class that owns the media and all forms of communication will be to blame relatively higher paid workers with pensions for the crisis and turn the low waged, less fortunate workers who have no pensions to talk of against the public sector.
And like the USA, this is made easier by the failure of the Union hierarchy to expand on such benefits and working conditions to the rest of the population. I have been on many informational picket lines like those during the 2003 grocery workers' strike where the strategy of the Labor hierarchy has been appeals to shoppers not to shop or boycott a store whose branches in the south were being struck. "Don't shop, they're taking way our benefits", workers were instructed to say. "What benefits?" many shoppers asked, "I don't have any benefits." The workers had no answer for this, they were simply being used by the officialdom as troops to pressure shoppers not boycott. Apart from that, members of the same Union but a different local were inside stocking the shelves which encourages the young workers that its OK to work behind a picket line and the obvious question from some of the shoppers that went in, "You're asking me not to cross and your own Union brothers and sisters are crossing to go to work?"
This is a constant danger as if the problems people face are not resolved or a united generalized movement built to drive back the offensive of the bankers and wasters that have caused the crisis, the possibility of divisions opening up within sections of the working class increases. All in all though, it seems from afar that the strike was a major success and important lessons will be learned from the struggle, not least, defending the movement against the attempts of the Labor hierarchy to keep it within the boundaries acceptable to capital and their precious market. Here is the short clip from the UK. I don't know this guy maybe he's their equivalent of Bill O'Reilly.
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