Groucho Marxism

A general strike occurs when workers from different unions and sectors of society take industrial action together, for a purpose, with a political motive. The only general strike in British history occurred a hundred years ago, in 1926. The conditions for a general strike had been building for years before it finally erupted. In 1912, a national miners strike comprising around a million workers secured a minimum wage after 37 days of action. In 1919, the miners again went on strike again, putting state ownership at the top of their list of demands, which also called for a 6 hour working day and 30% pay rise. In 1921, miners faced with pay cuts of up to 50% as a result of rising unemployment, which had surged to around 23% (for reference, the current unemployment rate in the UK is around 5%).

As a result of this rising unemployment, conditions for the working class in the early 1920s were dire. In response, the unions started coordinating strike activity. They achieved a success in 1925 when the government capitulated and offered an improved pay deal for miners after the unions triggered a national embargo on coal movements. The Labour party had been constantly trying to distance itself from communism and the far left, and the Labour party leader, Ramsay McDonald, accused the Stanley Baldwin, the Tory prime minster, of “siding with the wildest of Bolsheviks.” Nonetheless, this success emboldened the unions and the following year they triggered a general strike, which effectively brought the country to a halt. Some 1.7 million workers joined the strike in total.

Although there was some violence with the police, the strike itself was largely peaceful, and morale amongst the striking workers was strong. The leaders of the unions, however, viewed things differently. They thought the longer the strike went on, the more their leadership would be undermined, and the whole trade union movement in Britain along with it. The High Court had declared the strike illegal, and union leaders were worried about sanctions and the threat of arrest. Workers rejected options to end the strike, but the union leaders went behind their backs and gave in to the government, betraying everyone who had gone out on the picket line. As a result of this capitulation the strike only lasted for 8 days in total.

The general strike demonstrated how workers across all unions and sectors of society can work together in solidarity, and that we can disable the country if we do. Could something similar happen today? Although we’ve only ever had one general strike in Britain, there are lots of other countries that have had them more often. One reason we haven’t had a general strike in this country since 1926 is that we have laws in place which limit the ways in which unions can organize strikes. Specifically, when organizing industrial action, a formal ballot must be conducted by post (not online), 50% of the membership balloted must vote, and the action must be limited to specific disputes. These rules effectively make organizing general strike impossible without going outside the law.

However, that is not to say we should operate within the law. It must be remembered that laws do not fall from the sky: they are put in place by the ruling class, usually to protect the ruling class. This means that some laws are meant to be broken. As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelette with out breaking a few eggs. The main impediment to organizing another a general strike in Britain is not the fact that such action would be illegal; it’s the fact that union leaders don’t want to do it. Most union leaders in this country are small-c conservative and view themselves as a mediator between workers and bosses rather than as an agent of revolution. They are generally quite happy to work within confines of the existing system and have no intention of trying to change it.

This raises a question that I have grappling with recently, namely: whose side are the trade unions really on?! As the general strike demonstrated, when push comes to shove union leaders always seem to side with the ruling class over workers. We have seen this playing out again recently with unions refusing to disaffiliate from the Labour party, against the wishes of their members. However that doesn’t mean workers should abandon the trade union movement, which is the only mass workers’ movement we have. Rather, the working class needs to take control of the unions and ensure that they actually stand up for their members. That is the only realistic route to organizing another general strike and genuinely challenging the ruling class.