Andrew Wright for WPB TU Group
Whichever way the ballot goes over whether to accept Network Rail’s belated ‘offer’ to end the long period of industrial action, the victory will belong deservedly to the members of the RMT. This dispute has been unnecessarily prolonged by Network Rail who are responsible for the suffering faced by striking workers and the general public in their attempt to make an example of the RMT.
It takes enormous courage and self-sacrifice for workers to take strike action in the first place. They know the bulk of Britain’s media outlets are on the side of the governing Conservative Party whenever strike action is merely a rumour, let alone an actual event.
The attitude of the Conservative Government is always a mendacious pose of “non-intervention” in a strike situation but we know the boss class and the Conservative Party are symbiotically entwined.
For the Government and its capitalist business acolytes, their key aim is attritional. If a trade union can’t be disabled through the courts, for whatever reason, the dispute is simply allowed to carry on until a union’s strike fund runs out. The ultimate aim is always trade union surrender.
The one miscalculation the Government has made this time round is the depth of overwhelming public support all striking workers have been receiving. Despite all the usual concerted efforts of ruling class propaganda to discredit the workers and their respective union, the morale of unionised workers is only gaining pace.
It is abundantly clear to every striking worker in this country whose side the Labour leadership has been on since the industrial disputes began. It is also abundantly clear to every trade union. This may well rebound, as it deserves to, on ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’ come general election time.