Unity! chainmakers 2018

MIDLANDSCOMMUNISTSCPB

MIDLANDSCPB

midlands@communist-party.org.uk

July 2018

Workers of all lands, unite!

Midlands

Remember the 1910 Chainmakers’ Strike EXPLOITATION THEN ANDREW MAYBURY NY IMPROvEMENTS In pay and working conditions seen in the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century were not gained by the women chainmakers in Cradley Heath. Women and young girls were manufacturing “small” chains, working for extremely low pay and for more than 50 hours a week, in tiny workshops in what was effectively sweated labour. When any pressure was applied to improve the conditions for these workers, the employers responded with threats of mechanisation to get rid of the jobs altogether.

In 1907 the association of chainmakers that had been formed by the women themselves two years earlier, entered the National Federation of

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Women Workers (NFWW), an alliance of working class women’s trade unions and reformist women’s groups.

The 1909 Trade Boards Act fixed minimum wages particularly in areas where they were extremely low in comparison with other jobs.

Chainmaking was one of these areas with a new rate of 2 ½ d per hour for a 55 hour week, nearly twice the existing rate. Even at this low level the employers made it clear they would not pay any more, some even tricking the women into signing a waiver.

Around 850 went on strike or were locked out, thus starting a 10 week action, refusing to accept the refusal of the employers to pay. The most prominent name in this dispute has been Mary Macarthur, leader of the NFWW. Whilst Mary Macarthur certainly played a prominent role in the dispute, someone often overlooked in accounts is Julia varley. Julia, unlike Mary, had

started working at the age of 13 in a Bradford woollen mill. Julia was responsible for the hard work of keeping the women together and retaining the support of male trade unionists.

Around 800 strikers were paid strike pay and this was certainly one of the reasons why within a month 60% of employers had backed down and agreed to pay the minimum rate. By the eighth week of the dispute, the employers totally climbed down and agreed the minimum rate.

Throughout the dispute the women had refused to compromise and a total victory was won.

Despite the protestations of the employers not a single one went out of business as a result of the minimum wages, no jobs were lost and the trade did not move abroad.

This was a victory for working class solidarity.

While individual names are remembered, this was a victory for the nameless women, the Cradley Heath Chainmakers themselves! H

TRADE UNION ORGANISERS AND YOUNG WORKERS in the zero hours contract, agency and casualised work sector packed the Marx Library for the Communist Party/Young Communist League day school in May. John Hendy QC led on a Manifesto for Labour Law, which calls for a Ministry for Labour and a new set of rights for workers especially aimed at pinning down gangmasters and ending bogus self employment.

RMT train driver Alex Gordon, opened on alternative ways of structuring employment and a political and economic programme to put the interests of workers first. Public service union officer Tony Conway (who convenes the party’s anti racist and anti fascist commission) launched a new pamphlet Workers of All Lands - a labour movement policy on migration, labour and refugees.

In the afternoon it started to get tough! with a mix of training and policy sessions led by union organisers active in the sector.

Elly Baker led on recruiting and organising, Rhys McCarthy on organising and winning recognition and rights at work, Pierre Marshall led a youthful and combative session on using social media to organise unions and Ann Field on running effective meetings and union organisation.

Daragh O’Neill for the YCL, winner of a TUC award for organising, reported on the Sheffield needs a pay rise campaign.

A lively final session decided to establish an online network to support those attending the school when organising and produce a pamphlet on the theme of the day for distribution to delegates at the 150th anniversary TUC in Manchester in September.

A series of video shorts are also being prepared to launch at the same time, covering organising, workers rights and an economic programme for the people. H INSECURE WORK The Communist Party has backed the four-point plan proposed by Communication Workers’ leader Dave Ward which was outlined in the Morning Star on 12 May. The plan calls for a common bargaining agenda for unions to tackle insecure work.

This will be backed up with a labour movement summit to agree a charter of cooperation for organising non-union workers and a manifesto of policies that would provide a ‘new deal’ for workers.

Dave Ward called for this year’s TUC conference to agree a day of action and other initatives in 2019. H

Union organisation is the key to fighting exploitation EXPOLITATION NOW

conditions. However, this is not the experience for casual staff: “Working conditions were dangerous, LEE BOOkER without any consideration towards the health and safety of temporary employees. Whilst HETHER YOU are considered a loading a lorry with cages of parcels, an accident self-employed “freelancer”, an agency staffer to fill in busy periods, occurred where a cage fell forward; the weight of the metal hit my shin, gashing it open and or on a fixed term contract, your options in causing significant bruising and swelling. My today’s workplace are often limited. Work options were to take a 5 minute break and structures are anti-worker, undermining collective bargaining and keeping wages low. So return to work, or leave the site, losing any further work (and pay) in the process. There many jobs are now organised in this way; not only harmful for the workers involved, but also was no medical assessment nor an injury book to record the incident. damaging for other colleagues. Can an Another time I was asked to use a spray can employee feel they can take a stand against their employer, in defence of their rights, if the to mark out sorting bays. Usually such a job would be undertaken with a mask, given the company has an army of freelancers they can toxic ingredients in the paint, but no such replace them with? protection was provided. Being in a position “8 hour shifts with a 15 minute break, no where I had been out of work for some time, overtime rates, no health and safety.” and unaware of my rights as a worker, I was too Royal Mail have a strongly unionised afraid to challenge management over this and workforce, with good work place terms and

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simply had to get on with the task, regardless of the consequences.”

Workplace disputes, including racially aggravated fights, were not properly handled, with no care from management to reconcile the issues, people were simply expected to get back to work and put up with it. “ Another individual worked for a distribution warehouse, and saw a strong anti-union culture encouraged by the company.

"I worked at Amazon when the BBC Panorama documentary “Behind the Click” aired. Soon after, the site’s management held a presentation during our shift, in which they addressed the issue of the documentary and incidents where union reps had approached workers. The documentary was dismissed as “jealousy”, and unions were painted as essentially profiteers and nothing more, going on to discourage us from joining a union, and insist that any issues be taken up directly with management (“you have the choice to join a

union, but most importantly, you have the choice not to join a union”). Most of us were agency workers on temporary contracts, a hard enough demographic to organise anyway."

It is no surprise that Amazon’s treatment of its workforce is increasingly making the news, with accusations of psychological warfare, and the number of times ambulances have been called to attend to exhausted, injured and ill employees.

“These jobs can be damaging to a person’s mental health. In many cases you are unable to plan your future as you do not know how long the work will last for in many of these jobs and you are expected to work long hours for minimum wage.”

Union organisation within newly emerging workforces is as important today as it was in 1910, and finding new ways to engage in this struggle in 21st century British working conditions isn’t easy, but it must be done. H

Midlands EXTRA produced for the Chainmakers Festival by the Midlands District Committee of the Communist Party Edited by Annie Banham

s Marx’s Das Kapital and capitalism today

by Robert Griffiths Illustrated £8 €9 (plus £2 €2.5 pp)

The real Jessie Eden PIONEERING WOMAN GRAHAM STEvENSON ESSIE EDEN, the fictional character in the BBC drama Peaky Blinders, was based on a real life pioneer of mass women’s trades unionism.

During the 1926 general strike she was a shop steward at the Lucas factory, where she hand-filed shock absorbers. very few of the 10,000 women were then in a union but her father was on strike and her mother hung a red flag from their house.

Jessie’s renowned fearlessness was shown when, in the Bull Ring, a policeman put his hands on her arm, the crowd howled: “Hey, leave her alone”, and gently moved her away from the police.

In January 1931, Jessie (pictured above) successfully led the non-unionised women at the Lucas plant out on strike for a whole week.

Electrical engineering was not only reliant upon women, it was also a youth industry, with more than half of workers being under 21.

The Lucas strike triggered a mass movement towards unionisation amongst women and young workers in the newer light industries of the English Midlands, which lay the basis for the big trade union membership in major plants over the next four decades. Having joined the Communist Party, she inspired many others to the same route.

It all started when Jessie saw someone standing behind her when she was working and discovered that she was being timed. As the quickest worker, management aimed to use her as the standard by which all women would be judged. They would then speed up the processes and, if the other women could not keep up, they would lose their jobs. The women had already been timed visiting the loo, so this was the final straw.

Speed-up had already caused some to collapse on the job. They finished shifts like “wooden women”, so tired they were fit for nothing.

The Daily Worker splashed victory on 29 January 1932. Communists who had encouraged Jessie were raised on the shoulders of the women at a lunch time meeting. So jubilant were the women that all work stopped again – just out of excitement - and they were let home early, singing their hearts out as they went.

A few years later Jessie was victimised during redundancies but her union, the T&G, helped her out and she was awarded a gold medal of honour.

Jessie later became involved in the 1939 Birmingham rent strike, when 90% of the city’s tenants withheld their rents for ten weeks against repeated raids by bailiffs. Jessie held the women together, bringing 8,000 of them on one march to the council.

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What would Jessie Eden say to young workers today?

H Trust your instincts - if it feels wrong, it probably is.

H Find your voice. There's no need to shout, or to be a great orator, but speak to and listen to others, share your experiences and find some common ground.

H Recognise your right to be treated with dignity.

H Recognise your own strengths and abilities.

H Be brave. Be proud. Be persistent.

H Collective actions can change bad situations H.

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Sweated labour and the gig economy 1910-2018 ANNIE BANHAM HIS YEAR we celebrate 100 years since a group of women were given the vote, and 150 years since the birth of the TUC. We can marvel at how far we have come since 1910, when Women Chainmakers in the Black Country downed their hammers and stood up for their right to earn a living wage. But recent headlines have highlighted parallels between the working conditions of the chain-makers in 19th Century, and their young contemporaries in today’s workplaces.

In Cradley Heath in 1910, the women chainmakers were led by the founder of the National Federation of Women Workers, Mary Macarthur, in a ten week strike, which successfully established the right to a minimum wage.

On May 1 2018, numerous trade union members and supporters participated in a national strike of McDonald’s workers, for under-25s to be included in the minimum £10 an hour wage, fixed-hours contracts and union recognition.

Both strikes occurred within a climate of increasing unrest, when workers, buoyed by international reactions to capitalist failings, gathered strength from collective action and organisation, following years of fragmented workforces and exploitative working conditions.

In 1910, the work of the Chainmakers was classed as ““sweated labour”, poorly organised and badly paid. More recently, there has been an increasing casualisation of large parts of our economy, which has become known as the Gig Economy. Increasingly, young workers are being channelled into zero hour contracts, "selfemployment", transient jobs and deprivation.

Not far removed from the conditions endured in 1910, but with the added experiences of alienation and lack of community. The old

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manufacturing industries have been asset stripped, the high street has closed its doors in favour of online shopping, and the sweatshops producing goods have moved off to distant communities in Bangladesh and China.

Workers are now expected to join online platforms to find work, or to travel miles to factories and distribution centres, with no guarantee of employment. The owners of the companies have increased their distance from the workforce, with the fiction that we are all now contributors and consumers in a global market: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi firm, owns no cars. Facebook, the world’s most popular media company, creates no content. Alibaba, the world’s most valuable retailer, carries no stock.

And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no property.”(Comrade in Peterborough).

In recent months we have witnessed a groundswell in support for union action, as younger workers realise their collective strength.

Actions around onerous and exploitative contracts, demands for a minimum wage, health and safety, employment status, and the misappropriation of tips for staff have begun to proliferate in the service industries. “After the first McDonald’s strike last September, things started to change… people started to show interest because for the first time they were seeing people just like them fighting against the exact same issues that they have — and winning.

When we start to use our collective power in our hundreds and thousands and millions we will be unstoppable,” Lauren McCourt, a 23-yearold McStriker.

As the public sector has been dismantled, and younger workers channelled into the private sector and agency work, the old “public-private” antagonism is showing signs of waning. TGI Fridays, Deliveroo, Uber, and Pimlico Plumbers are all seeing legal challenges and strike actions.

We are already seeing some welcome (albeit

limited) successes; Uber has announced it will provide sickness pay, compensation for injury, maternity pay, and bereavement pay for drivers, as well as delivery staff at Uber Eats. The Supreme Court has recently upheld a ruling that a Pimlico Plumbers engineer was a worker and not a contractor. Deliveroo workers have won the right to challenge their status as “selfemployed”. And TGI Fridays staff are holding regular walkouts after being given two days’ notice before being stripped of 40% of their tips, with some staff losing £250 a month.

In its 150th year, the TUC must adapt to multi-faceted working experiences – agency workers, home workers, part time, short term, temporary, zero-hour contracts. The large factory floor, and the staff canteen have largely been replaced by sterile and divisive environments. Unions need to recognise that change can only take place by listening to and supporting the concerns of workers in new and challenging environments The Institute of Employment Rights has recommended a universal status of 'worker', which provides all people in employment with access to full rights from day one, and the reinstatement of sectorial collective bargaining, so that trade unions and employers' associations can negotiate minimum pay and conditions for all people working within an industry, regardless of whether they are a casual worker or a permanent employee.

McStriker Lauren McCourt sends out a positive call to other workers in the gig economy: “I hope they see what we’re doing and get inspired to do the same, because when we stand together and use our strength in numbers, we will always have more power than those who mistreat and exploit us. That’s when we will win — when we stop accepting less than what we deserve and we stop waiting around hoping that things will get better on their own.” H

s State Monopoly Capitalism

by Gretchen Binus, Beate Landefeld and Andreas Wehr.

Introduction by Jonathan White The 2007/8 worldwide banking collapse exposed – to a new generation – the cyclical nature of modern capitalism’s enduring crisis. With the collapse in bank confidence came the crisis of confidence in modern capitalism itself, and thus a resurgence of interest in Marxism. £4.95 www.manifestopress.org.uk

s The EU, Brexit and class politics Which way for the labour movement?

by Robert Griffiths £2

THIRD EDITION

s Women & Class

by Mary Davis has become the standard text for the labour movement’s engagement with the issues. £2

‘We are the lions.Mr. Manager’ JAYABEN DESAI ANNIE BANHAM Townsend Productions recent sell out success ‘We Are the Lions, Mr. Manager!’ tells the story of Jayaben Desai, the inspirational leader of the 1976-78 Grunwick Film Processing Factory Strike.

Leaving east Africa in 1967 to start a new life in London, Jayaben finds herself working in draconian conditions in Grunwick, with the mainly female, South Asian workforce, browbeaten into sweatshop practices, compulsory overtime and overt bullying from management.

Eventually she finds her immediate boss oversteps his authority once too often, and leads the workers into an iconic battle, highlighting the violent tactics of the Police Special Patrol Group on the picket line, and gathering mass support nationally.

The dispute ended in failure – the TUC and ACAS withdrew their support, leaving the 137 strikers without jobs, and the management refusing to recognise union membership at the plant. But the legacy of the strike is one of hope; of how one determined woman could take on the might of both the corporate bullies and the establishment, and set in motion a challenge to stereotypes of Asian women and confrontation of racism in the workplace. H

Jeremy Corbyn “The Morning Star is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media” £1 weekdays, £1.50 at weekends.

From newsagents or online at www.morningstaronline.co.uk

s Workers of all lands, unite! sets out a labour movement policy on migration, labour and refugees. £2 www.communist-party.org.uk

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