A Fantastic Victory for Total Strikers
Today, words like ‘bravery’ and ‘heroism’ do not mean what they once did. A cabinet minister is brave if he or she says something mildly off-message, even at the grand risk of demotion to a £63k back bench role. A fleet street journalist is brave if they do their job and say something that challenges established patterns of thought. Meanwhile Boris Johnson recently told us we were ‘heroes’ for taking the bus or the overground to work when the tube drivers struck.
Yet in the past two weeks, workers at Lindsey oil refinery have a exhibited a kind of heroism and bravery that we as citizens really can aspire to. When the bosses decided to get rid of 51 ‘unruly’ workers, during the depth of the recession, remaining employees could have sat tight, and hoped that the next blow of the axe would not fall on them. Yet their response was bold and immediate. 670 workers walked out in an unprotected wildcat strike, in support of their sacked colleagues. When Total sacked all 670 workers and told them to reapply for their jobs – with a promise to behave themselves - those who had walked out were facing a genuinely dire threat. As things stand jobseekers outnumber vacancies by about 5:1 and getting thrown out of work – not least for striking – could be potentially life ruining. It is easy to imagine that some might have been tempted simply to save their own skin.
Yet that is not what they did. Instead they turned out to burn the letters telling them to reapply for their jobs, and to press their demands once more. Total perhaps did not expect such a show of solidarity. Over the coming days thousands of construction workers struck in solidarity – while, to the surprise of some, the union leadership backed the workers. Today it is reported that Total have agreed to rehire all of the wildcat strikers while it is understood that the 51 workers – whose redundancies fuelled the dispute – will be rehired. By pulling together is such adverse circumstances they have struck a blow for us all.
