UK "Winter of Discontent"

I think it's unlikely there'll be any real co-ordinated action by the unions - at the very, very most a single 24-hour strike. Unison, the CWU, Unite - all their leadership have very close relationships with the Labour Party and will go out of their way to avoid too much embarrassment for Brown.

People are very, very pissed off though and it's more likely than it has been in the UK at any point in the past ten years or so I reckon. There's still a chance (although increasingly small unless there's a revolt by the CWU membership) that we'll see significant strikes in the post office, the civil service (PCS union) has been increasingly militant the past few years as well.

It is more than about just pay - postal service is facing major, major casualisation - 20-ish "strings" attached to the pay (cut) offer that would see the job changed beyond recognition.

http://libcom.org/forums/organise/uk-public-sector-pay-dispute-nurses-local-gov-civil-service-post-office-etc

You know this thread is about Winter 2007 right? Although that statement may well be just as applicable this time 'round.

I don't think co-ordinated action by the unions even matters at all - it'll be a 24 hour strike at most, might even simply provide a pressure valve which prevents more efffective action spilling over in its absence.

Either way I need to read up on the 78/79 in the UK, there's not much out there to read though

There's no doubt of a growing militantcy in the class on the back of the growing need of the bourgeoisie to press home its attacks. The unions are already gearing up their various divisive practices in order to confront this. As part of the ICC's involvement in the strikes of 79, I was in the Midlands where about 20,000 steel workers from Scotland and the North came on a massive flying picket. The coordinated action of the steel union, like the coordinated actions of the other unions were to attempt to stop the struggles united, isolate and divert their "own" workers away from any sort of solidarity. The steel unions actually favoured the setting up of "rank and file" committees in order to impose the union's will on the strikers. Once the union posters appeared everywhere, with the slogan "Solidarity!", the strike had been effectively isolated and beaten.

BM Blob's account