UK Uncut

The recent decision by Starbucks to attack its workers’ conditions (cutting paid lunch breaks, sick pay and other work benefits) in response to public pressure to pay its tax bill – public pressure partly generated by direct action organisations like UK Uncut – has highlighted ongoing concerns over the effectiveness of “Tax justice” campaigns and their relationship to class struggle organisation.

The recent furore surrounding Starbucks has once again pushed the issue of tax dodging and its relation to austerity into the limelight. But it has also brought into sharp focus the problem with calls to “pay your tax” being divorced from questions of class struggle.

On the back of a demonstration at Sainsbury's headquarters, Pay Up has recently emerged as the latest UK Uncut-style activist campaign. Its aim is to highlight the problem of "in work poverty" and push for a living wage - starting with Sainsbury's. As someone whose first experience of workplace struggle was in Sainsbury's, this immediately caught my attention. So I decided to have a closer look at the campaign, and its pitfalls.

Arrests of those involved in anti-cuts campaigns, as well as the brutality of the police on recent demonstrations has grabbed the attention of the press. The behaviour of the police has been widely condemned by the left, some of whom accuse them of overstepping the mark with “political policing”. But we should not be surprised by the actions of the police, this is them doing their job and doing it well.