I have been in conversations where people have insisted marching and kicking up a fuss online is useless and we need to strike as this is the only thing that will ‘make them take notice’, this has struck me as, and I am rather loathe to say this, a bit old fashioned.
I am a great supporter of unions and the right to strike and I hope people strike like hell as a result of these spending cuts, but I’d like to mention one problem with it all.
I can’t strike.
Like many people who will be hit hardest by the ConDem cuts, I don’t work. I have no union. I cannot take this course of action. Hence I can’t help feeling that these slightly 80s sounding calls to mass strike action are not perhaps the best course of action when the majority of those who will be hit hardest are those who cannot take such action. The world has changed since the miners; yet it seems the mindset of many on the left has not. More people rely on low security jobs with no union representation, many people have no job (the wonder of the private sector having failed to provide jobs that were lost when the mines, docks and factories were decimated) . We have no community like the miners or dockers, we are a disparate bunch of those in crummy jobs on temporary contracts, people who can be replaced in a millisecond, people who have no job to strike from and whose entitlement to what paltry benefits we can gain is being eroded more every day and we are being forced through ever more ridiculous hoops. If we stop, if we down our invisible tools, who do we have behind us? Who do we have to offer us support? We have no Bob Crow to go on Have I Got News For You for us.
So while I support strike action I cannot help but wonder, what about those of us who can’t strike? Those of us who have no community of a union or fellow workers to support us, what do we do? We are likely to be hit harder by these cuts and we have fewer options for protest and direct action (something which is, I am sure, a deliberate and sickening targeting of those least able to fight back).
So I implore those calling for strikes to think about those of us who can’t strike, what can you do to help? Don’t chide us for protesting, shouting, taking over twitter and blogging as ineffectual and industrial action as the only way for people to sit up and take notice. The option of industrial action is a privilege that many do not have, we have to wave banners, to shout, to tweet, to do every tiny last thing we possibly can so someone will pay us some attention. I hate to say it but: your privilege is showing.
We are the invisible casualties of this war on cuts, we have no mass job losses, no high profile industrial disputes. We have no unions to speak up for us, we cannot call a strike, we cannot walk out, we have no support network, we have no easy access to a media that will listen to us. So while I support industrial action I wish to reieterate that those who are going to be affected most by these cuts are likely to be those who cannot strike.
We are the disabled, the ill, the unemployed, people on low wages in insecure jobs, the elderly, children, asylum seekers and many more.
Just two links which highlight this problem of ‘the voiceless’ being targeted, in this case the disabled , those with long term illnesses and refugee women:
One Month Before Heartbreak – highlighting the reforms on disability benefits and how they will ruin many peoples lives all whilst saving about 2 pence.
Funding Cuts Threaten English lessons – How funding cuts will isolate many and ironically make them less able to work.
Discussion
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