N30 strike report - Huddersfield

Along with thousands of others, I was up nice and early last Wednesday to show my support for the direct action of public sector workers on N30. Publicly, the dispute was brought about by the government's attempt to steal the pension contributions made by public sector workers, along with other pension changes which would mean that these workers would have to work longer, for less pay. Basically, these people have been paying for a service and both parties have agreed to this, then the government walks in and refuses to hold up their end of the bargin after they've taken the cash. If anyone else tried to pull this stunt, they'd call it fraud. This alone would be more than enough reason to refuse to hold up the workers' end of the employment "bargin", however, the general sentiment seemed to be that public sector workers have already given too much ground over to the government and now a line in the sand had to be drawn, before things got even worse.

Huddersfield was well represented in the strike. I myself, was at a Unison picket line at Civic 3 along with several other volunteers from Huddersfield Anarchist League, to show our solidarity with these people as members of the public, service users and private sector workers. We were clear to make sure that we were not "hijacking" their action and I was happy to tell these workers that, "if my private-sector co-workers had been as militant as this, I'd still have a job and probably good pay and conditions to boot!".  That was probably was just my own fears about this manufactured "war" between public and private sector workers that the media is trying to push. Regardless, we were made to feel very welcome there.

The picket was well manned and morale was very good. We had music being provided by a boombox mounted to a baby's pram (don't worry, the baby is now in her late teens!) to keep our spirits up and a long chorus of car horns tooting in support. The vast majority of workers at Civic 3 withheld their labour from their abusers, with the majority of scabs being made up by a few managers and scabs that had been bussed in from elsewhere. Workers even came to up the picket line to join the union on the spot, rather than go work for the bosses.


After the union members were sure that any scabs knew exactly what they were doing to their co-workers, I made my way to the Methodist Mission, where the striking teachers were having a rally. I won't go into everything that was said there, but it was it was good to see the members of the head teacher's union and other teachers' unions well known for lack of militancy standing up and saying that enough was enough. It was a very tame response compared to what I'm used to, but for these union members this was actually a big step in the right direction. You really can push some people too far it seems.

The speeches went on a wee bit long as the teachers had to be herded to St George's square for the main rally and march there. On our way in we spotted 8 uniformed coppers spread out and watching us all very carefully just in case there was a spontaneous outbreak of democracy that needed suppressing. We spent a little time forming ourselves up into ranks to make our march and off we went around Huddersfield town centre for a little stroll among other Huddersfield residents. The response was great. Lots of people cheering for us and the solidarity toots of car horns returned quickly, despite no doubt being delayed by 2,000 union members and supporters clogging the streets.

The longer we marched, the more the confidence of the marchers grew and within minutes even the newest union member was chanting along with the veterans. A leap too far perhaps was the attempt to divert the march to the council's buildings, where the scabs were sweating away for the benefit of the boss and make sure that they could hear how many of us were out here and exactly what we thought about their attempts to sabotage these brave peoples' defence. A few union members took to the steps and a few of us die-hard anarchists and socialists followed them and began chanting "I'd rather be a picket than a scab". This did seem to spark some indecision amongst the Unite ranks who were just behind us, but the bureaucrats eventually stepped in to ensure that the march remained obedient and within the boundaries set out by our enemies. Yes, we were a little frustrated, but we'd already seen so much in one day already of people standing up for themselves. "Baby steps, sister Kay", I told myself. Maybe after some more time to stew on it, without the bureaucrats manipulating them, our people will come to the same conclusion as those other union members who took to the steps of the council building. Time will tell.

After this there really wasn't that much to report. We assembled at St George's square again, a good distance away from the West Yorkshire Police Unison branch. Everything was on rails by this point with nothing left but to roll out all the boring lot who were very reluctant to give any answers to the issues, in a situation where snuggling up to the boss has been proved to go so disastrously wrong. There was one speaker worth mentioning though and he deserves half an article of his own...


Overall, it was the biggest union action in Huddersfield in 26 years according to a Unison steward at the council. 2 million were on strike nationwide, with millions more in solidarity with them. Not a "damp squid" and certainly not a force that's wise to be threatening with firing squad.

Bloody hell. I think folk might actually be waking up and we can get this whole mess sorted at last!