student scabs

[free spirit]

Grunwick.

free spirit - maybe you should offer your promotional skills to the Liverpool CWU? I certainly would have no idea how to contact the thousands of students in the city effectively, especially if I didn't realise until then that RM were going to take them on to blackleg. They might have used a different agency with mainly Eastern European workers for all they knew.

lol - maybe if I was in that city I would.

I'm thinking it wouldn't be hard now to find out where the pick up point is, and send some people down there to leaflet the temps.

 

[free spirit]

But how would that change your attitude to them is what i'm asking.

For one thing it'd help me to understand from the strikers point of view what it is they're striking about. For another it'd build confidence that if I did decide to refuse to cross the picket line, and tried to persuade more people to join me then there'd be some chance of getting support in this, and it'd not just be me effectively resigning on principle.

It'd also be nice to feel like I'd actually been asked for my support I guess.

 

[free spirit]

got to go anyway, later

 

[Chairman Meow]

Back when I was a student in the early 90s, no-one would have needed telling why they shouldn't be crossing a picket line. While I accept that things are different today, why don't these students care enough to find out themselves what they are doing by crossing the picket line? And what is worse, that they are ignorant, or that they are apathetic? Its bloody depressing either way.

 

[butchersapron]

For one thing it'd help me to understand from the strikers point of view what it is they're striking about. For another it'd build confidence that if I did decide to refuse to cross the picket line, and tried to persuade more people to join me then there'd be some chance of getting support in this, and it'd not just be me effectively resigning on principle.

It'd also be nice to feel like I'd actually been asked for my support I guess.

All good reasons for a pro-active bit of activity (the practical reasons for why this was probably not possible posted above) - but it doesn't change the facts that the economic principle is the same whether they are aware of the case or not, their circumstances haven't changed and that having trouble isn't a good enough reason to scab. This is, of course, part of the wider culture. Or lack of it.

 

[audiotech]

Those are still very much the exception rather than the norm.

I'l believe in mass strikes when I take part in one that doesn't just comprise of the local branch officials plus one or two die-hard stalwarts.

That would be nice.

It's a reflection when the exception is an inception.

 

[october_lost]

This kind of dirty stunt by those involved just shows what a low ebb we are at in terms of political radicalism. Outside of one or two campuses I could see this kind of thing going on quite regularlly. And while some people might be quick to roll their eyes and blame students en masse, the changing role of education now means university is just another way the market takes people out of unemployment/under employment.

 

[The Black Hand]

Thing is, if the employers are able to bus huge numbers of temps in to cover the workload, it's only a matter of time before the strike is broken.

I remember watching a documentary about a photo-processing firm whose workers went on strike in the 1970s and some people on the tory right decided to help the employer break the strike by effectively carrying out the work of the business by smuggling the stuff into and out of the workplace underneath the noses of the pickets.

Liverpool is a place where there could be a serious challenge to those practices though. And a lot of other towns too. I do not doubt that we could target 10 or 20 places around the country (strategically important) on anyone day to begin with. It would just take the local CWU branch or wildcat reps, and the local Solidarity committee/social forum/Trades council to get going to start things

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Back when I was a student in the early 90s, no-one would have needed telling why they shouldn't be crossing a picket line. While I accept that things are different today, why don't these students care enough to find out themselves what they are doing by crossing the picket line? And what is worse, that they are ignorant, or that they are apathetic? Its bloody depressing either way.

I'm pretty sure that a group of 18-21 year-olds who weren't students would have behaved in exactly the same way. I also doubt that they were exactly told "right, before you say yes to this, you're going to be crossing a picket line and it will make you a filthy scab".

Union and collective activity just isn't the default assumption, and hasn't been for years now. I'm 31 and I'd have guessed students when I was at university would have behaved in just the same way. Few grow up in a family environment where unions are involved. People start to develop an appreciation after they've been in work for a while, but even then, when they see so little effective union activity in their own environment, and what effective activity there is in other areas is either invisible or only gets known to them because it disrupts their own lives (and the people involved are portrayed as selfish buggers who get paid too much as it is, too) it's hardly surprising that young casual labourers who need the money and get a random call offering them a job don't sit around thinking "wait a second, they said we'd be doing work with the post, isn't there a strike on?" Perhaps some did, and refused, but obviously enough didn't.

 

[nightbreed]

Just out of interest, isnt the NUS run by the National Organisation of Labour Students?
Not that thats relevant.

Do students know what a scab is?
How many of their parents are in unions and are from working class communities? Are these students class conscious?
How much student debt have they got to make them huddle in enclosed vans in order to cross the picket line?
Do they understand the shame of doing that?

Personally I would never cross a picket line and I would shovel shit into some of the blackleg wankers mouths, that I have met. Question is can you really condemn the igonorant even if they are students. These 'kids' havent ever done a real job. That'll probably change when they are working as an IT engineer for the local council and they are told they can only have a 2% pay rise. What with a £200K mortgage, 7or 8 credit cards and a Ford Focus to pay off, they'll soon get militant.

 

[lights.out.london]

Back when I was a student in the early 90s, no-one would have needed telling why they shouldn't be crossing a picket line. While I accept that things are different today, why don't these students care enough to find out themselves what they are doing by crossing the picket line? And what is worse, that they are ignorant, or that they are apathetic? Its bloody depressing either way.

Same here for me in the late 80s. No matter how desperate I was for £$, I wouldn't cross a picket line.

 

[dennisr]

So the fact they keep happening despite us losing them suggests that they're structurally written into the functioning of capitalism. Demoralising though recent (relatively speaking) events have been there's nothing to suggest that any final battle has been lost. There is no final battle to lose. There's simply ongoing class conflict that appears in different guises at different times. We had a period very much like this in the 1870s and 1880s as well. It's not historically unique.

Much better put than i have done with poster in the past.

The only problem with the poster is - if there is one thing as predicable as the the class struggle in this system it poster's "its all hopeless" postscript (and usually preamble) when any dispute is mentioned. its just a predictable as the rah, rah rubbish of some lefts he rightly points out

 

[dennisr]

Just out of interest, isnt the NUS run by the National Organisation of Labour Students?
Not that thats relevant.

it probably is relevent - 'the crisis of leadership' innit

 

[Stigmata]

I remember less than two years ago there was a strike by some of the staff at my university. The fucking student body decided to go out and protest against the strikers! I had a falling out with my housemate over that.

 

[emanymton]

Just out of interest, isnt the NUS run by the National Organisation of Labour Students?
Not that thats relevant.

I think it is even worse than that, I know that a few years ago when I was a student and attending NUS conferences the dominate force where the so-called right wing independents. Which basically means they have politics at least as bad as the worst new labour bastard but that they also insist that they are apolitical and that politics has no place in NUS and on campuses which results in a closing of space for political discussion, believe me these people really are foul

 

[free spirit]

All good reasons for a pro-active bit of activity (the practical reasons for why this was probably not possible posted above) - but it doesn't change the facts that the economic principle is the same whether they are aware of the case or not, their circumstances haven't changed and that having trouble isn't a good enough reason to scab. This is, of course, part of the wider culture. Or lack of it.

As I think you're getting at, the economic imperitive for 'scabs' is pretty much always there in one way or another, the trick is to persuade those you're asking to take action that goes against their own personal economic wellbeing of the reasons why they should do this.

If you want the support of people who don't really stand to lose or gain one way or the other from your dispute, then you need to engage with them IMO.

Persuading students of this would be a tough call I reckon, but if the attempt's not even made, then I don't think it's fair simply to blame the students.

I think that's my point.

 

[Nemo]

I remember less than two years ago there was a strike by some of the staff at my university. The fucking student body decided to go out and protest against the strikers! I had a falling out with my housemate over that.

I remember that. I was a finalist at the time (and thus stood to lose as much as anyone due to protracted industrial action), but the sheer ignorant and unreasoning resentment at the academics for daring to stand up for themselves really stuck in my craw. Cretinous future investment bankers loftily allowed that the lecturers had a case, but balked at the idea of their actually pressing it in any meaningful sense, and an awful lot of people came out with a whole load of bollocks which was, as far as I could see, one step up from assuming that academics were serfs whose sole raison d'être should be to wind the crank of the academic sausage machine. Our Students' Union supported the action but an awful lot of ignorant reactionaries moaned constantly about that (although noticeably not enough actually cared enough to turn up to a general meeting to change the policy of mild support to a nothing policy dreamt up by one of nature's Liberal Democrats). Mind you, some of the academics didn't help themselves; I was a student representative on the university governing body that year, and when a proposal came up to dock the pay of academics participating in the assessment boycott, I was the only one to vote against it. A craven performance from the academic members imo.

As for scabbing more generally, I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiments of Jack London on the issue.

 

[chainsaw cat]

fuck me thats a bit strong

No it's not.

 

[chainsaw cat]

As I think you're getting at, the economic imperitive for 'scabs' is pretty much always there in one way or another, the trick is to persuade those you're asking to take action that goes against their own personal economic wellbeing of the reasons why they should do this.

If you want the support of people who don't really stand to lose or gain one way or the other from your dispute, then you need to engage with them IMO.

Persuading students of this would be a tough call I reckon, but if the attempt's not even made, then I don't think it's fair simply to blame the students.
I think that's my point.

No, blame them. Old enough to know better. Shitbags.

 

[poster342002]

Do students know what a scab is?

Doubt it.

How many of their parents are in unions

Very few I suspect.

and are from working class communities?

Ditto.

Are these students class conscious?

Fat chance. Nobody these days is. These people are the future.

These 'kids' havent ever done a real job. That'll probably change when they are working as an IT engineer for the local council and they are told they can only have a 2% pay rise. What with a £200K mortgage, 7or 8 credit cards and a Ford Focus to pay off, they'll soon get militant.

No they won't. They'll consider themselves all "proffessional" and "aspirational" and work in places where nobody strikes apart from the union reps.

 

[Chairman Meow]

Doubt it.

Very few I suspect.

Ditto.

Fat chance. Nobody these days is. These people are the future.



No they won't. They'll consider themselves all "proffessional" and "aspirational" and work in places where nobody strikes apart from the union reps.

God, if that's true, its fucking depressing.

 

[tbaldwin]

I remember less than two years ago there was a strike by some of the staff at my university. The fucking student body decided to go out and protest against the strikers! I had a falling out with my housemate over that.

The NUS Left and Right have always been scabby bastards, havent they.
Its not as though they ever really gave a shit about anybody not in Higher Education.
They always did their best to campaign for more money for H/E students and very little for students in further education.
A lot of the people who worked in Universities in Canteens and on Reception always hated students as so many of them treated them like shit.

 

[poster342002]

God, if that's true, its fucking depressing.

It is fucking depressing and it's already true in my experiences at work. However, this abysmal state of affairs can only be changed if we accept it's existance in the first place - something most of the left refuses to do (o problem in the history of the world was ever solved by pretending it didn't exist).

A quick look in the Education & Employment forum on these boards gives a far better idea of the state of workplace conciousness than this part of it does. Barely a scrap of TU or class conciousness to be found on it.

 

[nino_savatte]

The NUS Left and Right have always been scabby bastards, havent they.
Its not as though they ever really gave a shit about anybody not in Higher Education.
They always did their best to campaign for more money for H/E students and very little for students in further education.
A lot of the people who worked in Universities in Canteens and on Reception always hated students as so many of them treated them like shit.

You know fuck all about the NUS. When was the last time you set foot in an institute of higher education as a student? Never.

 

[tbaldwin]

You know fuck all about the NUS. When was the last time you set foot in an institute of higher education as a student? Never.

Thats a great well thought out arguement.......NOT.

You know nothing about the Institute of Directors. When was the last time you set a foot in their offices as a proper Dircetor and member of the IOD. Never!!!!!!!!!! So does it follow that you know nothing about them??????????????
Shit arguement nino......
Back on form i see.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

It is fucking depressing and it's already true in my experiences at work. However, this abysmal state of affairs can only be changed if we accept it's existance in the first place - something most of the left refuses to do.

Agreed. Part of the problem is the union officials are by the nature of the work and the environments they move in (some of them seem to spend more time attending conferences and meetings than actually talking to workers they are supposed to be representing) are divorced from the workplace environment. If you are not having to deal with workplaces where 80%+ of people scab and have to face the fact that losing a days pay means having to go to a loan shark to survive then its easy to sit in an ivory tower and make pronouncements that piss poor strike actions are 'brilliant, solid, fantastic'.

I'm so demoralised at my place which feels like a condemned cell becuase of the cutbacks and insecurity and my union doesn't seem to be effective in challenging this situation that although I want to strike the next time I don't know if I will be bothered as it hasn't changed anything on the previous occasions.

If trade unionists think that there is some vast untapped reserve of 'solidarity' then they are very much mistaken. Most people just present their buttocks to the whip of the management and say 'more please sir' as to do otherwise could lose you your job. People are also much more individualistic than they used to be and some of this is positive and some of this is negative. On the positive side people are more willing to question recieved wisdom but on the negative side people say 'why should some union wanker tell me when I should and shouldn't work?'

When the next strike comes up I shall chat to my colleauges and try to gauge what level of support the strike call is getting and act accordingly. If more than 50% of my unionised colleauges in my immediate vicinity strike then I shall do so if less than that well I'm not going to lose money for a lost cause am I?

No problem in the history of the world was ever solved by pretending it didn't exist.

Sadly you are right.

I noticed that Nemo trotted out the old Jack London quote. Nicely written I must admit but just not relevant these days I'm afraid for the reasons I and others have given.

 

[nino_savatte]

Thats a great well thought out arguement.......NOT.

You know nothing about the Institute of Directors. When was the last time you set a foot in their offices as a proper Dircetor and member of the IOD. Never!!!!!!!!!! So does it follow that you know nothing about them??????????????
Shit arguement nino......
Back on form i see.

What? Like your "well thought out arguments"? LOL!!!! My point has more thought behind it than your bigoted, narrow-minded nonsense.

You have never set foot in a university...well, probably to find a student to beat up, perhaps. Your posts betray an alarming lack of erudition on your part.

 

[poster342002]

I noticed that Nemo trotted out the old Jack London quote. Nicely written I must admit but just not relevant these days I'm afraid for the reasons I and others have given.

I wonder what Jack London would have to say were he transported forward in time to today where he finds majority-scabbing is the norm and only a minority of the workforce heed the strike call?

 

[tbaldwin]

Your posts betray an alarming lack of erudition on your part.

My lack of erudition seems to be more of a problem for you than it ever is for me nino....And lets face it you have enough problems of your own.

 

[tbaldwin]

You know fuck all about the NUS. When was the last time you set foot in an institute of higher education as a student? Never.

Nino.
You know fuck all about the Royal Family. When was the last time you set foot in Buckingham Palace as a member?