Compare and contrast the difference between the mass firings of agency workers at the BMW mini plant this February: workers angry and upset, but cannot do anything with their anger while their union abandons them in favour of staff workers.
With what happened when the workers at various Visteon plants in the UK and Ireland got told they were all sacked: quite spontaneously the factories were occupied in an attempt to force the owners to at least give all sacked workers the compensation they had a right to.
In one case, justified but ineffective anger, in the other equally justified anger and well directed action. What’s the difference? Better union reps? A more militant climate in general? some proper lefties on staff that took the lead here? Seeing examples from abroad that inspired the Visteon workers?
It is important to get answers to these questions, as this sort of direct action is the first line of defence of us workers against the crisis. in the BMW sackings the union knew since before Christmas that these people -socalled temp staff that in many cases had been working there for years– was going to be sacked, but did nothing to defend them, but deemed these sackings a necessary sacrifise to safeguard the jobs of staff workers. This will happen again, as the current unions are ill prepared to handle the crisis, have evolved to be part of the system and think in terms of compromise rather than resistance. As just one example we have the shameful spectacle in the Netherlands of unions agreeing to fifteen percent pay cuts to avoid firings at the post office despite massive profits, without even bothering to fight these cutbacks. You cannot trust the unions to defend your rights, so we need to get back to the roots of worker solidarity and do it ourselves, as the Visteon workers seemed to have realised.