Trade unionist calls for ‘grassroots militancy’ at Think Left ‘Capitalism in Crisis’ event in Derry

Niall McCarroll, who is the current chair of Derry Trades Union Council, urged the move at People Before Profit’s Think Left conference that took place in St. Columb’s Hall over the weekend.

“If we are to deliver social equality and bring an end to the economic sanctions we are all living under we need industrial militancy and sustained unrest at work, sustained and targeted trade union action, through strike action.

"This discussion must form part of a greater action plan. As grassroots trade unionists we must recognise our collective power and put that into action,” he said.

Mr. McCarroll was among the speakers at a ‘Capitalism in Crisis: Workers Fighting Back’ panel discussion in St. Columb’s Hall last Friday. The event was among a series of talks organised by People Before Profit as part of its Think Left symposium.

The event was also addressed by community activist and fellow People Before Profit member Nuala Crilly, who opened by referring to the wave of industrial action witnessed in the city over the past two years.

“Workers are actually being forced into taking what, essentially, they would describe as a last resort, which is taking strike action,” she remarked adding that ‘strike is the last option’.

“It is when negotiations fail or when employers refuse to sit around tables and anybody who has joined a picket line will know that nobody does it for the crack at all,” she said.

The event was addressed by the Chicago-based socialist, trade unionist and labour historian and analyst Joe Allen.

Mr. Allen briefed attendees on a strike wave in the US that has involved over 300,000 workers across a range of sectors including health, education, auto-manufacture, mass delivery and food processing, among others.

He noted how campaigns for better pay and conditions in the US had been party and temporarily dampened but ultimately reinforced by the experiences of rank-and-file workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"During that time people were on the one hand declared essential workers – key workers in some other countries – and praised for that. People who had been ignored for a long time because there was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when 'nobody does manual labour anymore [and] it's just an information-based economy' which is strange because the vast majority of people are not involved in any of that kind of stuff. [They were] praised for it.

"Hospitals even to this day have 'welcome heroes to work' [banners] that sort of stuff. 'Through these doors go the greatest nurses in the world'. Teachers have banners outside their schools, 'teachers are the most important human beings in history’ and yet if you ask for a wage increase you are all of a sudden ‘a greedy public sector worker’,” he said.

Mr. Allen said it was not surprising health, education and manual workers have been to the fore in the industrial disputes currently being experienced in North America.

“When the worst of it receded workers began to see, across the board, particularly in the industrial sector of the economy...teachers and nurses are still the largest group of workers in the US who are, according to the business press ‘strike-happy’. Well we need more strike-happy people. They are the most likely to strike.”

Hundreds of health and education workers in Derry strike for better pay and conditions

Mr. McCarroll claimed that in Ireland and Britain there has been a move away from ‘grassroots militancy’ over a number of decades.

“To further highlight how some unions have lost their direction all you have to do is research the total number of members who actually returned their ballots when balloted for industrial action,” he said, referring to a number of recent examples where the percentage of returned ballots fell between 25 and 28 per cent.

"So over 70 per cent of these unions' members did not return their ballots, a serious and worrying disconnect from the grassroots members,” he said.

Mr. McCarroll continued: “Not only must we now fight back against the capitalist establishment, we need to also muster a fight back across and within the trade union movement, within our own trade unions.

"There are processes in place that can make this happen and activists who ‘think left’ and think we can do better and aren't afraid to challenge the status quo need to get elected to their trade union branch at the AGMs.”

He called for left-wing activists to stand for election for core branch officer positions.

Harry Hutchinson, a member of the Labour Party and of Mid Ulster Trades Council, speaking from the floor, said: “The capitalist system is collapsing all round us. There is not a single area that is not in crisis, in health, education, the environment.

“This system cannot stop it. The system itself cannot stop any of what is going on.”

He said the ‘battle is the rank-and-file’ and called for the establishment of workers’ committees independent of the trade union movement that he suggested could help drive change at a political level.

Other events organised as part of the three-day conference included a march in memory of the late Derry socialist and civil rights activist Dermie McClenaghan and a discussion on water pollution in the north between Feargal Sharkey, the former front man of The Undertones and current environmental activist, and Eamonn McCann.

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