Top Five Ways the Workers Fought Back in 2021
So I recognise last weeks column may have depressed you, fair enough. You may have started thinking about how you were failed by capitalism in 2021. I get that. I also have a cure for that. See, 2021 was bleak in many ways, don't get me wrong, but it also was a year of extraordinary activism and organising, where ordinary people stood together to take on the system and sometimes even won. If organising your workplace, joining your union or getting involved in your community isn't on your New Year's resolution, maybe this inspirational list will change that. Here are the ways working-class people fought back in 2021. There are many examples, I've only picked my favourites; the thing about something like a global pandemic is it exposes how the system works and whose labour makes the world go round. This kind of revelation changes people. It certainly changed things for many working people, especially those deemed "essential". Some of those essential workers, through their experience, began to understand their collective power and their connection with other workers. That is undoubtedly something to celebrate as we ring in a new year.
5. The New Zealand Nurses and Healthcare Workers Strike
Let's start local. The June 2021 strike saw 30,000 New Zealand Nurses Organisation members stop working for 8 hours. This came after stalled negotiations where the government refused to address long-standing issues of low pay and unsafe staffing. These workers put down their scrubs and took to the streets to take a stand for the future of New Zealand's public healthcare system. As I have written in this newsletter, neoliberal capitalism and its austerity measures have pushed the healthcare system to the brink of collapse. Healthcare workers deal with the consequences of this every day. It is telling that before 2018, the nurses union had not taken strike action for decades. Nurses don't stop work for petty reasons; this was healthcare workers sounding the alarm. The government was forced to take healthcare workers' concerns more seriously after the strike. The underfunding of our health system has become a hot button issue. Ultimately union members ended up accepting a better contract offer that put safeguards around staffing and offered better pay. There is no doubt more to be done in this space, but these wins show what worker power can achieve.
4. Strikewave!
The Washington Post reported in October 2021 that "strikes" were "sweeping" the American economy as workers leveraged the pandemic induced labour shortage to their advantage. The truth is a little more nuanced. Strike action in the United States has been on the uptick in the last few years. The economy has not delivered for workers in a very long time. Is it any surprise that workers would start organising collectively to change that at some point? It shouldn't be. What is interesting about the so-called strikewave of 2021 is the sectors it occurred in. These strikes mainly were workers withdrawing their labour in the private sector, often in industries that were deemed essential during the pandemic. From the John Deere strike to Kellogs, workers who kept the economy going in 2020 were unwilling to accept crumbs from their employers in 2021. Many workers reported that the pandemic and the fact that their bosses were hailing them as heroes one minute only to offer zero in contract negotiations radicalised them. In effect, they recognised their power and value and were not willing to accept anything less than their worth. Now was the time to go on the offensive. Good for them. That these strikes are happening in the private sector should be a source of hope. In the heyday of neoliberalism, as the union movement came under attack and retreated, the public sector was the last bastion of organised labour. Unionists often would remark that a useful bellwether to understand the mood of the working-class and the potential for the renewal of the trade union movement would be when we see an uptick in industrial action in the private sector. Has that moment come? Maybe.
3. Nurses Sue the WTO
Can we just let nurses run the world? This is getting ridiculous. Nurses are the backbone of everything. If there is one group of workers who have consistently been on the right side of history, it is nurses. Nurse unions have been pushing for decriminalising drugs, universal healthcare and taxing the rich since before it was trendy. Did you know that nurses took to Wall Street just before the Occupy Wall Street movement took off to demand the wealthy pay their fair share? If one group knows what's up, it's nurses, and the ruling class will not silence them. Thank god for that. Nurses are now speaking truth to power on an international scale, with nurse unions and groups from across the globe banding together to sue the WTO (World Trade Organisation) for dragging their feet on waiving patents for lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines. On the one hand, capitalist institutions are refusing to end the pandemic, which we could do by ensuring that everyone globally has COVID-19 vaccines; on the other hand, we have nurses confronting them, fighting to end the pandemic and save lives. This is a classic good versus evil story, and I know which side I am on.
2. The Great Resignation
2021 saw workers quitting their jobs in huge numbers across the Global North. The factors driving the Great Resignation, as frightened business analysts have dubbed it, are complex. The research indicates that border closures have contributed to labour shortages, not only that the pandemic has changed many workers relationships with their job. Things change when you realise your boss is willing to let you die to make a buck. When you are deemed vital and keep society functioning during a pandemic while your boss sits safely at home, you begin to look at things differently. The message from the working-class in 2021 was WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT. We see that with the wave of strikes and the high quit rates.
Capitalists, if you are reading this, this is a simple supply and demand issue; labour cost has increased. Poverty wages don't attract workers in a tight labour market, shockingly! Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, stop buying lattes and avocado on toast and make a budget so you can afford workers. As the year draws to a close, I celebrate the shifting terrain in workplaces. Remember, kids; your boss needs you; you don't need him.
1. Chile's Election
"If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave". These are the words of newly elected Chilean president Gabriel Boric. The 35-year-old millennial socialist, a veteran of the student and union movement, won a massive victory in November against his opponent, the far-right Pinochet admiring Jose Antonio Kast. Boric's success comes after years of popular uprisings against wealth inequality and poverty. These movements grew in size and power over the years. Eventually, the previous Chilean government felt the heat and held a referendum on whether the country should rewrite its constitution, written during the dictatorship. In the 1970s with the help of Western backers, the Pinochet regime wrote the constitution to constrain the ability of future governments to reform the rapacious and extreme version of neoliberalism installed by the violent and bloody coup of 1973. The 2020 referendum results were clear in rejecting the Pinochet-era constitution and neoliberal capitalism. It is in this exciting political context that Boric has swept to power. There is a certain poetic justice to these developments; let's hope this does mark a sea of change and the beginning of the end for neoliberal capitalism. Dare to struggle, dare to win.
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