August 25 2005: Gate Gourmet

One of the cliches of industrial sociology used to hold that strikes were different in Britain and America. In Britain, strikes were short in duration, tended to involve sections rather than whole workplaces, and usually won. In the US, strikes lasted for longer, involved more workers, and almost invariably lost.

Everyone on the left, I guess, must fear the same for Gate Gourmet: while the workers were clearly in the ascendant during the first few days of the strike, and in particular when BA workers took their magnificent solidarity action, the TGWU's decision that they should fight alone, without the support of workers elsewhere at BA, placed the workers inevitably on the defensive. The result is a long and drawn-out dispute, in which the momentum deems to be tipping fast towards the bosses.

The report in this week's Socialist Worker warns of the professionalisation of the dispute: the negotiators have taken over. Anyone who thinks that union officials are possessed of any magic power to make bosses listen may enjoy this old joke, resuscitated from the Big Red Joke Book:

'A young union official was told to negotiate an increase for members in a local factory. "How should I go about i?", he asked an older and more experienced colleague. "You just walk in there and say 'it's six pounds or else'." That sounded like good advice, and the young official set off with high hopes. When he arrived at the factory, he marched straight into the managing director's office and said, "it's six pounds or else." "Or else what?" asked the boss. The young official gulped, "Or else ... two pounds fifty."'