The Class Struggle Continues!

For Revolutionary Syndicalists, we shed no tears for the demise of monarchs, of the institutions they uphold or the system and society they reign over. For ourselves, this means the continuing oppression and domination of our class: the working class.

Nor do we forget the decades or centuries of control during which our class have been subjected to poverty and oppression. Instead, we continue to organise and unionise the class struggle for the day on which kings and Queens reign no more. A day on which we abolish wage slavery and the system of capitalism it represents.

The cancellation or suspension of planned industrial action by workers from their business unions has been met with dismay as striking rail and communication workers looked set to escalate their strike actions. The target for workers was to achieve improved wages, jobs and conditions, but this delay has favoured bosses and stalled negotiations further.

The shelving of industrial by rail and postal workers unions came as the demise of the Queen was announced late on Thursday 8th September.

The leaderships of both unions has in turn paid their respects to the monarchy, their family and to the establishment, in spite of previous fearsome left-wing rhetoric supplied by a host of so-called “radicals” who merely wish to reshape and reform capitalism and its systems of power, but never destroy it.

Likewise, the annual TUC Conference scheduled for Brighton was shelved. The event for many trade unionists from many different backgrounds is seen as a focal point for reformist unions in charting the future direction of workplace agitation for the year ahead, but has now mothballed as social media, television and radio went into overdrive lamenting the death of Elizabeth.

The TUC Conference, like the British Labour Party itself, is dominated or heavily influenced by the reformist left, so it comes as little of no surprise that their leaders lined up to issue tear-sodden statements relaying the impact the monarch’s death had on its members.

For others such as the Industrial Workers of the World, we gain strength in the determination of other unfolding struggles such as from the family of Chris Kaba. Yet another young black man executed at the hands of the Metropolitan police in London. Undeterred by social media or popularism, his family with thousands of others marched together through the streets to demand justice.

On Saturday, thousands weaved their way through Whitehall demanding justice for Kaba, the immediate suspension of those involved with his murder as well as an independent investigation into another young black man’s death at the hands of the police.

There is of course the great concern of having the issue of workers’ rights or struggle being sidelined for more popular causes. If anything, it sheds light onto the thinking of trade unionism today and its existence overall.

Business unions are there only to safely manage capital, to act as a buffer between the bosses and the workers, not as an implement or vehicle for its removal or eventual destruction, unlike Solidarity Unionism which the IWW propose daily as part of our aims and objectives.

“Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history.” James Connolly, 1910 Industrial Workers of the World Organiser