Leeds Refuse Workers
The other night I went to a benefit concert in Leeds, a large hall full of supporters of the Refuse Workers strike. Keith Allen (him off Fat Les) played, and some others. It wasn’t about who played, though, it was about the strike and the workers.The Leeds Refuse workers – bin-emptiers, street-cleaners – have been on strike for almost two months, because they’ve been singled out by the Leeds Council as scapegoats for a cost-cutting exercise.
The 600 strikers walked out on the 7th September over Leeds Council’s proposals to level down pay for workers in the refuse and street cleaning department as a bizarre way of equalising women’s pay, which they’ve been forced to do by law. These workers face pay cuts of up to £6,000 down from an average of £18,000. The City Council is run by a Lib Dem/Tory administration.
In short, the council officers, the suits and leaders (all on substantial, protected wages, some earning well over £100,000 a year) picked on the sector of the council workforce that they thought might give them the least trouble. They thought wrong, obviously. Bins are overflowing, rats are thriving, but significantly the people of Leeds are almost unanimously supporting the strike.
At the gig I was shocked because this was the union’s crowd, the workers crowd. Where were the young people? Where were the eco-activists and anti-fascists? Leeds is a student city. Where were they all? They get their bins emptied, don’t they? Mind you, we all choose our forms of protest and activism, and I’m happy to have witnessed and been encouraged by the determination of the Refuse strikers.
How long this strike will last I don’t know. Me, I’ll put up with having to take my rubbish down to the dump. I’ll laugh at the council’s scab refuse workers on their once-a-month collection. And I’ll raise a fist for the workers who don’t give in to unreasonable demands, who do a job that we all respect, and who have decided not to be treated like serfs by the well-paid councillors who came up with this scheme.
And to jump issues: The crypto-fascist English Defence League are turning up in Leeds on 31 October. Here’s hoping there’s a huge turn-out of anti-racists; and here’s hoping people might make a connection between the relatively clear politics of anti-fascism and the politics of supporting workers’ rights.
22 Oct, 2009 | chumba
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