Striking while the economy’s cool

This blog’s longer than my usual, so make sure you’re sitting comfortably before you begin.

I’ve gone on record since before I was weaned that it’s not right for workers to strike. My opposition is rooted in their impact on the general public – the health hazards of uncollected waste spring to mind. In particular, I remember the 1970s’ strikes and the Labour government awarding huge public-sector pay deals that helped to fuel inflation to over 25 per cent (the rocketing oil price was also a factor). Those hardest hit were already the poorest, and the average couple ended up taking home less money in real terms than they had before inflation took off, so the strikes were counter-productive.

Having said that, I’ve always felt there would be some circumstances when it would be acceptable for workers to strike:

• When the workforce is asking for something reasonable, and / or 
• They’re objecting to something unreasonable, and 
• They’re not causing unreasonable hardship to suppliers, customers, the general public or the wider economy. 

However, when I tried to apply these three criteria to current strikes, I struggled to define or quantify ‘reasonable’. I thought maybe Google would help and eventually landed on this article by Kieran Oberman, a university lecturer who cheerfully (well, willingly) went on strike a few years ago. I now realise that instead of ‘reasonableness’, I should be considering ‘justice’.

Kieran compares the ethics of wars and strikes, the two phenomena being “forms of human conflict through which people pursue goals by harming others. Since both harm, they both require justification.” He cites three ‘just conditions’ for war (apparently there are many more): 1) just cause, 2) proportionality and 3) non-combatant immunity. 

The just cause condition mandates that “wars can only be fought for certain [rare] reasons” such as national self-defence and humanitarian intervention. When it comes to strikes, these must be in pursuit of a just deal, e.g. to leave strikers better off. But what if the workers are already “ok” in context? It sounds to me as if some of today’s strikers, e.g. train drivers, already receive a generous package compared with commensurate jobs in other industries, i.e. they’re better than “ok”, so the deal they’re pursuing isn’t just.

Perhaps, as Kieran muses, strikers see their bosses’ salaries as being protected, or in no need of protection, and the real issue is a desire for the redistribution of wealth. Has, for example, RMT union leader Mick Lynch engineered the strike because he wants to see the re-balancing of society by upping worker wages and raising taxes on the ‘wealthy’? Such an economic shift would require a change of Government. This must be the choice of the whole electorate and not limited to a vociferous minority led astray by a Stalinist bully. Change of Government is therefore not a just cause for strike action, because it’s a travesty of democracy.

Barristers claim they’re underpaid for legal aid work and that the caseload is too great. Certainly the earnings quoted sound ridiculously low, but that’s not the whole story as I found here, which explains that the earning potential after the initial years is huge. In the meantime, there’s plenty of money available within the profession to better support the lower paid; the problem is, it’s distributed unfairly. Ironically, because barristers are self-employed, when they’re striking they’re earning zilch, and because they get paid only when a case is concluded, delaying cases means delaying income. 

The high caseload is a stronger argument for a just strike, i.e. seeking a better outcome for crime-victims and the wrongly accused but, by striking, barristers are further delaying justice; they’re compounding injustices, which can’t be just.

The proportionality condition means that the costs of war (and strikes) shouldn’t outweigh the benefits. Some costs (and benefits) should be ‘discounted’ (i.e. reduced) as Kieran explains. He first discounts costs to the strikers, e.g. lost overtime, because they choose to strike. He discounts to a greater extent costs to employers if the strike was prompted by them acting unjustly, e.g. too-low pay. Costs to third parties, however, who have no say in decisions to strike and haven’t acted unjustly, have their costs considered in full. The greater the impact of strikes on third parties, the higher the costs and the less just the strike.

The principle of non-combatant immunity rules out the intentional targeting and direct harming of non-combatants in war, though sometimes ‘collateral damage’ (my phrase / interpretation) is unavoidable. This principle takes the proportionality argument further by ruling out any avoidable harm or costs to third parties. Kieran modifies this for strikes, arguing that it’s “too strong” never to harm third parties, as the harms of strikes are typically less grave than the harms of war.

I might agree with him if each individual harm were minor (e.g. being late for work) but if a harm is material (e.g. a missed chemotherapy appointment) even for a small number of people, then I have difficulty with it. Yes a cost benefit analysis for the whole situation might suggest it’s acceptable because the harm is ‘averaged’ across a large number of people, but my sympathies lie with the individual human beings who suffer the real harm. I’m not comfortable supporting a strike for Fred to get an extra £50 per week if it means Ginger misses her chemo.

Just strike action
After that marathon scene-setting, are there any strikes that have a just cause, are proportional and don’t harm third parties? Kieran suggests a now-historic example of Ford Motors, where the strikers targeted their employers and not consumers. It deserves to be a candidate, but what about a Ford supplier that might be forced into liquidation with attendant job losses? This would make the strike unjust.

More recently, Amazon workers have taken strike action. As far as I can tell, their cause is just because they’ve been offered a very low pay rise on top of a very low starting point, and rich Amazon bosses have behaved unjustly because they can afford to pay a helluva lot more. Amazon customers will have to wait a wee while longer for delivery of their tat, and (non-Amazon) suppliers of that tat can still accept orders but perhaps payment will be delayed a few days, and most of them trade on other platforms anyway. Third-party harm is minimal, ergo these strikes are justified

Other than that … Maybe if I examined more historic strikes I’d find some that ticked all the boxes. An interesting intellectual exercise, but I need to stay focused on today’s industrial action because contexts, motives and impacts have changed. I’ll stick to being magnanimous and accept that some strikes yesteryear were justified.

Those who can’t strike
Let me put a cat among the pigeons. The ‘right’ to strike isn’t universal in this country. Police and prison officers can’t, and nurses have agreed to strike only if it’s not detrimental to patient well-being. Doctors, on the other hand, can strike and they’ve drawn no such red lines. Is it fair, is it just, that not all these professions have the same rights, even when withdrawal of their labour would result in ‘similar’ levels of harm? Surely in a just society, it should be all or none to strike, and if ‘all’ would lead to some death and destruction, even if not ‘all’ were responsible, then it has to be ‘none’.

I think that was more of a saber-toothed tiger than a cat.

Being self-employed doesn’t on its own prevent someone from striking, as we’ve seen with barristers, but unless they’ve got some sort of financial support or sufficient savings, then in practise they can’t strike. As someone tweeted recently, “I’m up, washed, dressed, breakfasted, & ready to roll 🚐. No pay increase for me. No strike. Self-employed. My small biz pays me & provides for my family. I crack on. Adapt. Become nimbler. More efficient, & more determined. I must. If I don’t, I fail. I will not fail easily.”

Again, is it a just society where a large number of people can’t in practise exercise ‘rights’ that others take for granted, but are forced instead to “adapt”? If tightening belts is the only option for the self-employed, then wouldn’t it be fairer if it were the only option for everyone?

I think that one was a rabid lion.

Alternatives to strikes
Are there any alternatives to strikes where workers could achieve just objectives without harming Joe Public? The obvious one is negotiation, failing which, arbitration, but both sides have to act in good faith. Hmmm.

A PR / media campaign might generate consumer and political pressure to ‘persuade’ employers to do the ‘right’ thing. I said “might”!

Could disenchanted workers leave their employers in the lurch by finding jobs elsewhere? Not sure. Some skills are more marketable than others. And there’s the possibility that the pay and benefits striking workers already have are better than they could find elsewhere. When an industry / company is privatised, at least some elements of worker contracts are carried forward or re-set on favourable conditions. This often ties the hands of employers during subsequent efficiency drives and restructuring, as is happening now with the railways. Attempts to modernise practises and bring worker contracts in line with commensurate industries are met with … er … strikes.

One facet of these legacy employment contracts is that the railways rely on workers doing significant voluntary overtime, so when they don’t get enough volunteers, the timetables struggle. In fact, one railway company recently accused workers of coordinating a mass refusal to work overtime, in effect unofficial industrial action. Such ‘limited’ industrial action – if official that is – might be more just than a total walkout, because while causing some disruption, the degree of harm to the public is less.

More on barristers
I do sympathise with the barristers wanting to overhaul the criminal aid system that clearly isn’t working at all well; it’s a just aim. The problem I have is that striking is an unjust action because it harms crime-victims and the wrongly accused. Could barristers do something other than strike to force the Government’s hand here? The question is actually redundant, because the whole justice system from crime prevention to rehabilitation is in dire straits, the barristers’ cause being one broken link in a rusty old chain, and solving this one section in isolation isn’t possible.

Conclusion
Having started out thinking that strikes were acceptable providing they were ‘reasonable’, I’ve ended up arguing that strikes are acceptable providing they satisfy three ‘just conditions’. Along the way, though, I wondered whether anyone should have the right to strike if not everyone can have equal rights and equal means to strike. Doesn’t that sound a little communistic? Dear Lord, I'll be denying climate change next!

Regardless of these mind games, my fundamental objection to most strikes stands – the harm to third parties. If you can point to strikes, like the Amazon one and maybe Ford Motors, where the motive is just and there’s no tangible individual ‘collateral suffering’ then fine I’ll be supportive. Otherwise, I rest my case, M’Lud.