Tuesday 5 July 2011

ruling class to step up divide and rule tactic, workers must unite

As we have already seen over the last few weeks and months. The government will look to pitch workers against workers, Be that private vs public sector, low paid vs medium paid, part time vs full time, women vs men. The fact is we are all workers whether we recieve slightly more or slightly less at the moment we are all facing cuts or rising living costs in one way or another.

The ruling class use a clever tactic which is quite effective but we must be aware of it. Its know as divide and rule. It is aimed to drive wedges and divisions between the working class so workers turn against each other in disgust rather than focusing on the main issue, the system of capitalism which is at fault.


Such news stories as this one i have just seen on the internet :
ONS stats shows public sector pay 7.8% higher than private sector pay on average, up 2.5% since 2007

This is all very deliberate to set private sector workers further against public sector workers. When the government uses phrases like gold plated pensions and great pay in the public sector they are trying to divide us all. Trying to turn private sector workers who may feel agrieved at being paid less against the public sector worker not the government or their employer or even the system which allows this.

When contiousness in the class is low like it is now and workers are not aware of the forces at play this can lead to divisions and i am sure the government will look to increase these as we progress through the year.

This is also a very clever tactic as when it come to industrial action by public sector workers the government will know that headlines like this will decrease support for the strikes for public sector workers as the private sector workers may feel they do alright anyway and are just being greedy.

This is not the point it is the fact that we should be aiming for good pay, a living wage rising with inflation for all private or public sector workers.

At the end of the day public sector workers pensions are not gold plated as we discovered last week and we must rebuff these lies and attempts by the ruling class to divide the working class.

United we stand, divided we fall. i'm afraid and unless we stand up for our workers in other sectors not just our own we will be divided and play into the governments hands.

So i'd love to see more solidarity from the private sector who have undergone big cuts already to save our public services that we all do treasure.

It is key that private sector workers do support and show solidarity when bigger strikes are called in the autumn a sign of solidarity from the private sector will get this government on to the back foot knowing their attempts to divide us are not working and we're standing up to them.

2 comments:

  1. Good points Mark. One big problem is that many private sector workers are also those working for multinationals like Serco or Veolia. Most employees are on low wages (and getting lower in real terms)but they have little union presence at the workplace so are not organised in terms of showing solidarity. Many 'post-Thatcher'large employers do not promote any kind of collective action or union type activity. Employees are left in a very fractured state and weak position, just my view of course.

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  2. hi will thanks for the comment, always welcome, i know waht you mean, many big multi nationals are not unionised or union wont recognise them . My freind who works at Glaxo who is in Unite was let down by his union who didnt even oppose compulsory redundancies, This despite glaxo's making 8 billion pounds profit per year and 80 thousand per employee, just shows the capitalist greed that even with those profits they still want to make more so lay off good hard working workers.

    I think the actions of March 26th and the recent co-ordinated strikes over public sector pensions will hopefully encourage more to join a union. I'm in a union even though they dont represent me at work i'm sure they may do if i needed them too. The media paints such a negative picture of unions no one see's their benifit anymore, coupled with the fact we have some of the harshest anti trade union laws in europe too which a labour government failed to repeal even.

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