From John Kelly

For the past 50 years the overwhelming majority of national and local strikes have involved selective industrial action, comprising a fixed number of strikes on fixed dates covering a designated timespan: UCU’s 18 days of strike action between 1 February and 22 March inclusive is a good example. Last November however the union’s HEC broke with this tradition, voting for an indefinite strike to commence 1 February. Although the proposal was subsequently rejected by a clear 2:1 vote at a January 2023 Branch Delegate meeting, it will almost certainly resurface in March, particularly if negotiations have failed to make significant progress. Indeed, the Socialist Worker website reports that on 1 February, UCL UCU Branch President, Sean Wallis, called for an escalation of UCU’s current action to an indefinite strike, in spite of the BDM results just three weeks before.[1]

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The purpose of this note is to inform the ongoing debate in UCU by describing what we know about indefinite strikes in the UK; mapping their outcomes; and analyzing the conditions conducive to their success.

Definition

An indefinite strike is a stoppage of work with a designated start date but with no fixed end date because the strike will be called off only when an acceptable settlement has been reached. Normally an indefinite strike is continuous, i.e. every working day is a strike day, but in theory it could be discontinuous with strikes on say, four days out of five. Continuity/discontinuity may have financial implications for strikers but it does not alter the key property of this form of action: the strike has no fixed duration because there is no return to work prior to an acceptable settlement.

The strikes

The UK’s national strike statistics do not itemize individual company or organization strikes (at least not in public datasets) and certainly do not record whether a strike is selective (by date) or indefinite. The second-best alternative, used for this note, is to trawl through material in academic books and journals and trade union websites. Taking 1970 as a starting point, and focusing primarily, though not exclusively, on national disputes, both public and private sector, it has been possible to assemble a list of 62 events, starting with the one month national dock strike of 1970 and ending with the two month barristers’ strike of 2022.[2] Undoubtedly there have been more than 62 indefinite strikes in the past 50 years but the key value of this highly preliminary dataset is that it indicates a very wide range of outcomes, including the coal miners’ victory of 1972, the dockers’ compromise settlement in 1970 and the postal workers’ defeat of 1971. The variability is crucial because, in principle, it allows us to identify some of the factors that are more conducive to success and thereby inform debates within UCU.

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Strike outcomes

Determination of strike outcomes is challenging, even in single-issue disputes, such as a pay claim. For example, suppose a union demands a 12% rise in response to an employer offer of 3% and finally settles at 10.5%. Is that a compromise settlement because it falls between the opening positions. A defeat because the union failed to secure its 12% demand? Or a victory because the employer has been forced to move far more than the union and agree a figure very close to the union demand? Multi-issue disputes, such as Four Fights, are even more complex because the issues on the bargaining table vary in salience for different sections of the union’s membership: a ‘good’ pay settlement but with little progress on casualization, for example, may appear as a win to those focused on pay but as closer to a defeat for casualized workers. Consequently any categorization of strike outcomes will always be provisional and contested. That said, the 62 strikes cover the full range of outcomes:

• Outright defeats e.g. postal workers 1971, train drivers 1982, coal miners 1984-85 and port transport 1989.
• Compromise settlements e.g. Ford Motors 1971, docks 1972, firefighters 1977, steelworkers 1980.
• Victories e.g. coal miners 1972 and 1974, Ford car workers 1978, road haulage workers 1979, Leeds refuse collectors 2009, Scottish refuse collectors 2022.

Overall, there were 17 clear victories, 23 compromise settlements and 22 defeats but the distribution over time is highly uneven: defeats are concentrated in the 1980s and 1990s and victories in the 1970s and 2000s with compromises spread fairly evenly over time.

Factors conducive to strike success

Provisionally we can suggest six factors that are highly conducive to success and whose presence significantly increases the probability of victory (and cuts the odds of defeat).

1. High union density

This was a characteristic of major industries in the late 1970s such as coal mining (97%), road haulage (over 90%), docks (83%) and motor vehicles (around 80%) and more recently of local groups of refuse collectors.

2. High mobilization and worker unity

Developments in these same industries throughout the 1980s suggest that high density may be necessary but is not sufficient for strike success: coal mining and docks disputes in the 1980s and 1990s were riven by division as workers in particular coalfields and ports either failed to support strike action or gradually returned to work, despite continuing high levels of union density.

3. High and damaging public impact

1970s strikes in docks and road haulage achieved rapid and significant public impact through reduced supplies of goods; coal strikes led to power cuts; refuse strikes, both in the 1970s and more recently, have resulted in piles of uncollected waste and associated health hazards; some regional bus strikes have generated highly adverse impacts, especially in rural areas.

4. Absence of alternative goods, services and labour

The postal workers defeat of 1971 took many people by surprise because of their belief that the postal monopoly underpinned workers’ bargaining power. What it actually demonstrated is that government and management collusion to open up the market to private firms (for the duration of the strike) significantly undercut workers power.

5. Weak countermobilization by employers and government

One of the key differences between Conservative and Labour governments of the 1970s and the Thatcher government of 1979-90 was the readiness of the latter to prepare wide-ranging counter-mobilization measures in order to defeat striking workers, rather than reach negotiated agreements. The 1984-85 coal strike is the textbook example.

6. Militant leadership

National, regional and local union leaders in industries such as docks, coalmining and motor vehicles had learned through multiple strikes over many years that they enjoyed a favourable balance of power over the employers and governments, particularly in the 1970s. As with union density however, the strikes of the 1980s revealed that militancy alone is necessary but insufficient: militant dockers and coalminers who aimed to replicate the tactics of the 1970s soon learned that radical changes in the economic, political and legal environments had dramatically undercut their power.

UCU and the conditions for indefinite strike success

Of the six conditions for success, UCU appears currently to meet only one of them (militant leadership), possibly two (absence of alternative services).

• Union density in HE has been estimated overall at somewhere between 30% and 35% so for strategic planning of action, the realistic assumption is that two-thirds of potential UCU members will work on strike days. We might, of course, opt for wishful thinking and hope that many of them do not work but that violates one of the golden rules of strategic planning of action: never count on factors that you do not control.
• Mobilization and worker unity There are clearly divisions in the HE workforce as evidenced in the 40% of members who abstained in last year’s ballot. Anecdotal and survey evidence suggests the actual number of strikers on any given day is less than the total number of union members.
• Strike impact Unlike schools or FE where classroom teaching is integral to learning outcomes, the HE sector operates on the basis of a substantial volume of private, self-directed, individual and group student study. Despite the undoubted benefits to students, this learning regime does serve to undercut strike impact, by some degree, varying of course by subject.
• Countermobilization Until the recent pay offers, all the evidence about the employers’ organization UCEA suggested a reluctance to engage in serious negotiations with the aim of reaching a mutually acceptable settlement. It is unclear whether its position has now changed or whether it is still committed to a prolonged war of attrition.
• Absence of alternatives We know there is a large pool of non-union HE employees who in principle could replace striking workers for particular lectures, seminars or assignments but the size of this group and its impact on strike action is unknown.
• Militant leadership UCU campaigning, ballots and industrial action over the past five years have demonstrated the presence of widespread militancy at multiple levels of the union and across many universities

Conclusions

Before summing up the main conclusions of this note, it is worth reiterating some important caveats: the list of indefinite strikes is incomplete; the outcomes can sometimes be too complex for easy categorization; and outcomes which appear positive in the short-term can turn negative over the longer run (and vice versa).

Nevertheless, and however provisionally, the track record of indefinite strikes in the UK suggests three conclusions: firstly, there is a very wide range of outcomes and the indefinite strike has led to defeat at least as frequently as victory. Secondly, there appear to be six conditions associated with indefinite strike success, namely high union density, worker unity, high public impact, absence of alternatives, weak countermobilization and militant union leadership. Thirdly, UCU currently appears to meet no more than two of these six conditions.

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[1] See ‘Live reports: half a million strike on 1 Feb’, https://socialistworker.co.uk/. The Socialist Workers Party. Available at: https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/live-reports-half-a-million-strike-on-1-feb/ (Accessed: February 9, 2023).

[2] Basic details of, and sources for, the 62 strikes are available on request from the author at johnekelly115150@gmail.com

Editor’s note: Please note this article was updated on 17th February, to reflect some updated statistics.