Acceptable Blackmail

Strikes put me in a bind. In principle I consider the ultimate sanction for any individual is to withdraw their labour and in parallel we are each responsible for our own actions and the anticipated consequences for any affected by those actions. But handing in your notice and going to find another job is a very middle class option. What if there is only one very large employer able to use your skills? You have the sanction of taking your labour away but you have to accept a dramatic change, probably for the worse, in your circumstances.

In an ideal world the the employed and the employers are always in dialogue and each pro-actively helps the other achieve the mutually agreed objectives. Might be difficult sell if, as an employer, you need to work your existing plant even harder to generate cash stream, so you can invest in new plant, which will lead to two thirds of your employers losing their jobs but increase your productivity threefold. It is very unlikely the workforce will be able to exercise the maturity to work their way through that one. It is of course not an ideal world and many employers just see their workforce as a tool to extract extra profit, unable to recognise that their fate depends on the morale and goodwill of each and every worker. They are in it together, like or not.

It is no wonder that resentment builds in groups of workers and collectively they decide to withhold their labour. To use the economic sanction of their labour withdrawal, to impose their collective will on the employer and force them to accept new conditions. Collectively they have greater clout than individual actions. Just coordinated individual actions in essence, but of course orchestrated. My problem with this is that the consequences for not just the employer but the people dependant on that employers product or service goes way way beyond the mere costs at the root of any disagreement. The traveller on an urgent trip is denied that trip or worse is subjected to hours or even days of delay, costs and inconvenience. Or the schoolchild's education future is put in jeopardy with a distinct possibility that they will never be able to recover from the lost lessons. As a direct consequence of the decision to strike, people completely unconnected to the negotiation, are used as pawns but have to suffer the consequences without any recourse. This is no more or less than blackmail and coercion. Do as we say or see the costs, pain and suffering we can inflict. Yes, there are all sorts of exceptions, rationalisations, excuses to offset or justify but in essence this is what any strike is about. Some groups of workers have more blackmail impact than others. Why not immediately concede? At the root is a leader, led issue but there may also be a wide variety of future implications which make it foolhardy to concede. We perhaps could still have a car manufacturing industry if only employers had not given in too easily to the workers short-term demands.

Even with good communications, implacable conflict can result and is even more certain when there are just plain bad parties, whether employer or employee, or resistance to change, or fraught economic pressures and uncertain futures, all the grist of every day life. When the trust falters you have entrenchment. Collective action by individuals is perfectly acceptable. Work to rule is an excellent example. If management decree this is the right way to work nothing wrong in following it to the letter. Wake up management. The rub is of course what on earth do they do when they are working normally? So withdrawal of labour is a legitimate action, collectively and individually. But the collective and each individual has to accept responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of their withdrawal of labour. It is their obligation to ensure innocent bystanders are not used as hostages, putting them in jeopardy, or else accept the financial retribution from the innocents so used. Very limiting on what actions are acceptable. Better that the collective takes the employer to court to prove or disprove the reasonableness of any refusal to accept a settlement. This will only result in even more fat lawyers and deferring to someone to decide between two sides, both with right on their side! That is life, sometimes it is plain unfair and there is no rational explanation.

Ultimately there only is one choice. Either put up and shut up or walk away, even it is to your severe detriment. For the employer, they have to respond, when individually each employer walks away. Life is unfair and stacked against you. This particularly so when well meaning agencies interfere and upset the natural order. The government decision to withdraw benefit from the unemployed that refuse to take a job actually is a remit to employers to continue offering unacceptable terms. The government has just tipped the scales heavily into the hand of the bad employer. The only tenable recourse is to hope for a favourable response to very limited constrained collective action or to walk away. Tough.