Intertwined Picket-Lines

What makes this era of strikes different from preceding ones? What makes it exactly the same and how can we use industrial action for real, lasting empowerment of communities?

After a year during which one UK labour force after another has announced strike action, we welcome you to delve into a conversation about all kinds of picket lines, how they are kept separate and how they can be connected in order to achieve not only better terms for workers, but systemic change for all. This panel will look at the power of industrial action, its limits at present, and potential beyond particular industries, asking vital questions about where we go next.

Our speakers

Ian Allinson: I’ve been an activist at work since 1991, mainly working in a largely un-unionised multinational outsourcing company. I led strikes which won union recognition, saved jobs, defended pensions, and improved pay, sick pay and holidays. In 2009 I led the first national strike in the notoriously difficult to organise IT industry in Britain, which won a national agreement despite the employer not recognising the union nationally. I have been involved beyond my workplace too, serving on the national executive committee and standing in 2017 as a grassroots socialist candidate for Unite general secretary. I am involved with Manchester trade union council, served as its president, and coordinate its solidarity for disputes and its campaigning on climate issues. As an activist I found myself frustrated at the lack of a good guide to organising at work aimed at workers in Britain, so I eventually decided to write one. Workers Can Win! A Guide To Organising At Work is published by Pluto Press.

Aditi Jehangir is the chair of the Gorgie Dalry branch of Living Rent, Scotland’s tenant and community union. She has been a member of the union for four years and has had a variety of roles within the union. Living Rent is a democratic organisation run by and for our members. We organise and represent our members in the private and social rented sector. We fight for safe, secure and affordable housing for everyone. We believe in building power from the ground up, organising on the neighbourhood level upwards through community power. We are not affiliated to any political party, but recognise the importance of influencing parties and politicians and holding them to account. As a tenant’s union, we have won thousands of pounds back for our members through member defence, stopped illegal evictions and won policy changes such as better protections for tenants, eviction bans during the lockdown period and the recent rent freeze.

Morag Livingstone is the co-author of Charged How the Police Try to Suppress Protest. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer, and internationally published author. She is co-author of two best-selling narrative non-fiction books, Hackney Child and Tainted Love. She is a lecturer and teacher in the areas of photojournalism, the moving image, and storytelling.

Please note Eileen Turnbull is no longer able to attend as she will be paying respects at the memorial to campaigner Elsa Warren.