‘4 weeks plus more if we need it’ That’s how long Unite members working as carpenters, fitters, plumbers etc in the NI Housing Executive were planning to stay on strike, in early September. As October begins they plan to be out for ‘another month’. The Housing Executive’s 1.75% wage increase offer in August had only raised the workers’ anger in a year that sees inflation at 12%.
It was one week in, and negotiations seemed non-existent that Thursday 8 September. ‘There’s been no press since Monday,’ one picketer said, ‘They’re not even in negotiations.’ The NIHE picketers like those at Royal Mail pointed out that they had worked through Covid. They talked amongst themselves about about union reps and officials they had talked to, how the other depots were doing holding the line, and about how the NIHE board were at this moment meeting behind the picket lines inside the multi-story office block they were picketing in the shadow of Belfast City Hall.
It was going to be a long strike and, with a state employer, there was little prospect of a snap sell-off or state going to the wall. Unlike the privatised Royal Mail strikers, Unite had a strike fund- and they were using it. Unite’s Regional Secretary Jackie Pollock was down to visit the picket with Susan Fitzgerald, a prominent officer in the massive union which has coordinated the strike at the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.
People Before Profit spoke to one worker about his situation and why he was striking. Jim Hardy works out of Stockman’s Way and has done since 1988. He’s a proud family man ‘with children and grandchildren’. His reason for being out is simple: ‘Fair wages. We’ve had no rise since 2009.’
Hardy in the NIHE like those at Royal Mail and across the striking working class can’t carry on patiently and muddle through. Pay rises are needed now. Inflation and price rises make it unavoidable.
‘Folks stocking shelves are making more than us,’ said Hardy, a fully-fledged master joiner. ‘We’ve got men doing a full week still going to food centres here in Belfast to get their shop done.’
‘Strike pay’s not as much as wages but it’ll tide us over.’ He said some workers are on just ‘22,000 a year, but they should be at 30,000’
A ten percent increase might do. ‘But London is not settling for less than 15%.’ 1.75% was ludicrous.
Hardy started in the Sixties as an apprentice. He put himself through college. ‘Playing in bands put me through.’ He believed in education and the job. After college he worked everywhere. ‘South. North. All over the UK. I could make 1100 a week.’ But the work has been devalued. ‘Now I’m down to 300.’
‘I took my state pension. I’ve three years left. I’m working so they tax the hell out of me. There’s no back pay for the pension. I’m a single earner. I had to sell the house.’
Jim’s story is becoming more and more frequent and underlines the essential nature of the fight these workers are waging and why they’ve been out all of September, and it’s why they are planning to stay out October too.
Their backs are to the wall but they’re fighting for each other. The capitalist system is aiming to break these workers’ solidarity and make their fight seem unwinnable. But it is winnable.
They have support from their union, the communities around them who need them and want them to succeed, and – certainly – from People Before Profit. More and more workers are out on strike this weekend as October begins demanding an end to systems which devalue the essential work which allows us as people to live and improve our lives.
Workers have the power to stop those systems by putting down their tools like the NIHE workers have done and uniting. It’s difficult but the more workers that say ‘enough is enough’ the more courage and momentum we build for change.
We need a huge change in the way our housing executive and our society is run. We need them run for the benefit of people, not for the the people who live off of profit. Workers deserve fair wages. Get out and stop by the pickets regularly and join any effort that helps put people before profit.
