Picket Lines and Protest Signs

This was supposed to be a relaxing May Bank Holiday weekend.

Well, Sunday’s BA picket was fairly relaxed. 

The grounds and the clubhouse of Bedfont FC near Hatton Cross were the perfect venue for discussions with the strikers and their supporters in the trade union movement.

Delegations of teachers and civil servants brought hundreds of pounds in donations with them.

With an intransigent management led by Union-Buster General Willie Walsh, its  just as well that these workers are used to the long-haul.

At times the scenes were no different to my memories of local school and church fetes that bored me as a child: the smell of warm beer, the selection of homemade cakes, and the impromptu kickabout involving anyone between the ages of 2 and 52.

The only occasions I was reminded that I had not been transported back through time, was when an angry shout of “Scabbing Crew” went up as the odd plane flew over.

The BA dispute is currently the most important battle in the war against a class intent on making workers pay the high price of the recession.

Willie Walsh is intent on giving a lead to bosses everywhere in union-busting. Every boss will be looking on with interest so we need to get behind the strikers and get raising money in our workplaces, get down to picket-lines and get it raised in our union branches.

What is fascinating about the strike and has been touched on by others, is that the BA strikers neither fit the the Sun and the Mail’s  usual identikit stereotypes of union militants or trolley-dollys.

The determination, the vibrancy and the imagination of the BA cabin crew strikers in the face of the assault on their jobs and conditions is heart-warming.

A wee song-and-dance routine that broke out after a couple of lagers in the sunshine that wasn’t too complimentary of Walsh was enjoyed by their comrades looking on and reminded me of the karaoke that coach parties arriving at the Timex weekend mass pickets in Dundee in the early 90s.

The mass picket previously had seen many arrests, one for attempted murder by a picket who had nearly been mown down by a scab coach.

As Tommy Sherdian pointed out at the subsequent rally, the only murder that had taken place was of the classic tunes being crooned on the karaoke stage.

There is certainly something new about the struggle in 2010 and it’s the influx of new and wider layers of people.

Yesterday’s protest in London against Israel’s murderous assault on the aid flotilla for Gaza was made marvellous by the youngsters that were at the heart of the chanting – the militancy and the vibrancy never stopped.

I am reliably informed that this was repeated all over the country and in many other nations around the globe.

Special mention should go to the protestors in Manchester that gave BBC big-wigs a headache. The BBC deserve one. Their reports seemed to be dominated by Israeli officials and apologists,  just as they were a couple of years back when the siege on Gaza began in earnest. A few smashed windows is the least they deserve for failing to publicise the Disasters Emergency Committee call for humanitarian aid.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=21375

The bullies of BA are the schoolboy variety when compared to the might of a Zionist state fed state-of-the-art weapon systems by the mightiest superpower on the planet.

But nevertheless both are bullies and my hopes that our side full of Davids can take them to task increased over the holiday weekend.