This is a continuation of a series of posts on worker resistance. The following was written by Jordan House. It formed part of a course that he, Herman Rosenfeld and I presented for workers at the Toronto Pearson International Airport a few years ago.
One of the biggest problems for public sector and service industry workers is that many forms of direct action, such as strikes, end up hurting the users of the service (most of them also members of the working class) more than the employer. One way around this is to provide better or more effective and cheaper service, delivering the service without the attendant cuts that bosses increasingly use, forcing fewer workers to work hard and reducing services.
Workers at Mercy Hospital in France, who were afraid that patients would go untreated if they went on strike, instead refused to file the billing slips for drugs, lab tests, treatments and therapy. As a result, the patients got better care (since time was being spent caring for them instead of doing paperwork), for free. The hospital’s income was cut in half, and panic-stricken administrators gave in to all of the workers’ demands after three days.
In 1968, Lisbon bus and train workers gave free rides to all passengers to protest a denial of wage increases. Conductors and drivers arrived for work as usual, but the conductors did not pick up their money satchels.
In January, 2014, bus drivers in Adelaide voted to stop collecting fares in protest of low wages and under-staffing. The union estimated that the action would cost the employer $100,000 a day. The private transportation companies, South Link and Transfield, responded by placing private security on buses to collect fares. Because workers had stayed on the job, they were able to escalate to other work actions, including work stoppages.
Needless to say, public support was solidly behind these take-no-fare strikers, who were able to provide cheaper and, in some cases, better services.
Sources:
http://www.iww.org/about/solidarityunionism/directaction/
Adelaide bus drivers vote for industrial action, refuse to collect fares
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/01/29/3933838.htm
