Dear comrades,

we send you a text that we wrote in relation to a recent
struggle/occupation of street cleaners in Brighton (U.K.) to which we
participated.

Enjoy,

undercurrent



REFUSING COLLECTION

In the week between the 11th and the 15th of June a workers' struggle
of a kind not experienced in the UK for a long time took place in the
refuse collection depot in Brighton. In defiance of the dominant
spectacle of social peace, the bin men of Brighton took collective
action after being sacked for refusing newly imposed work routines.
Quickly, their struggle took the character of a complete refusal to
continue working under the same management, passively embracing a
large part of the community of Brighton.

After 4 days occupation, the workers managed to win their struggle
and to force the Council to terminate the private contract, while re-
instating all the workers who had been sacked. As it is the case with
most struggles, their results cannot be seen in a black and white
way: victory or defeat? Although it is still too early to say,
considering the fact that this struggle remained isolated, not
immediately influencing further break outs of struggles in different
sectors, it would be wrong to expect too much (1) . A social crisis
does not occur because people decide it's a good idea but because it
becomes immediately possible, because it opens up certain
perspectives and possibilities. Just as it would be absurd and
idealistic to expect Brighton's bin men to furnish their struggle
with demands for the abolition of wage-labour, and to criticize them
for not doing so, it is equally useless to remain uncritical towards
the contradictions that emerged within that struggle.

This pamphlet is written with the specific aim of communicating the
experiences from our participation in this struggle, which was not
simply guided by the enthusiasm that it gave us, but because we
recognised in their struggle part of our own. The hope is to further
communicate this experience to our own workplaces and to use the
lessons that we can learn from it in our next encounters against
capital's domination of our lives. Nothing is lost. As it was once
said, so long as the class struggle exists, all hopes are allowed.


* * *
On Monday the 11th of June, S.I.T.A., the French company which was
contracted by the Brighton and Hove Council in charge of street
cleaning and refuse collection imposed new working routines, ones
which were completely impossible to achieve, such as cleaning a 17
mile area in 8 hours with a broom.

On hearing these new measures, 12 workers refused to carry out these
and were immediately suspended. When this happened, the 12 workers
called in their fellow workers who had already left the depot and
explained the situation. In response, they all returned and blockaded
the entrances of the depot, refusing the management's action and
demanding their immediate re-instatement. SITA management responded
by sacking them all. As a consequence, and in an act which has not
happened in Brighton for at least 20 years, the workers occupied
their workplace and demanded:

-the immediate re-instatement of all woorkers (full-time and agency),

-the termination of the contract with SSITA.

A day later the following demand was added to the list:

-the formation of a workers' co-operatiive to take control of street
cleaning and refuse collection

The Council responded by giving SITA 48 hours to prove that they are
capable of carrying out the work that they were being paid to do. In
its attempts to do this, and to break the workers' `strike', SITA
used local (private) employment agencies in order to employ scabs.
The jobs of the 240 suspended workers were advertised in the local
papers (not only in Brighton, but also in surrounding areas like
Worthing and Crawley).

A few of us (direct action anarchists and communists) joined the
struggle as soon as we found out it was going on, and participated
with workers in the various actions that were deemed necessary. The
first was to go with some workers at the other depot from which the
scabs were leaving and to stop their trucks from coming out. This was
hugely successful: one of us locked himself underneath the first scab
truck at the entrance of the depot, effectively stopping any other
truck from leaving, while the workers who were there persuaded the
majority of the temps not to scab by either explaining to them the
situation, or by threatening them that their union would make sure
that they would not be able to find another job in Brighton. When the
fire brigade was called in to de-lock our comrade, the shop steward
from the depot explained the situation and in an inspiring act of
solidarity the firemen refused to participate, leaving as quickly as
they had come. Most temps who had turned up refused to work after
realising that they would be scabs (the job was not advertised in
exactly those terms), while SITA and agency managers who had also
turned up to supervise the situation were seriously fucked off with
the development. Only a truck that arrived later could be used with a
crew of 3 people, to do a job which usually required more than 30
trucks, each with 5 people as crew.

The second action that we took concerned the agencies that were
employing scabs in Brighton. In collaboration with the union and
after their request, we wrote a leaflet warning proletarians that
taking up the job made them scabs, and handed them outside the
agencies. The management of the agencies freaked out and tried to
stop us by calling in the police. The fact was however that there was
nothing that the police could do apart from giving us abstract
threats. After the agency management realised there was nothing they
could do, the promised that they would not recruit any more scabs.
The same thing happened at another agency that SITA employed which
was outside Brighton, in the neighbouring town of Worthing. After we
leafleted the workers there, the agency also promised to stop
employing scabs.

The fact that we managed in collaboration with the workers to stop
the scabs gave even more strength to the workers' struggle, since
SITA was unable to comply with the Council deadline. Negotiations
between the workers, the Council and the company would have
definitely been much different had we not succeeded in stopping the
scabs.

Since the beginning of the occupation, SITA had refused any
negotiations with the workers, while the agency preferred using
outright threats to break up the struggle. However, after the actions
that the workers took and the extent of public support, the Council
mediated between the two and a further meeting was agreed. In that,
the final agreement was made: SITA lost the contract and would leave
the management of the refuse collection in September, all sacked
workers would be re-instated and fully paid for the week spent in
occupation, the working routines would return to the way they were
before the 11th of June, all further dismissals have to be negotiated
with GMB, and a council representative will supervise any further
changes in the organisation of work.

After September a different solution will be chosen of which the
outcome is unclear. The latest news we have is that the Council is
pushing for a different private company to take over the contract. At
the same time, the shop stewards are working on a plan to create a
workers' co-operative. The most likely possibility is however that
another private company will take over, considering that lack of
necessary funds makes the workers' cooperative a less likely
potential.


The return of the wildcats…
Although this struggle seems to have appeared out of nowhere, there
are indications of a general upsurge of class struggles in the UK
(2), primarily wildcat strikes . Only a couple of months before the
street cleaners took action, a wildcat strike in the post office
spread to the whole of the UK in only a few days. Starting after a
post office in the north of England refused to accept an
intensification plan, management tried to get other postal workers
from other workplaces to fill in. But wherever management went, news
of the strike had travelled faster and the strike spread like fire,
beyond the control of the unions. Management was forced to withdraw
its plans. In the railways, plans of further privatisation have
continuously been met with strike actions or even threats towards
strikes, again forcing the management to delay or withdraw its
proposals. The success of all these actions is a clear result of
their decision to take unlawful, wildcat actions which go beyond the
long and official procedures of unions.

Similarly, the street cleaners represent another bastion of working
class resistance, with a long tradition of militancy (3). Many of the
work practices date from the days before the privatisation of street
cleaning (which was around 10 years ago!), a situation that SITA had
been trying to defeat for a long time –without particular success.

There was speculation going around that SITA had provoked the
situation (without however anticipating such a reaction) in an
attempt to get rid of the `bad old days' practices of the workers.
Knowing that it would only be able to exert more profit by re-
organising the work conditions, the argument goes, SITA staged the
initial suspension, knowing that the rest of the workforce would
react. By sacking them all, SITA was hoping to re-employ them on
individual contracts that came with the new work routines and with
effective decreases on their wages and, more importantly, breaking
down their strength and solidarity. Their gamble however was
unsuccessful: the workers remained united. By taking this unlawful
action, the workers forced management into a defensive position. The
mediations that an official strike imposes were largely absent.

Conditions of full employment also placed the workers struggle in a
better position. It explains for example why the private agencies
were quickly forced to abandon the employment of scabs, or the fact
that many of the `scabs' that turned up in the second depot were
easily persuaded not to cross the picket lines, since finding another
job is easier than it used to be.

The struggle immediately received the support of most of Brighton's
residents, who had felt the effects of the privatisation of refuse
collection and the deterioration of the service as a result of SITA
taking over which had made refuse collection sporadic and
ineffective. Although the streets were piling up with rubbish, we did
not in the duration of the struggle come across a single person who
blamed the situation on the workers. Their struggle was socialised
and thus gained more strength. Similar to the struggles in the
railways, where the deterioration of safety (to name but one) was a
direct consequence of privatisation, but more dynamic in its
practices, the struggle of the bin men shattered social indifference
and embraced Brighton's community, though mostly in a passive way.
The visible participation of direct action activists in the struggle
also testified for its openness and social character.

It also seems to be the case that the Council itself was dissatisfied
with SITA but was legally bound from terminating the contract. The
strike of the workers seems to have given the opportunity to the
Council to exert pressure to terminate the contract. This would
explain both the Council's decision to give a 48 hour deadline, which
they were not forced to do, and the local paper's negative attitude
towards SITA. It remains however an unsubstantiated speculation, for
it is also possible that this rumour was spread around in order to
give the impression that it would not be entirely impossible to get
rid of SITA.

Organisation of the Struggle
One of the main positive features of the struggle was the total unity
of the workers behind all activities. The majority of the workers
spend most of their time at the occupied depot (sleeping rough,
eating canteen food and sandwiches, etc), they had a shift system for
the entrances, and all were willing to help out with practical tasks
(such as flying pickets, driving to employment agencies in other
towns, etc). The morale remained high most of the time. And although
that was never made explicit, certain types of sabotage of the
machinery took place in order to avoid a forced return to work in the
case of a police eviction. Quite a few workers were prepared to fight
back in case the police would try to evict them (brooms and other
sticks were conveniently close to the guarded entrances), though
their expressed aim was to keep this a peaceful action.

The fact that SITA was a French-based company did make us wary of the
possible `national' content of the struggle, but although there were
instances in which anti-French sentiments were expressed these were
clearly marginal and did not characterise the struggle as a whole.
And although the Argus (Brighton's local paper), known for its
reactionary attitude, did try to use the racist card (4), this was
not successful.

However, one of the problems that we recognised from the very
beginning of the struggle was the lack of communication and
information exchange between the workers. The way that the whole
thing was organised, everything type of information, every activity
and every leaflet went, in one way or another, through the union rep.
This had a variety of effects on the struggle:

On the one hand it meant that a lot of workers did not have exact
information on what was going on, at what stage the negotiations
were, what type of decisions were made. This meant that a lot of
rumours were flying about, a fact which sometimes added to their
stress about the situation.

On the other hand, we found it difficult to understand the full story
from the workers themselves. We were also relying on the union rep
(either for practical activities or for information on the general
situation) and we could not simply ask any other worker for it. Many
times, when we started discussing certain things about the struggle
with some workers, as soon as any specific decision had to be made,
most of them told us to speak to the union.

An undeniable fact was however that the union representative was a
decent and militant person, who did not at any point stitch them up
or exploit the trust that they placed upon him, a fact which
explained the almost unconditional trust. And the fact was that the
union's contribution was conditioned by the militancy of the workers
themselves. It was obvious to us after talking to workers, that had
it been a different union person there would have certainly been more
attempts towards self-organisation or rank-and-file members taking
more initiatives.

The fact was that the specific attitude and commitment of the union
rep was such that none of that appeared as an immediate necessity.
Towards the end, when the union was negotiating with the Council and
SITA, it was quite clear to us that should the proposal be
unacceptable to the workers, and should they have felt that the union
was responsible for a sell-out, the situation would have developed
quite differently, and possibly different forms of organisation could
have been sought. For good or for bad, it is not easy to speculate on
this point. It would be unrealistic however, to argue that there were
visible signs of conflict between the union and the workers (apart
from some incidents with the agency workers which are discussed in
this pamphlet).

Agency Workers
Another promising aspects of this struggle was the degree of
unification between the agency workers and the permanent ones. Both
sides had decided that whatever happens they would stick together and
fight all the way, as if both were in exactly the same position. This
was especially important for the agency workers since their position
was much more precarious than that of the permanent workers (5) –many
of the agency workers did not even have proper contracts since the
agency kept delaying them. (One of the workers we met had been
waiting for his contract for over 5 months!).

The agency tried a variety of tactics to separate the agency workers
from the permanent ones, ranging from stupid tricks to outright
threats. Firstly, it asked the agency workers to meet at another
depot in order to discuss the situation. Their plan, it was revealed,
was to ask them to resume work immediately (effectively as scabs),
and whoever would refuse would be sacked on the spot. They were
hoping that this would catch them off guard and, separated from the
permanent workers, they would be forced to accept or risk their jobs.
This however did not work, since all workers understood the plan, and
promised to remain solid on their position of refusing work. None of
them appeared at the planned meeting with the agency management.

After this plan failed, the agency quickly resorted to clear threats,
calling the agency workers at home and informing them that if they
did not go to the other depot they should consider themselves out of
a job. Most of the workers however spend their time at the occupied
depot and thus never received the call (those who did simply passed
it on to the others and pretended they had not received either.) At
the same time, the union representative and the shop stewards re-
affirmed the decision that all workers would stick together whatever
happened and that any sacked agency workers would receive full
support from the union.

On the 3d day of the struggle some of us attended a meeting between
agency workers and one of the shop stewards. It was obvious that
there existed some tension between the agency workers and the union
but we never managed to find out exactly what it was about because
nobody spoke clearly. What we did understand was that the agency
workers were expressing fears that the union might abandon them while
making a deal with SITA. The shop steward was vigilant to stop any
such rumours and re-assured them that the union is totally behind
them, so long as they stay behind the struggle. But he also added, in
authoritarian tones, that he was aware that `some' agency workers
were going around spreading false rumours and that if this continued
he would personally `take care of it' (whatever that meant). He added
that he would not accept anyone backstabbing them and that the agency
workers should be cautious of their behaviour since they
were "guests" there. Of course, many workers objected to that term
("we are also part of the struggle, we are not just guests" they
stressed), and the shop steward quickly covered it up. The meeting
ended with all them unanimously agreeing that they will fight until
the end, united and in solidarity.

In the next days of the occupation we did not notice any other signs
of divergence between the agency workers and the union, though when
the union rep came back with the final proposal from the Council,
some agency workers were clearly wary of its exact content because of
rumours circulating.

Workers and Activists (and the Union in the middle)
From the very beginning that we joined the struggle it was clear that
the workers or the union did not see us as paper-selling politicos,
the obvious reason being that we arrived there with food, blankets
and the willingness to practically participate in or organise
actions. In contrast to the socialist lot which arrived later on, we
did not have papers explaining to workers what they are themselves
doing, but instead joined with the aim of assisting their struggle.
The workers greeted us with a lot of appreciation and friendliness,
and that attitude was kept until the end (after the end of the
struggle, the shop stewards suggested that we should maintain
contacts and that should we ever need their help they would be
prepared to do so without second thought, by e.g. doing a walk-out
for us). And when a few of us got stopped by the cops in the entrance
of the depot, the union rep gave us workers' vests in order to walk
in and out without any hassle. It was clear that the workers
recognised our contributions (including fly-posting and leafleting
around town) as part of their own struggle.

At the same time, and although we met and interacted with loads of
the workers, our main point of reference was the union rep and the
shop stewards. It was only trough them that we arranged joint actions
(such as practically stopping the scabs or leafleting the employment
agencies which were employing them), and in many cases a lot of the
workers were not even aware what we were planning with the union rep
(though this did not seem to create a problem for them, probably
because of their trust for the union). The fact was that the union
rep and the shop stewards were prepared to raise the stakes at any
moment (and they surely did when the decision was made to stop the
scabs) and that was enough for us to remain at good terms with the
union.

We did feel in certain cases that the union was taking advantage of
our `experience' in direct action tactics (like locking yourself
underneath a 7-ton truck), but we were all aware of that and to the
extent that we were in agreement with the actions and their purpose
we were willing to ignore that feeling. It was only after a couple of
the actions that we had prepared (or carried out) were suddenly
recalled by the union that the possibility of taking our own
initiatives without seeking the union's approval and by discussing
them separately with workers was discussed. Considering however that
we remained outsiders to a struggle that never generalised, such
initiatives could have been counter-productive. They way things
developed though, such dilemmas became insignificant.

The effect of the struggle on the activist scene of Brighton was also
quite crucial. In contrast to the general fragmentation that it finds
itself in most of the time, this struggle brought many of them
together (6). Many activists were eager to participate and help , and
on the 3d day, about 30 people from the direct action scene made an
impromptu meeting and decided to go around Brighton in search for
scab trucks and to stop them. Moreover, many of the temps who turned
up as `scabs' in the second depot came from the direct action scene.
In hearing the situation, none of them had any second thoughts about
working as scabs and they immediately refused to cross the picket
line. The participation of direct action activists in the struggle
also put certain of their practices in perspective. The cops are well
aware of their tactics, and when they are used in direct actions,
their effectiveness is not as obvious. But they where completely
taken by surprise when they were faced with similar tactics in a
workers' struggle. The lessons that one can draw from this are
numerous.

What next?
Within the context of the struggle's potentials, the result was
definitely a victory for the workers (though some expressed anger to
the fact that SITA would remain in management until September). The
final agreement granted most of the demands, and the situation
remains open for the possibility of forming a workers' cooperative,
though as we said we consider that to be quite unlikely. At the same
time, such a development does not in itself solve anything. Although
work conditions would possibly be better for the workers if a
cooperative was formed (at least for a while), this solution
effectively represents the self-management of their exploitation. Of
course, every struggle creates its own dynamic and thus its own
potentials. Considering that the struggle of the street cleaners did
not happen in the midst of a generalised social crisis which would
allow for further possibilities to be opened up, and more radical
transformations to take place, the temptation is there to say that a
workers' cooperative would represent a (partial) victory on the side
of the workers. But, disagreement with the potential of a workers'
cooperative does not stem from an ideological position which rejects
anything that does not concretely attack wage labour and the law of
value. By putting them in charge of their own alienation, a workers'
cooperative would integrate workers as `equal' members of what
remains a capitalist company, rendering them responsible for its
profit-making. This situation would most likely deter many of them
from engaging in further struggles the next time that changes in the
work conditions become necessary for capital.

For us, the main importance of the struggle lies in that fact that
workers decided to take unlawful collective action, that they
remained united until the end, and that they kept their struggle open
to the wider community, all of which contributed to their victory in
the end. Though the prospects of really favourable development in
this workplace are rather grim, the potential that their struggle
will influence others around the area or in the UK remains open (7).
But, so long as this struggle, despite its dynamic and the enthusiasm
that it effected on all of us, remains an isolated incident, then
whatever its final outcome, it will only reflect its limitations. As
with every other struggle which remains isolated, its result will
only be the alienated product of a struggle that has not yet been
completed and can thus be recuperated by capital. The reality of the
situation remains that, unless a social crisis destroys the social
peace that dominates, neither the contradictions of this struggle can
be resolved, nor its full potential fully exploited and integrated in
our everyday struggle as proletarians for the complete abolition of
capitalist social relations.

-----------------------------
Endnotes:
(1) At the time that we are writing this, however, news came out
that Brighton's postmen have threatened strike action after being
influenced by the bin men struggle.
(2) To this one has to add a change in the unions' attitude. In a
situation characterised by full employment, many unions appear with a
new kind of militantism, sometimes directly challenging New Labour's
policies.
(3) A lot of the older workers had been working in street cleaning
for more than 20 years. The last major strike they had participated
in, which many remembered, was a 14-week strong strike and occupation
in 1976, which included pitched battles with the police. More
recently, just a couple of months before the occupation, the bin men
had a sit-in, protesting about the management's refusal to give them
the bonuses that they had been promised. That action was as well
successful.
(4) The Argus reported the workers' victory with "AU REVOIR SITA" in
its front page.
(5) As one of the workers explained to us, in the past, there were
two main agencies which supplied temps for street cleaning. One of
them gave more money than the other, whose contract only gave extra
money when a specific amount of hours was exceeded during a week.
When at some point workers from the second agency complained about
the differences between them and the other agency, SITA decided that
an equalisation of standards was necessary and abandoned the first
one and re-employed all from the second, thus bringing everyone's
wages down.
(6) We have heard however that some animal rights activists refused
to participate in the struggle because the workers are `sexist'
(maybe even `meat-eaters'). Putting aside the ridiculousness of this
moralistic attitude, although something like that was considered
possible (it was after all a workplace of about 250 people all of
which were men), the actual situation in the depot refuted any such
claims altogether. None of us experienced any type of `sexism'
or `racism'. As one activist noted, if the anarchist book-fair in
London consisted of 250 men only, sexist attitudes would have
definitely been much more obvious than anything we experienced in the
depot.
(7) The struggle and its outcome did not remain a strictly
local/regional issue as it was reported in the national press as
well.