Do you want better pay? How about less stress, and safer conditions at work? The internet is full of people telling you how to ask for a payrise, or improve your CV to get a nicer job. What they don’t tell us is that doing things this way starts from a position of WEAKNESS. The bosses that we ask from have all the power, and HR advisers telling them how to pay us as little as possible. On the other hand the biggest cause of stress work, which in turn causes the most workplace illness, is a LACK OF CONTROL. Over the pace of work, the work itself, and the working environment. Bosses aren’t just going to hand more control over to us, however nicely we ask.
If we want better wages and conditions then the answer isn’t asking alone, it’s asking TOGETHER. Getting people together to make demands is what we call WORKPLACE ORGANISING.
Even asking nicely is more effective when done as a group. But that’s only the beginning. On our own all we can do to demand better is threaten to quit. Plenty of people jump from job to job to job for years, because the grass is always greener and they hope each time that maybe the next one won’t suck. There’s also the legal tribunal route, but the success rate is low, it takes a tonne of time and money, and the whole rigamarole is often more stressful than the work itself!
As a group, we can take DIRECT ACTION to force bosses to meet our demands. Strikes are one option, there’s also plenty of less intense options too like work to rule, pickets, even just all calling in sick. Direct action (and the threat of it) is how we got most of the rights that we have today. The 9 hour day, paid holiday, basic health and safety – all these can be traced back to the power of collective action.
The best part of all this isn’t just better work conditions, but that organising itself makes work more tolerable. People organising together treat each other better, instead of blaming individuals for problems. A bullying boss is never so scary once you’ve confronted them as a group. Collective power from organising gives us some control over the work environment. And as we said before – LACK OF CONTROL is the major cause of workplace stress.
Sounds good? Check out this article about how to use direct action at work and in your community
People everywhere are using collective struggle to make their work and their lives better. Why not get involved?