Class Power on Zero-Hours

Description

AngryWorkers, a small political collective, have spent six years organising in London’s industrial backyard, mainly in the food manufacturing and logistics sector. This book is about their experiences as they try and find new ways of building class power in tough times. It is essential reading for anyone who is grappling with the question: ‘what next for working class politics and revolutionary strategy?’

From the introduction: “In January 2014 some AngryWorkers chose to move to a working class neighbourhood on the fringes of west London. We felt an urgent need to break out of the cosmopolitan bubble and root our politics in working class jobs and lives. We wanted to pay more than just lip service to the classic slogan, ‘the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.’ Over the next six years, comrades joined us and we worked in a dozen different warehouses and factories. We organised slowdowns on shop floors, rocked up on bosses’ and landlords’ doors with our solidarity network, and banged our heads against brick walls as shop stewards in the bigger unions. We wrote up all our experiences in our newspaper, WorkersWildWest, which we gave out to 2,000 local workers at warehouse gates at dawn. We tried to rebuild class power and create a small cell of a revolutionary organisation. This book documents our experiences. It is material for getting rooted. It is a call for an independent working class organisation.”