Fight for the Right to Work

The success at Visteon will no doubt give a boost to the 'Fight for the Right to Work' conference, planned for 13 June in London. The Visteon occupiers have helped initiate the conference, which is also supported by the occupying workers who recently ended their action at Waterford Glass in Ireland.

It is hoped union branches, stewards' committees and students' groups across the country will support the conference and mobilise for it. While it isn't yet clear what will emerge from the event, it seems obvious that it will become more than just a 'talking shop'. There is a growing appetite for action over jobs and the conference will need to find ways of tapping into this. There will no doubt be strong calls for permanent networks and increased co-ordination, presumably around the event's slogan: Fight for the right to work.

According to the invitation to supporters I've seen, it will include focusing on how to 'involve the unemployed, particularly the young unemployed, in the battle for jobs and against redundancies'. This sounds promising: the numbers of young unemployed grow by the day, and they have the potential to mobilise on the streets in big numbers.

If we can deliver on this potential, and also link it up with a fightback in the workplaces and the new activism and militancy on campuses across the country (principally over Gaza and war, but capable of spilling over into other areas), we could see a decisive shift in resistance against the impact of capitalism's crisis.