Victory to Lumley Street Bin Strike

Interview with Joel Mayfield, a strike leader of the Lumley Street Sheffield bin strike and a member of Unite the Union.

SV: Could you say what happened on 9 July

We held a mass picket on 9 July. It was the biggest turnout we’ve ever had at Lumley Street since the strike started 11 months ago. And what’s important is the breadth and depth of inter-union solidarity by grass roots unionism from across the trade union movement, branches from up and down the country, different unions, different sectors and people came from all corners of the UK and Ireland.

It really is becoming a truly international dispute – we had a guest speaker from Bolivia here, it’s important to understand the struggles of all workers are connected because we’re all on the same side. The only thing that workers can sell is their own labour by hand or by brain and most of the problems workers suffer is when employers try to abuse that.

The mass show of solidarity from across the trade union movement has helped raise the profile of the dispute and it’s also shown the employer that it is them that’s out of step with popular opinion, not the people on the Unite picket line.

The outsourced company by Sheffield city council Violia has a court injunction against us defining where we can stand but they haven’t silenced our voice!

SV: The sacked women council workers in Turkey and Imad, PPWSU – postal workers from the West Bank sent solidarity greetings and you replied to them with solidarity. Why did you want to do that?

Because ultimately the problems that workers face are either caused by bad bosses, bad government or bad local authorities who don’t listen or don’t get it or don’t care. The important thing to remember is without your labour there is no wealth, there is no wealth creation, companies or ruling class and you’re right to withdraw your labour when you need to. When you show solidarity and stick together you will get the result you deserve.

I also understand that in Palestine they do a very difficult job keeping essential communication services going [Palestinian Postal Workers Services Union], especially during a war, an occupation and to the people in Turkey I understand what it’s like when you’ve got a local authority that doesn’t listen. We don’t work directly for the local authority, Veolia, our employers contracted out to them and neither the employer nor the local authority listens. So, like I said before, local government, national government, employers, they’re the problems when it comes to any industrial dispute anywhere in the world because the ruling class is a global class, the working class needs to globalise its solidarity and resistance so that it can be the truly revolutionary class that it really is.

What is your opinion of Veolia?

I think as it is a global company it’s important that the resistance is global. Unite has something called Strike Plus where our organisers have put pressure on Veolia and Veolia’s interests and Veolia’s paymasters and potential paymasters and partners throughout the world in Britain, Ireland, Germany, France where the belly of the beast is and even as far away as Arizona.