Introduction

We chose this topic because many of us experience bad working conditions, spend most of our time doing things which feel pointless because we have to and cannot afford to live even if we work all the time. Many of us associate our self worth, and that of others, with the ability to work, or produce. This means people with disabilities, single parents, neurodiverse people or those who the state prohibited from working are devalued by society. People are also stigmatised or criminalised for trying to make money, out with legal employment despite it being necessary for survival. In this section we aim to understand the process by which the natural world and peoples labour have become commodities, how we people historically and globally have resisted this and how we can strengthen our struggle today.

In his book Lanark, Alasdair Gray said "The world is only improved by people who do ordinary jobs and refuse to be bullied’, demonstrating the groundedness and pride Scottish people have of their workers' history. The aspect of Scottish resistance history which is best known, is of Trade Union and Labour Party organising in the early 1900s. This movement was led by working class men like Keir Hardy, who began labouring in mines in Lanarkshire at the age of 7 and described ‘rarely seeing the sun’ as a result of the long working hours. These movements were mostly Socialist and Communist, meaning that they focussed on workers ‘seizing the means of production’ through gaining voting rights, striking for wages and better working conditions and establishing Cooperative resources such as work places or shops. These movements also focussed on improving working class people's access to healthcare, good housing and education, through a variety of means including welfare reform, Socialist Sunday Schools and rent strikes. 

The various branches of Marxism originated in the mid 1800s, in industrial cities across Europe, but they built upon existing values and cultures of organising among labouring people. Within the populist Jacobite movement of the early 1700s, there were some arguing for free access to health care, education and mass participation in decision making. From the medieval period, Trade Guilds gave workers power over wages and provided support for families of male members who died. In Scotland weavers were especially known for their high levels of political education, and the Calton Weavers were famously executed by the British State in 1787 in retaliation for strike action. There were also movements for voting rights, both organic resistance in the forms of food riots and organised movements such as the United Scotsmen. This culminated in what is known as The Radical War in 1820. 

The workers movement has made real gains for ordinary people in terms of safety in the work place, wages and working hours. The welfare system, which was fought for by the workers movement, is also a lifeline for many people. Whilst capitalism exists, then the role of unions in protecting people, and as part of an ecology of tactics is clear. In order to keep the workers movement strong, organisers are exploring its history, celebrating its strengths and acknowledging past mistakes. Many people have struggled to have their tactics, ideas and needs recognised by Trade Union leadership, meaning that they had to fight both the bosses in the workplace and the bosses in the union. Women, Black and POC and Irish people have also all been excluded from many trade unions or labour organising. Some of the same people who were organising for Red Clydeside also organised the Race Riots of 1919, where Black sailors were chased and beaten whilst docked in Glasgow. Changes to these policies have come from within the movement itself, notably the IWW deliberately prioritised inter-racial organising in defiance of segregation within the labouring class. Despite being sidelined by official history, women have always taken a leading role in industrial action in Scotland. Projects like the Open University ‘Women and Workplace Struggles 1900-2022’ highlight many examples including the Lee Jeans strike in Greenock 1981 and the Ryedale Glove Factory strike, Dumfries 1912. 

Working class anarchists within Scotland have often felt that their histories have been suppressed or silenced by Trade Union or Labour historians. Whilst they mostly agree it is necessary to organise for workers rights, their tactics and vision for the world  are different to most socialists and communists. Anarchists question whether we need a system of jobs, wages and bosses, in order to meet our needs, and suggest we could organise time, energy and resources in other ways. This also gives space to question the way our society relates people's sense of worth with their ability to work or be productive, especially since a lot of what people have to do for work feels pointless or degrading. In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber states “We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself.” 

As with poor and indigenous communities elsewhere in the world, working class communities in Scotland have had dirty, toxic, extractive industries imposed on them, or communities have been created to meet the need for workers, by large companies. Many of these industries have then been closed, or relocated to elsewhere in the world where labour is cheaper and labour conditions worse, meaning a loss of work, purpose and identity for those left behind. These communities have chronic ill health, mental health and trauma related issues as a result of both the original industry, and the loss of them. These communities also experience the front line of climate change in the form of bad food, rising cost of living, flooding and loss of green spaces but feel very cut off from middle class environmental activism which condemns industry without listening to what it means to people. 

Though it is very important not to fetishise Indigenous resistance movements, they provide leadership on organising with the more than human world in mind. In Ohitika Woman, Mary Brave Bird said “Maka ke wakan — the land is sacred. These words are at the core of our being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die’. This perspective on the living world goes far beyond ethical consumption, carbon footprints or plant based diets. It is about a relationship with land, ecology and ourselves that many of us in this context have lost. When we explore histories of workers' struggle, let's ask ourselves what our true vision of the world is, even if we also accept what is strategic and necessary for now. 

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