The divine mission of discontent
Fear and cynicism has always been the Right’s best weapon against working people. How often have you heard it said that unions used to do a good job but have no chance in a modern world dominated by multinational corporations, forever on the scrounge for the cheapest labour and lowest tax regime?
When backs are up against the wall, isn’t it easier to blame the poor, the unemployed or migrants for falling living standards rather than big business or bankers’ greed?
And, as for politicians, why bother placing faith in them when the real decisions are taken in Brussels or Berlin, and few seem ready to stand up for ordinary families’ rights?
But the great Dublin Lockout of 1913 reminds us that organised labour can cut through the pessimism, build cross border solidarity and offer the promise of a better future.
The genius of both Larkin and Connolly was not just in organising workers, but in politicising and mobilising them.
They convinced working people in their hundreds of thousands that organisation in its broadest sense — both industrial and political — was the route to a better life.
And that organisation will always be the best chance workers have of receiving a fair share of power and the wealth we create.
Big Jim Larkin knew there would always be setbacks along the way. But he didn’t throw in the towel because one battle was lost. The great convulsions that began in Dublin in the summer of 1913 took a long time to bear fruit.
Larkin knew that solidarity was the difference between subjugation and liberation — an insight that helped drive the emergence of a vibrant labour movement here in Ireland.
However, arguably the most important lesson from the Dublin Lockout a century ago is that unions need to be at the heart of a popular social movement — something the Lockout leaders knew instinctively.
It’s an approach that needs reimagining for a new century. We cannot afford to retreat into our comfort zone of committees, composite motions and conferences. Instead we must rediscover that ‘divine mission of discontent.’
After all, work unites us all, from the high-tech professional to the factory worker, and the young unpaid intern to the hard-pressed carer.
Unions can bind new communities together, both real and virtual, to build a new movement that promotes our enduring values of equality, dignity and justice.
These are profoundly tough times for working people everywhere. We are up against a system of global capitalism that fails the great majority and favours the rich few, that is not only attacking our living standards but is also destroying our planet.
But from Dublin to Delhi, ordinary women and men can demand something better, something different, a global economy that genuinely puts people before profits.
Over a century ago, the working people in Dublin sacrificed everything for what they believed in — the right to work, the right to a decent standard of living, and the right to be in a union.
Building that same spirit of hope, optimism and gritty determination is within our grasp today.
This article appeared first in Liberty newspaper. Download the full paper here
