Scarborough Solidarity Social: over £600 raised!

Socialists across the Yorkshire Coast came together on Friday at Scarborough Railway Club to hold an ‘old-school fundraiser’ to raise money for various union strike funds which will help support struggling workers as they continue to strike in defence of not only their jobs but our public services.

The Solidarity Social raised a grand total of £681.92 after an evening of Ska, Punk, Soul, a live performance by working-class legend Joe Solo and most importantly speeches from local striking workers.

Sarah works at Scarborough Railway Station, a workplace where only three members of staff are in the union. When speaking at the local Enough is Enough campaign event last year, she described how low morale is in her workplace as they struggle against the train company’s attempts to close the local ticket office and cut the majority of jobs there. Scarborough is a ‘destination-station’ and as such doesn’t itself sell lots of tickets. Hence, in the data which train companies run their operations by, it seems like a waste to have a ticket office there. In truth of course, Scarborough Station has high passenger numbers and would be crippled by atomisation and a reduction in staff. Being a station where trains are regularly cancelled and services disrupted, there is an obvious need for on-hand staff to support passengers in completing their journeys. It’s truly inspiring to see Sarah continue to fight not just for her own job, but to maintain a basic level of service in our local transport infrastructure, especially when she’s often the only member of staff on the picket line.

Sarah and Cathy are from the RNC and spoke about the dangerous levels of staff shortages on hospital wards as a result of austerity and how their fight to save lives has led them to strike action. Hospital wards are left not just understaffed, but often with barely a single nurse regularly which puts patient’s health at severe risk and puts staff under unacceptable levels of stress and pressure. The destruction of the NHS through underfunding has been the policy of the Government for nearly 13 years and it has not gotten to the point where industrial action has become necessary to prevent privatisation.

Joe Solo got the heavily-packed room hyped ahead of being addressed by the striking workers with a ‘picket line set’ culminating in a rousing rendition of Solidarity Forever. Although, following the event he recounted how he hadn’t quite been prepared for how well attended the event would be:

“Got to be honest, when I suggested I did a 'picket line set' 100% acoustic, I was expecting about a third as many people. In the end the room was packed and a PA would have helped, my bad call, but a great problem to have in these hard times.”

As we head towards what is looking likely to be a month of the most widespread and unified industrial action we’ve yet seen in February, it’s important to remind ourselves that Strikes are not just happening in the big, urban areas and they’re not just about pay and conditions. The reason the strikes have reached across workplaces and unions and have become so widespread is because the very fabric of our society, tied together in our public institutions is being torn apart and the political class in both major parties (at best) refuse to do anything about it. It has become the job of the working class to save the NHS, our Railways, our Postal services, our Schools, even the legal system from collapse. It is events like this one in Scarborough last Friday that help ensure that workers are able to strike to that end for as long as they need.

Solidarity!