What is especially interesting to me is that no-one is talking differently about these stories or thinking differently about the possibilities that emerge in any crisis and the different ways of responding to threat. For example have any of the companies who are now laying off large numbers of staff (or those companies like Honda and other car-makers who have put their labour force on hold for several weeks) thought of using their now supposedly surplus labour differently? Have those who are been made redundant or being forced to take extended breaks thought about how they could organise to help their company generate some new ideas or some new value somewhere in the marketplace either to open up new revenue streams, save money or just continue to build capacity. Perhaps there is a load of waste in many of these businesses that could be turned into something useful (like our idea of using redundant Woolworths stores in the centres of towns as new hubs of enterprise and local economic activity). Perhaps there are some real skills that could be put to use up the value chain somewhere, perhaps there is a new product or service that some of those ‘redundant’ people could develop and forge? Perhaps there is something tangible in the area of the emerging green economy around energy or materials reuse or carbon reduction that groups of ‘redundant’ people could begin to work on? Perhaps there are public sector or voluntary sector stakeholders in the communities local to firms who are laying off staff who could use the skills of those people and who could share some but not all of the costs of employing them? Perhaps companies could sign up their staff to projects like Slivers of Time where they could recoup some of the salary cost and so keep more staff on payroll. Perhaps ‘redundant’ people could come up with many of these ideas and more themselves if they felt their companies would listen to them and work with them to help create a different future or if they felt they were capable of generating some new possibilities and making something happen.

But that isn’t going to happen because it isn’t the way the relationship between labour and capital operates. Right? The way it usually works is that the owners of capital define the rules and the labour force plays by them and if it doesn’t like them it goes on strike until somebody sorts out the problem (i.e. somebody else). I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the EU labour movement laws but I don’t think waves of strike action by disgruntled British workers demanding that they be given a job is useful or a way of generating the sort of change we need in what we used to call ‘industrial relations’. It just reinforces the us vs. them mindset that got us into this mess in the first place. Union power is good and important when it comes to holding unscrupulous employers into account, for improvement of terms and conditions and for improving equality and fairness. But unions also need to be looking to the future and helping to see labour markets as global, fluid and full of opportunity for people who don’t just see themselves as wage slaves but who can and must become architects of their own and our collective future. In system terms the wildcat strikers are resorting to ‘preserve and protect’ behaviour with all its implications for creating fertile ground for hate, division and xenophobia. I have no doubt that the rules surrounding the terms under which labour can move freely across Europe are complex, and I am sure they can be improved. But once again we need build our capacity to see the big picture as well as the particular needs of a section of the UK workforce and individual families.

Creating jobs is all of our business not just the precious few with capital, contacts or enterprising attitudes. We need to stop seeing ourselves as victims of the system demanding our rights and start seeing ourselves as players in the emerging architecture of a new deal where capital and labour serve each other and that has, at its heart, a sustainable future for our economy, our companies, our communities and therefore our planet.