Europe's trades unionists have won the argument even if they haven't won the streets

 Last week' pan-european strike was the biggest show of trade union solidarity since the creation of the European Union. 40 trades unions in 23 countries took to the streets in protest at the austerity policies being pursued by European countries under the direction of the IMF and the European Central Bank. The organisers should be very pleased with the response, even though it largely passed Britain by.

The turnout demonstrates that, even though the vast majority of workers in countries like in Spain are not members of trades unions, it is possible to mount an effective protest against austerity across southern Europe at least. However, protest is all it was. This was not a general strike or anything like it, and we shouldn't exaggerate its impact. The EU bureaucrats are not exactly shaken to the core. Nor is Angela Merkel likely to open the coffers of the Bundesbank because of a few clashes with police. The demonstrations will make very little difference to the fate that awaits a generation of young people as Europe languishes in economic depression.

This is despite the fact that in many ways the unions have won the argument. The intellectual case for continuing with the austerity measures in the eurozone has been seriously undermined by the deepest economic contraction in  since the Second World War. Greece's economy has shrunk by 25% since 2009, and the contraction is accelerating: Greece shrank by 7.2% in the Third Quarter of 2012, which is unprecedented in any European country in peacetime. Countries like Spain, where unemployment is now running at 25%, are caught in a ruinous fiscal trap: cuts lead to economic contraction, which leads to more unemployment, which leads to collapse of tax revenues, which leads to more debt and more cuts. It is a vicious spiral the significance of which the northern eurozone countries seem unable to grasp - even though Germany is now beginning to feel the consequences as its exports to the rest of Europe dwindle.

Don't mess with union laws.

There's a rather ugly swagger about the Lib Con government right now.  Like insecure playground bullies, they're puffing out their chests and giving it large.  Danny Alexander says 25% cuts aren't nearly enough. No, I want 40％！  Year!  Look at the size of my cuts.   George Osborne and David Cameron are jeering at trades unions and threatening to tighten laws against striking.  Come on you Simpsons and Crows. If you think you're hard enough.  Just try and take us.
   
  But if ever there were a time to try to change the law on strike ballots, this is not it.  The cabinet hard nuts should remember Ted Heath and the Industrial Relations Act. The Tories in 1971 tried to take on the unions in an economic crisis and failed because they misjudged the public mood.  Voters then were unhappy about the power of trades unions, but they did not want them victimised
 and they didn't like seeing trades unionists in court and union funds sequestrated.
 
  Trades unions today are a shadow of their former selves.  In the 1970s most of the workforce, 12 million, were in unions.  Today, little more than half that number are organised, and the laws on strike action are much, much tougher.  The public are less willing to support unions today because they tend only to represent public sector workers and their privileges.  I do not believe there would be much public sympathy for any wave of strikes .But the surest way to create it, and reignite trades unionism as a moral force, would be to come down hard with the law.  So put down the baseball bats. guys. You're beginning to look stupid.