IT WAS the height of Covid, meeting for a coffee or a pint was forbidden, let alone holding mass rallies or meetings. The TV was full of statements about key workers but we saw a gap. 

Where was the link between the key workers in our schools, hospitals and supermarkets and the workers’ movement in this country? 

This is how we started. We decided we were going to remind people that it was only through struggle that we gain the rights we take for granted. 

That was why, restricted as we were to the odd WhatsApp message here, or the odd Zoom call there, we developed first Red for Workers and then later Strike Map. 

We launched just prior to Christmas two years ago with a WordPress site and a Google form with the ambitious goal of creating a permanent record of the everyday struggles of the working class. 

In the first few months we mapped the one or two strikes of early 2021. By the end of our first year we were proud to number our pickets in the hundreds.

Fast forward two years and we have just passed over 7,000 strikes mapped. As workers across the economy react to the toxic combination of pay cuts, rising inflation and a cost of living crisis, our map has come to life. 

As we turn two, we are undertaking a slight but important rebranding to reflect the workers’ movements in Britain and in Ireland. 

We will no longer be called “Strike Map UK” and will be called “Strike Map” and we will include strikes from across the island of Ireland. We are still a young organisation made up of volunteers and activists and are seeking to build solidarity across these islands. 

We realise that the terminology of the “UK” — the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — is not a neutral terminology and by removing it and building links across Ireland we can share our skills, software and solidarity. 

We were conscious that Strike Map was forged during the pandemic when digital solidarity and sharing of information replaced solidarity on the picket lines. 

That is why on May Day 2021, we launched our visit a picket campaign, which has seen over 2,000 people sign up to visit their local strike. 

This then led to the launch of our Strike Clubs. The first rule of strike club is to talk about strike club! This has led to a community of nearly 700 members, co-ordinating and visiting pickets. We wanted to turn clicktivism into on the ground grassroots activism.  

We are proud to have built up support from across the movement. John McDonnell MP, a long-time supporter of our map, sent us this message as we reach two years old: “Congratulations to Strike Map. If you want to send solidarity to workers or find your nearest picket line, you use Strike Map. Strike Map has become an essential tool of our movement.”

2022 has also been a year in which we launched our reps, shop stewards and strike leaders network with hundreds joining and beginning to link together the amazing struggles we have seen. 

Linking struggles together has not stopped at the level of workplace reps, our regional strike clubs have really picked up steam with over 700 people joining them in the first few months. 

We hope these groups continue to grow and become a space where people plan those picket visits together. 

August and the long hot strike summer saw workers from across the globe united in strikes, some official and others unofficial, to win better conditions and the pay needed. 

This was by far the most impressive month of mapped strikes, with well over 2,000 added. As strikes grew, so did support for our map leading to the website collapsing under the weight of visitors. 

This led us to the important campaign to Save Strike Map — helping us cope with the sharp increase of strikes — funded by small donations and a growth in our affiliates. 

The affiliation of the first of our national unions meant a lot to the project. Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of National Education Union, explains why the NEU supports Strike Map: “We were proud to be the first national union to affiliate to Strike Map. Over the past two years it has supported all our own union strikes and made our action so much stronger. We urge the whole labour movement to affiliate and support this resource.”

Refreshed and ready to capture the autumn of action, we embarked on perhaps our most exciting project yet with the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) and Notes from Below to form Organise Now!, a peer-to-peer organising project that links more experienced organisers, stewards and activists with those wanting to organise a fighting union at work. 

Modelled on the impressive Emergency Workplace Organising Committee in the US, we hope Organise Now can reach thousands of new workers and rebuild our movement. 

BFAWU general secretary Sarah Woolley commented: “Strike Map continues to innovate and help support this important moment of renewed struggle and fightback from workers everywhere. BFAWU is proud to be working with Strike Map on Organise Now! and looks forward to continuing our affiliation to Strike Map into 2023 and beyond.”

2022 has been the year of the revival of struggle, seeing workers across our economy fight back against poverty pay, poor conditions and dignity in work. 

Now we look forward to an exciting 2023. As we move into our third year, we want to double down on these efforts and  in January we will be launching our Visit a Picket “loyalty card,” a chance for comrades to collect picket visits and win free prizes. Our map will soon be “global ready” and we will start by including strikes from across the island of Ireland.

While it may be the end of another year, we are confident that we are witnessing an awakening in our class, the working class is back. 

As Mick Lynch recently said when being interviewed: “We refuse to be poor any more!”

We look forward to another year of intensified struggle. 

At Strike Map we will continue to grow with the clear orientation which has guided us so well to date. “With the bosses never, with the trade union officers sometimes, with the rank and file always.”

Thank you for your support over these last two years. 

Have a merry strikemas!

For more information visit strikemap.org and www.organisenow.org.uk.