Faced with an inadequate pay offer in the face of spiralling inflation, more than 100 workers at the Polyflor factory in Manchester’s Whitefield did as so many others have done this summer: they voted overwhelmingly to strike. Their action was set to begin on Thursday 1 September with a two-hour stoppage, the first of a month-long set of two-hour stoppages taking place once a week.

But at six PM on Wednesday night, an email hit their inboxes: all their shifts were suspended for the next two days. There was no further communication until six PM on Sunday night, when they received another email saying they were suspended for the whole of the following week. Since then, again, nothing—beyond an acknowledgement of the countless concerned emails sent by GMB reps, and an as yet unfulfilled promise to get back.

‘I’ve just sent an email to the HR manager—again—reminding them that their contract of employment with me says that when a suspension is enacted, they need to meet with union representatives at least once a week,’ John Waddington, a GMB rep and Polyflor worker of more than thirty years, tells Tribune. ‘It’s in the contract. So where’s the meeting?’

This radio silence stands in contrast to a statement given to the BBC on Tuesday, saying the company is in ‘close and continued dialogue’ with employees. But as John points out, that’s no rarity. ‘You hear this with industrial disputes, don’t you?’ he says. ‘You hear it with the rail workers. The rail workers are saying “the bosses won’t speak to us,” and the bosses are saying, “no, no, we’re talking to them all the time.” Well, one of them is a liar, and I know which one I’d put my money on.’

The justification given by the company’s director for their treatment—not in any emails to the workers, mind, but to the press—is that those two hour stoppages are so ‘significantly problematical’ that the whole factory has to be shut down, with employees ‘unavoidably’ unable to work. That’s despite the fact that the stoppages, John notes, represent just two of the eighty-four hours the production belt usually runs, night and day, in a single week.

So what of wages? ‘We’ve not been told either way regarding pay,’ says John. ‘Just one of the questions we’d like management to answer.’

The workers feel betrayed. ‘Some are really, really concerned about the financial strain,’ John says. ‘They are living hand to mouth: this week’s wages pay next week’s bills. I’ve had some very distressing phone calls from people who just can’t afford to weather this storm. They’re not getting answers.’

Living paycheque to paycheque is no rarity in modern Britain. Research from a building society earlier this year suggested that one in five people have less than £100 in savings to fall back on, and those numbers are only likely to grow as the cost of living crisis clamps down further, food and energy costs eating away at the little people have in the bank. In those circumstances, a week’s suspension with no certainty on pay could have severe consequences—making it hard to argue with GMB organiser Stephen Boden’s statement that Polyflor’s actions ‘look like a vindictive attack on workers due to take legitimate industrial action over pay.’ Whitefield, it’s worth noting, is the only of the three Polyflor factories in the country with union recognition.

The pay demand made by Polyflor workers, by contrast, is hardly outlandish: ten percent, still below CPI inflation now running at 10.1. ‘I could name half a dozen factories around us that do similar types of work on similar pay rates and their employers know that sounds reasonable,’ says John. ‘And some of the predictions for inflation right now are eye-watering.’ At the end of August, bank Citi predicted the first quarter of 2023 could see CPI hit eighteen percent, and RPI twenty-one.

Workers, John points out, simply want their wages to keep pace with the costs disappearing into the sky. ‘It’s just putting your pay back in line with what it was a year ago: looking back and saying, “my spending power’s been eroded by ten percent; I need you to give me ten percent to put me back where I was,”’ John explains. ‘It’s not a gain.’ This is a truth his colleagues know too well after the last twelve months. Summer 2021 saw the same Polyflor workers on strike for pay after management tried to replace an uplift with a one-off lump sum of £1,000. They sought two percent based on the inflation rate in June, when the dispute began; by the time they won, it had already hit four. It’s only gone higher since.

As has so often been the case this year, the company refusing ten percent is one that posted its biggest ever profits in 2021, and paid out record dividends of £24 million, according to GMB. If the current pay offer isn’t improved or the suspensions remain unresolved, by contrast, those workers in more difficult circumstances—those who, as John stresses, can’t afford this kind of cut-off—may have no other choice but to start looking for work elsewhere. Six people have already left the factory in the last six months, he adds, mostly younger men.

The cause of that ‘unheard of’ leaving rate is a combination of factors. ‘We work in a dirty, smelly, dusty, fumy environment, twelve-hour shifts, days and nights,’ says John. ‘Wake up at three o’clock tomorrow morning, and think that one of our lads will normally be in work at that time, breathing in fumes, for £10.97 an hour. It’s not £1.50 over minimum wage.’

Denied even the power to down tools, workers are finding different ways to fight for fair pay: a mass demonstration is set to take place at twelve noon in Radcliffe town centre on Thursday 8 September, with potential appearances from striking postal workers, firefighters currently being balloted for industrial action, and other trade unionists, socialists, and working people turning out in solidarity. John points out that this kind of shut-off must be hurting revenues as well as employees—and as the labour movement rallies its renewed strength into the autumn, with support from the public holding firm, the company could be about to find it picked the wrong fight at the wrong time.

In the meantime, John is awaiting another ‘edict from on high’, likely on Sunday night, telling him and his increasingly concerned colleagues whether or not they can return to their shifts. He’s worried about more vulnerable colleagues facing the shock—but the vast majority, he believes, will hold strong until they get what they deserve. ‘We’re solid,’ he says, and sounds resolved. ‘They won’t break us.’