Some people might think that spending a gloriously sunny day sitting with hundreds of people in a huge, hot church hall would be madness, not to mention musty. But this Saturday’s emergency conference organised by Right to Work managed to draw around 600 activists and trade unionists from across the country to discuss how to build resistance to cuts and job losses.

It was an achievement to have pulled together so many people at relatively short notice—this conference had been built in less than half the time as was available for January’s. And it was clear from the off that support for Right to Work has broadened since January: the conference was addressed by Labour MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, deputy leader of the Green Party Adrian Ramsay, as well as representatives from NUJ, NUT, PCS, RMT, UCU and Unite and others.

The conference was also the place to be to hear first hand about inspirational struggles already under way. Tiana Andreou, a member of the Greek civil servants’ union, received a standing ovation when she told delegates that the best way to show solidarity was to make sure the BA strikers won, that we defended pensions and services here which could give confidence to workers elsewhere. A BA cabin crew worker received a similar reception.

Delegates divided into workshops at lunchtime to come up with concrete ideas for action that were then reported back to the final plenary—a full breakdown of the workshops and what they decided on will appear soon. I attended a session on “One Million Climate Jobs”, which called for a lobby of the energy and climate change ministry. The education session called for solidarity action with staff and students at Middlesex who have been suspended for occupying against departmental closure. What was striking was that plenary speakers got involved in the workshops—Jeremy Corbyn, for example, attended and contributed to the session on how we stop the cuts.

The two main resolutions put to conference were to organise protests on budget day on 22 June and to call a major demonstration at the Tory conference in Birmingham in October. The message coming out of the conference was to continue building up the networks of activists, trade unionists, students and pensioners who would be on the frontline of building resistance to the coalition of cuts.

And then we heard that Willie Walsh was down the road…

It’s important to clear up some of the misunderstandings that have cropped up—I get the impression that a lot of concerned comrades (and salivating sectarians) have suffered RSI from hammering their keyboards over the weekend. Obviously people were trying to piece together what had happened from the TV, overexcited participants and hearsay so it’s understandable that some wires have been crossed.

The first thing to say was that the protest had nothing to do with the Right to Work campaign. It wasn't called by Right to Work and it wasn’t voted on in the conference. Someone announced that Walsh was in the neighbourhood but there was no suggestion that the conference would call for a demo.

As the conference emptied, a number of SWP members got some people together in order to hold an impromptu lobby outside Euston Towers. Around 200 of us marched along Euston Road to the building to find no security, a lot of press and an unlocked door. So we decided to enter and hold our lobby in, well, the lobby.

Acas’s lobby was upstairs, so around 50 people went up in lifts. They stayed in the lobby and chanted support for the BA workers before spotting Walsh himself standing in the corridor beside the lobby. We moved around the corner to chant at him and stayed there for ten minutes or so before going back downstairs.

It’s important to keep things in perspective. There was no attempt to break up or storm the talks. This might make for a sensational headline or a convenient excuse, but it has no basis in reality. Nobody on the protest went anywhere near the room where the talks had been taking place. It was in no way an attempt to stop a deal being reached or to attack Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley. If Walsh hadn’t been stomping around on his mobile whingeing about Simpson’s tweeting, we’d never have locked eyes on any of them.

Some people have suggested this episode was an attempt to publicise the SWP, others that it was an act of substitutionism. In fact, it was a spontaneous act of solidarity: when we realised there was a lot of media there, we thought that it would be brilliant if strikers (and millions of other people) saw some action in support of the cabin crew.

As for the results—well, we have received a number of supportive emails from cabin crew, as well as a long and excited voicemail message from BA crew in Singapore saying how brilliant it was to see a show of support for them!

SWP members got a great reception on the picket lines today. Nobody tried to get us removed, or argued with us. They even let us use their toilets, a sure sign of fraternal bonhomie. One group of pickets gave comrades a round of applause for being part of the “Battle of Acas”, shaking hands with them enthusiastically.

But mostly, BA strikers wanted to talk about how much of a bullying creep Walsh is and how they want to beat him. It’s our job to do everything we can to help them achieve that.

I am hearing that today's 'Right to Work' conference was very large and very successful, though I don't know how it compares with Manchester. Obviously a major theme of the day was the BA strike, and workers from British Airways were present to explain their grievances and form links with other groups of workers represented at the conference. I also hear that about 200 people, angered by the treatment of BA workers, departed for the ACAS headquarters to stage a protest. As I wasn't there and haven't spoken at length to anyone who was, I don't feel confident in talking about the protest in any detail. What I can assert with reasonable confidence is that the protest did not disrupt negotiations, as is alleged by practically every media outlet I have seen, which predictably avoids the substantive issues behind the dispute and the protest. This is because the BA management is not negotiating, and the union leadership is neither in a position to compel them to negotiate, nor is it inclined to. It is effectively drafting terms of surrender.

The record is clear. Willie Walsh has consistently reneged on agreements with the union. He has withdrawn even the most cut-throat 'offers' even when the union leaders declared that they were prepared to negotiate over them. He and his subordinates have spent months bullying staff. He has sought vexatious court injunctions against the union to prevent perfectly legal and democratic strike action. He has sacked leading trade unionists on trumped up allegations - proving that their aim is to provoke the cabin crew. He has tried to conceal the impact of strike action by sending out empty "ghost flights" to make it appear as if the company can operate efficiently without the majority of its workforce. He is out to bust the union, in a company where 97% of workers are unionised. It is an attack on the work force, an attempt to fundamentally and permanently transform the balance of power between staff and their bosses in the name of "management's right to manage".

The cabin crew staff, for their part, have been patient and tolerant. They have accepted voluntary redundancies and wages cuts. BA workers have even worked for free when asked to do so. That is a staggering act of generosity toward their employers, an investment in the future of the company, which has been rewarded with outright malice and contempt. It is all the more astonishing when you consider that cabin crew salaries start at £12k a year, which is just on the poverty threshold. They have sought agreement at every stage and have been consistently rebuffed, and their good faith betrayed. They are at the end of their tether, forced to strike action by an aggressive management intent on smashing the union.

The Unite leadership, which is denouncing the protesters as "lunatics" (Woodley), has been pretty useless in the dispute. Derek Simpson has consistently undermined the strike, describing it in the media as "over the top". In a Labour gathering, he described Bassa reps as "clowns" and said that BA workers were "deluded" if they thought they could win. Bassa has twice voted overwhelmingly for strike action. They have found little support from the leadership of Unite, which has at times seemed more interested in protecting Labour's interests than those of the workers they represent. They have publicly endorsed agreements that the workers have not agreed to. They have dragged their feet over setting strike dates. No wonder Willie Walsh this week urged "Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson to assert their authority" over Bassa. He blames a 'hardcore' within Bassa for "wagging the Unite dog", forcing the Unite leadership into taking a position against - *sigh* - 'modernisation', which they would otherwise be reluctant to take. There is an increasingly tense relationship between Bassa and the Unite union to which they are affiliated as a result of this. I only qualify the term "useless" with the adjective "pretty" because both Woodley and Simpson have been forced to defend workers' right to strike against some pretty egregious court decisions, and because even lip service is better than no service at all.

The position of those meeting in ACAS today couldn't have been clearer. We have bosses who don't want to negotiate, who want to break the union, and a Unite leadership that has little time for the people it is supposed to be representing. We have talks going nowhere fast, and a workforce that has been treated so abysmally, provoked so hatefully, that it is straining at the leash to fulfil its two overwhelming strike mandates, and really stick it to the people who have shown them such utter disdain. There is going to be a strike, and the talks were never going to stop this. Only the courts, with the backing of the full armoury of the law and the state, could have done that. The outcome of this strike will not be determined by talks between Unite leaders and BA bosses. Consequently, the allegation being put about on Sky, the BBC, the Daily Mail and elsewhere that negotiations were scuppered by dozens of protesters surrounding Willie Walsh and advising him, rather volubly, that they support the cabin crew, is absurd. If the protests have had any impact on the talks, I suspect, it will have been to reinforce the emerging sense of solidarity between the Unite leadership and the BA bosses. Tony Woodley hurriedly departed the ACAS building after Willie Walsh's hasty exit, complaining that Walsh had "understandably" felt "harangued" by the protesters - a case of political Stockholm syndrome if ever there was one.

The issue now is how people can build solidarity with the strike that is going to happen, how funds can be raised, and how other groups of workers can be drawn into supporting those at the sharp end of a ruling class offensive. Because if the BA workers win, then I confidently expect that the unconscionable Mr Walsh will lose his job. And if the most outright reactionary union-buster in the country is at long last defeated, having picked a fight with the wrong group of workers, that will give a little boost to every other group of workers who are having to defend jobs, pay and conditions against management attacks. Which would be nice, wouldn't you say?

ps: One last thing. Note that Walsh describes the Bassa strikers as "reactionaries" stuck in the 1970s. One of my arguments about "progressive" conservatism concerns precisely this ability of capital to appropriate the language of progress on behalf of such agendas as war, pollution and privatization. This tendency has led the author Dan Hind to mock the Hayekians, Friedmanites and corporate propagandists as the 'Party of Modernity'. Since neoliberalism - rather, capitalism tout court - constantly attacks and subverts 'traditions' in the process of procuring a favourable environment for further accumulation, its opponents are invariably tied to a 'status quo' that makes them reactionary. So, if BA staff are understandably unhappy about attempts to break negotiated agreements, cut thousands more jobs, shred pay, and remove their rights in disciplinary procedures, this nevertheless makes them enemies of "progress".

It is clear by now that British Airways management, led by the union-busting Willie Walsh, is intent on breaking the union representing its cabin crew. The imposition of cuts that break prior agreements, in which thousands of jobs have already been lost, combined with Walsh's withdrawal of a harsh 'offer' that the union leadership says it is prepared to negotiate over, already suggested this. The board's position remains intransigent, and they have refused requests from the Unite leadership to return to negotiations. In fact, the board chairman believes that Willie Walsh is doing a "great job", so the bosses are for the moment solidly behind this strategy. Reports on Friday showed that management had decided to launched an all-out war on the union, attempting to scrap cooperation with the union in what would amount to de-recognition. So the management's position is clear: they intend, and have always intended, to impose their own deal regardless of the union's position. Labour writer Gregor Gall describes BA's strike plan as a "classic union-busting technique":