Labour & the unions
TRADE UNION leaders leaving Labour’s conference in Brighton
in October believed they had had a successful week in forcing the Labour
leadership to change tack on certain key policies. Union leaders had gone to
Brighton in a bullish mood after winning concessions at the Warwick policy
summit in July. But as the months pass, the concessions won by union leaders
begin to look less substantial than a deciduous tree in autumn.
While adopting a resolution calling for the
renationalisation of the rail industry and opposing government plans to further
privatise public-sector housing, the conference actually showed the limitations
of the big four union leaders in their stated quest to reclaim the Labour Party
from the Blairites.
Before the conference, UNISON leader, Dave Prentis, said in
The Guardian: "The Labour Party has reached a critical point. Membership has
been haemorrhaging by the tens of thousands, trade unionists are restive and the
idealism of Labour Party activists is corroding" (28 September). This was no
time for the unions to keep their heads down and "shut up and go away" as some
ministers wanted.
Prentis, however, is typical of most union leaders who may
occasionally sound off about New Labour but suspend their critical faculties at
key times when dealing with the government. Whilst they can lay on the rhetoric
off stage, when it comes to a serious challenge to the government – either at
the Labour conference or through industrial action – the union leaders sell the
pass.
At both this year’s TUC and Labour Party conference,
Labour’s leadership was undoubtedly feeling more than a tweak of pressure from
the union leaders, who in turn are coming under growing pressure from their
members’ increasing anger at the government. Labour’s leadership appeared to
have placated the union leaders by offering cosmetic changes and minimal
election promises at Warwick in return for the union bosses delivering support
up to the election and allowing Blair off the hook over the occupation of Iraq.
In reality, many of the proposed 56 agreements with the
unions at the Warwick policy summit were conceded with minimal pressure from the
union leaders, by a Blair leadership that was weakened and feeling under
pressure from outside rather than from within the Labour Party. Jackie Ashley in
the Guardian (30 September) said: "For the first time in ten years as Labour
leader, Blair needs the party more than the party needs him".
But, as the Guardian commented about Blair’s conference
speech: "Anyone reading the speech with care will notice that relatively little
ground was conceded. But it was Mr Blair in a new voice". Even where the union
leaders acted in a co-ordinated fashion to push the conference to adopt more
radical policies – such as on rail renationalisation and housing – Labour
cabinet ministers trampled over one another in the rush to say such policy
decisions would not be acted upon. By doing so, particularly over the issue of
rail renationalisation, the cabinet ministers were showing how they were
prepared to defy union pressure and public opinion – with 75% of the public in
favour – to uphold the interests of big business.
If the repudiation of the conference decisions was not
enough of a snub for the union leaders, Blair immediately announced his
Thatcherite wish to go on and on – or for at least four more years – within
hours of the delegates leaving Brighton. This will force the union leaders to
re-evaluate their hope of trying to push Blair aside within the next year and
replace him with Gordon Brown.
At the 250-strong Labour Representation Committee (LRC)
rally – the new umbrella group established with the aim of reclaiming the Labour
Party – Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’
Union (TGWU), said that the ‘unity’ of the trade union movement over the last
year had been "a huge step forward". And Prentis warned the Labour government to
abandon its flirtation with the markets and competition in the public sector.
But even then the union leaders had to realise the
limitations of their impact. Tony Woodley said at the LRC meeting: "We have a
lot more to do to reclaim our party and its values", and Derek Simpson, general
secretary of Amicus, warned that working together to get government support was
not a substitute for trade union action. However, the union leaders felt they
had got something from the Warwick policy forum and the conference that they
could just about sell to their members. Simpson said of Warwick: "We now have
the weapons to reactivate activists fallen by the wayside".
Even though it is doubtful whether the Warwick concessions
or even the ‘bogeyman’ threat of a Howard-led Tory government would inspire many
trade unionists and working-class people to campaign or even vote for Labour,
events have undermined the concessions won at Warwick.
On pensions, for example, the government has signalled it
will continue with its attacks and force workers to work longer. And on the
crucial issue of job losses – both in the private and public sector – Labour has
refused to intervene in Jaguar or elsewhere and has signalled its determination
to proceed with the jobs cull in the civil service: a prelude to a much wider
jobs massacre in the public sector if the government gets away with it.
GMB leader, Kevin Curran, commenting on the jobs losses at
Bird’s Eye, said it was "confirmation that the government’s manufacturing
strategy is full of holes". Of more concern, however, was the specific attitude
of the main union leaders on the civil service job cuts where their promises at
the TUC appeared to have been forgotten by the time of the Labour conference.
Although the conference rightly heard about the plight facing the Jaguar workers
there was, unfortunately, not one mention from any union leader about the plans
to axe 104,000 civil service jobs.
Since the conference, the impact of market pressures in the
public sector have been all too apparent. The decision to axe up to half of
crown post offices and the increasing privatisation of services in health and
education has made a mockery of Prentis’s warning at the Labour conference.
Along with the UNISON leadership’s acceptance of the ‘Agenda for Change’ in the
NHS, which will make a significant section of health workers worse off, these
issues could see Prentis put under pressure in the current general secretary
contest in UNISON – where he is facing a challenge from Socialist Party member,
Roger Bannister.
Clearly, the Labour government has been looking over to
Germany and seeing the big defeats the Schröder government has suffered. Wanting
to avoid a meltdown before the election, the tone of Blair, in particular, has
changed in order to bring the union leaders on board and allow them to subsidise
the general election campaign. But what are the union leaders getting in return
for their members’ money other than a change of language?
Union leaders hope that the concessions at Warwick and the
change in mood music emanating from Labour’s leadership will do enough to keep a
critical membership off their backs – until the election at least. But the big
four union leaders, and other union bosses who have hitched their wagon to them,
are as distant as ever from the prospect of reclaiming the Labour Party. The
conference itself showed that the composition of the Labour Party is less and
less working class. Constituency delegates voted overwhelmingly with the
Blairite leadership on issue after issue. Over 70% of Labour voters support the
renationalisation of rail, for example, but over two-thirds of the constituency
delegates at the conference voted against it.
Certainly, they will claim they had an effect in getting
policy concessions on working hours, holidays and agency workers. At the same
time, Blair’s conference speech and his ten-point programme talked about cuts in
incapacity benefit, more ‘choice’ in education and health (ie, more of the
market and privatisation), along with hard-line policies on crime and a
‘crackdown’ on immigration.
Moreover, all Blair’s promises to the conference and union
leaders lack specific detail. Labour conference has shown that the unions acting
in concert can give the appearance of change and concessions from Labour, but
the union leaders are storing up even further anger amongst their members after
the election, when Blair’s promises will be quickly jettisoned.
In the public sector especially, union leaders will
discover, if Labour is re-elected, that their inability to influence or reclaim
the Labour Party will find their members pushing them much further down the road
of demanding generalised industrial action in order to take on the bosses and
the Labour government.
Ken Smith
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