Left rhetoric at the TUC
THIS YEAR’S British Trades Union Congress (TUC)
found itself at a ‘crossroads’, according to PCS civil servants’ union
general secretary, Mark Serwotka. That was undoubtedly true, as the TUC
faced a raft of serious challenges – from the attack on public-sector
pensions to the brutal offensive of employers, like Gate Gourmet at
Heathrow airport, and the continuing decline of unionisation in the
private sector. However, the TUC had no clear idea of which direction it
should go.
To the untrained eye the TUC could have appeared as
a continuation of the perceived shift to the left in recent years –
since the election of the ‘awkward squad’. But, although left rhetoric
was much in evidence, there was insufficient evidence that words would
be turned into action. Even TUC general secretary Brendan Barber got in
on the act by quoting Karl Marx, although the rhetoric did not appear to
fool the government ministers in attendance.
Before the conference, trade union leaders like Tony
Woodley of the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) made
threatening noises in newspaper articles about demanding the return of
the right to take secondary action. Further, he said that Gordon Brown
was not guaranteed union support should he take over as prime minister.
However, these comments appear as little more than a weak negotiating
position in advance of Brown being crowned when Tony Blair departs.
Yet, they were enough to get media commentators
frothing at the mouth, warning that unions would soon become
‘irrelevant’ if they pursued the road of militancy. The real danger
arising from the TUC is that the unions become irrelevant to their
members if they threaten militancy and then fail to deliver.
The TGWU is a case in point. After seeing the first
walk-out in secondary, solidarity action in 20 years, by baggage
handlers in support of the sacked Gate Gourmet workers, the union threw
away a golden opportunity to show that united union action could deliver
a body blow to the bosses and defend workers’ jobs. Instead, it
repudiated the action under the anti-union laws and ordered the staff
who had walked out to return to work.
Unless there is a dramatic turn in events, it looks
likely that Gate Gourmet will be remembered, like other long-running
disputes such as Skychef, for the union leaderships looking increasingly
impotent in defending their members.
In another industry where the TGWU and other unions
failed to conduct effective struggle, the car industry at MG Rover,
Longbridge, 60% of the workforce are still out of work six months after
the closure of the factory. Those who have found work have suffered huge
cuts in salary by an average of 15%. In some cases, workers have seen
their wages drop from £23,000 to £8,000 a year.
In one sense, the TUC showed that there is no mood
for a return to the partnership agenda of the right-wing union bosses in
the 1990s. Increasingly, even the more right-wing leaders have to
reflect the angry mood that has built up on the shopfloor after 25 years
of neo-liberal attacks under both Tories and Labour. Patience is wearing
thin amongst the members for the union leaders’ hopes that a Labour
government would deliver change in favour of working-class people.
The message from government ministers at the TUC -
Brown, Alan Johnson and Ian McCartney, as well as Blair at a private
dinner - was unremittingly brutal. Johnson, former leader of the
Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), said: "Policy has to be decided on a
wider basis than one dispute [Gate Gourmet] - no matter how painful that
dispute has been. The movement abandoned its preference for legal
immunities for trade unions over basic rights for all workers in the
1980s. For the first 130 years of the TUC there was no collective
protection for striking workers at all". He is, in fact, arguing that
workers can go without them again. Johnson continued his thinly-veiled
support of anti-union laws: "… protection is conditional on all workers
having the right to be balloted and on the dispute being between
employees and their own employer. This is a central aspect of the
balance between rights and responsibilities which has to be preserved".
Trade union leaders have a responsibility to defend
their members in the workplace and improve their working lives. Their
inability to do that over the last three decades has seen union
membership decline - especially in the private sector. The average age
of trade unionists is in the mid-40s.
Ironically, it is in areas where workers are most
brutally exploited - such as retail and catering - where effective trade
unions are most needed but where there is the lowest level of
organisation. In response, trade union leaders hope to overcome the
perceived ‘weakness’ of the unions through an ‘organising agenda’, which
they think has been successful in the USA, and through union mergers to
create super-unions which have greater industrial clout through force of
numbers.
However, whilst both these measures could result in
strengthening unions and making them more effective, if they are done in
isolation from conducting effective militant struggle on behalf of
working people, then they will be shipwrecked. Working people are very
practical and will see the benefits of being union members in concrete
not abstract terms.
In Germany, the Verdi union, which was a merger of a
number of smaller unions, was created in the same spirit as the proposed
merger of the TGWU, Amicus and GMB in Britain. However, as Barber
pointed out in his conference speech: "We are still probably losing as
many members as we gain, and with growth in public services slowing in
the years ahead, that challenge becomes more acute each year". He
concluded: "In 2001, Verdi was formed as Germany’s largest union with
around three million members. Now four years later their membership
numbers have fallen to around 2.5 million". The most significant reason
for this fall has been the union’s inability to conduct effective
struggle against Gerhard Schröder’s Agenda 2010 and the rise in
unemployment.
Britain’s trade unions are, as Barber indicated,
facing "a critical time". The critical time union leaders face, however,
is far less severe, in terms of their immediate conditions of life, than
the situation their members face. The TUC showed that, despite the fiery
rhetoric, there is still a big dislocation between most union leaders
and their members. One in five workers in Britain earns £280 a week or
less, many of them having to take two or more jobs just to earn such a
sum.
Private-sector workers have seen their pension
entitlements slashed - to the point where in 20 years’ time, if current
trends continue, only one in ten workers will have an occupational
pension.
Desperately, the union leaders hope to convince
Brown to adopt a more traditional social democratic agenda – ‘Warwick
II’ - and repeal the Tory-inspired, Labour-maintained anti-union laws.
Brown spelt it out that they haven’t a hope. His speech at the
conference clearly signalled that low pay, job insecurity, minimal
pension entitlements and limited union rights will continue to be the
order of the day if he becomes prime minister.
Trade union members long ago abandoned hope of
receiving anything from this pro-big business Labour government. But,
they are impatiently waiting for their union leaders to draw the same
conclusion. On some issues, like public-sector pensions, the unions may
be forced to conduct militant struggle. If they do not then the
haemorrhage of members over recent decades in the private sector will
become a tidal flow in the public sector.
Mark Serwotka said in a Guardian article during the
TUC conference that the unions had to prepare for a repeat of the
effective united action which brought the government back to the
negotiating table on public-sector pensions last March. And unions, such
as the PCS and RMT (Rail, Maritime and Transport), which have done this
on a consistent basis, have seen substantial membership increases.
Mark also correctly argued that "industrial unity
over pensions should be matched by a political unity aimed at stopping
New Labour’s attacks on our members". Such political unity requires that
union leaders like Mark Serwotka and Bob Crow (RMT) begin the process of
establishing a new mass party of the working class - drawing on the
success of the Left Party in the German elections - and adopt a
programme based on trade union struggle achieving real gains for
working-class people.
Ken Smith
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