THEO SHARIEFF gives a round-up of discussions on political representation at this year’s union conferences and the approach of delegates to their union’s relationship with Starmer’s Labour.
The joint announcement in July by Independent Alliance MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana of their intention to establish a new political party in Britain to “take on the rich and powerful” amassed support from over 700,000 in the space of days.
Their announcement came just three days after over 1,000 trade union members met to discuss how the fight for a political voice for the trade union movement could be advanced in light of Labour’s continued attacks on the working class. Initiated by Socialist Party member and former MP Dave Nellist, the meeting was attended and addressed by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, the first such meeting since Zarah Sultana had made a public statement resigning from the Labour Party.
But of course, this was not the first discussion to take place amongst trade unionists on the need for a working-class political alternative to the pro-capitalist parties in Britain. The meeting itself was the culmination of a petition launched within the trade unions in May, on the initiative of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), signed initially by 25 current and former members of trade union executives and calling “for the trade union movement to seriously discuss founding a new anti-austerity, anti-war party”.
The meeting also took place after the conclusion of the trade union conference season, where vital debates and discussions on the question of political representation for the trade union movement took place.
After 14 years of Tory rule, there were hopes by some workers that the Labour government would mark a break from the austerity policies and continual collapse in living standards and public services which marked the previous decade and a half. A ‘wait and hope’ attitude existed amongst some workers and young people, not because of, but rather despite, Starmer’s track record leading up to that election – including his crushing of the last vestiges of Corbyn’s anti-austerity manifesto within the Labour Party, and his support for the Israeli state’s onslaught against Gaza.
Most of the trade union leaders leant on the mood of desperation by their members to see the Tories kicked out of office to try and draw the trade union movement closer to Labour, in the expectation that they might make some pro-worker concessions. At the same time, the ruling class hoped that a government which workers might identify as ‘union-backed’ would more easily be able to carry out the further austerity measures they were demanding.
Over the last twelve months, however, things have not gone as they expected. The Socialist Party pointed out that while Labour’s ‘landslide’ might superficially appear to have been ‘a mile wide’, it was also in reality only ‘an inch deep’, with no basis of support for the continued diet of austerity policies that capitalism in crisis is demanding Labour in power makes, preparing the ground for bringing the government into fast and sharp collision with the working class.
Unite milestone
The union conference season began with Unison health conference back in April. Taking place before the Labour government’s U-turn on disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance, arguably this was still a time when more workers were ‘waiting and seeing’ what a Labour government would do next. Coming only weeks after Reeves’ Spring (austerity) Statement, Wes Streeting was invited to address the conference to pour cold water on the hopes of Unison members in health care that the government was going to take action to address years of pay erosion.
Conference season ended very differently a few months later. One week before the joint statement by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana announcing their intention to establish a new political party, Unite policy conference took place. The backdrop to the conference was the now six-month long dispute between Labour-run Birmingham City Council and Unite refuse workers employed by the council, fighting against an £8,000 a year pay-cut. The Labour-run city council has used the most vicious strike-breaking tactics to try and defeat the dispute, including employing agency labour to scab on the strike, deploying police on picket lines, and securing a High Court injunction against Unite members to prevent Unite from picketing effectively.
The strike-breaking Birmingham Labour council has been supported, and likely advised, along every step of the way by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner. In an era of acute economic crisis – with British capitalism on the edge of a new economic downturn – the example a victory for the Unite bin workers would provide for other local government workers facing attacks in different authorities is being desperately fought by the ruling class and Labour.
As such, unlike many of the other union conferences this summer, no Labour cabinet minister addressed the Unite conference. The week of conference saw Birmingham council begin an effective ‘fire-and-rehire’ process – a practice Starmer promised to ban on coming to power – against Unite members. A motion drafted and moved by Socialist Party members and allies in the union – organised in the Unite Broad Left – suspending Angela Rayner and the Birmingham Labour councillors from Unite, and calling for Unite’s relationship with Labour to be reviewed, was overwhelmingly passed.
This historic decision marks a significant turning point, not only within Unite but for the trade union movement as a whole. The task ahead for members of Unite who want to take the debate on working-class political representation forwards now is to campaign for discussions at every level of the union, starting at branch level, on how a political voice for the trade union can be built, preparing the way for a special policy and rules conference.
Unison conference
Despite the right-wing Members Together grouping making gains in the most recent round of Unison NEC elections, that didn’t translate into increased support for a closer relationship with Starmer’s Labour at Unison National Delegate Conference in June. In conference debates and discussions on combating the rise of Reform, Socialist Party members linked the rise of Reform to the continued austerity polices of pro-capitalist Labour. Much of the most brutal austerity experienced over the last period has been implemented by Labour councillors, firstly under a Tory government, and now continued under Labour. It has been estimated that between 600,000 and one million local authority jobs have been lost since 2010, many of those Unison members.
As the financial crisis facing numerous councils across the country deepens, the need for a party with a red line of refusing to implement further attacks on workers and youth in the council chamber – and to campaign for the restoration of funding from central government – has never been more pressing than now.
No wonder then that calls by Socialist Party delegates for a new mass trade union-backed workers’ party were met with great enthusiasm from delegates throughout conference debates and discussions. Even general secretary Christine McAnea – full of praise for Labour’s still completely unimplemented, watered-down Employment Rights Bill earlier in the year – was forced to reflect the mood of the members of her union. She told conference that Labour was “wrong” on the two-child benefit cap, the winter fuel allowance, and disability benefit cuts. But Labour hasn’t just been ‘wrong’ on these issues – it’s been fighting to implement these brutal attacks on behalf of the profit-before-all-else system of capitalism which it represents.
Fighting Reform
Reform has been a point of discussion at most if not all of the trade union conferences. In the absence of a political voice for the working class, Reform made significant gains in the first round of local elections under the new Labour government back in May. The rise of Reform is an issue sharply confronting the entire trade union movement. One survey presented to Unison National Black Members’ conference estimated that 12-15% of Unison members voted Reform. This will undoubtedly be somewhat a danger across the trade union movement as a whole, especially in areas where workers are directly in dispute with Labour-run authorities.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) conference took place shortly after Reform’s local government surge. There was a lot of important discussion from delegates about the need for the union to tackle the rise of Reform head on, including by mobilising the FBU to counter far-right mobilisations in the streets and in local communities. At the NEU conference, also in April, general secretary Daniel Kebede spoke about the need for the NEU to actively campaign against Reform.
The trade union movement, encompassing workers across society in different sectors and from different backgrounds, is well-placed to unite workers, by building campaigns for ‘jobs, homes and services, not racism’, for example, as an immediate way to undercut the divisive ideas of Reform and others.
But bold political steps also need to be taken to build a genuine working-class political alternative which is controlled and accountable to the trade union movement as a whole. If the trade union movement doesn’t take such steps urgently, not only could Reform make further electoral gains in the next period, but the trade union movement itself will be undermined if it continues to serve ultimately as cover for the anti-working class policies and actions of Labour.
Non-affiliated unions
Debates didn’t only take place in trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party. All workers across the trade union movement are suffering further crises and attacks under this government, no less members of the University and Colleges Union (UCU).
The crisis of British capitalism has been sharply played out on university and college campuses over the last decade. A broken funding system has meant deep cuts to student support services, jobs and courses in higher education. In further education half of all college lecturers quit within three years because of low pay and overwork.
In the run-up to the general election, UCU general secretary Jo Grady said that the union would be “holding Labour’s feet to the fire” to replace the broken fee-based funding model with public funding for higher education.
How better to do this than by combining an industrial battle against the further threatened cuts to post-16 provision with steps towards mounting a political challenge to Starmer’s Labour? Despite being argued against by some supporters of the ‘UCU left’ faction of the NEC, a grouping which includes the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a Socialist Party-initiated motion was passed at the conference, calling for the UCU’s executive to meet with Jeremy Corbyn and the Independent and pro-worker MPs to discuss how a political voice for the union’s post-16 education funding campaign can be built. It also called for the NEC to encourage UCU members to themselves stand in elections, linking up with other trade unionists, to fight for the UCU’s policies.
Although UCU conference took place before the Your Party announcement, such a meeting could mark the start – not the end – of a discussion at every level of the union on what policies and programme Corbyn and other pro-worker MPs should raise in parliament, as well as how the UCU can work with other trade unions to not just discuss with currently sitting MPs, but to build a party which can challenge all pro-capitalist politicians and parties at the ballot box generally.
Anti-Labour mood
Although motions explicitly on the question of affiliation to the Labour Party weren’t on the agendas of all the union conferences this summer, debates at other union conferences indicate the growing mood against trade union support for Labour. At ASLEF’s Annual Assembly of Delegates in Durham, there were calls from delegates that any donations to Labour candidates should only be to those who support policies in line with the train drivers’ union’s policy. This opens up the question of not just targeted support for only Labour candidates but workers’ candidates who would fight for ASLEF’s policies in parliament.
At GMB Congress in Brighton, chancellor Rachel Reeves spoke to tout the “biggest roll out of nuclear energy since 1988” to create 10,000 jobs and 1,500 apprentices, as well as Labour’s plans to invest in defence, shipbuilding, and aerospace. Understandably, that speech got a positive reception from significant sections of the congress.
But the depth of the crisis of British capitalism will call into question Labour’s ability to deliver on even its very modest proposals of investment and job creation. This and other key questions and discussions included at the GMB congress – including a motion which was passed unanimously calling for the legalisation of secondary strike action – will sharply pose in the next period how GMB members can achieve a genuine political voice.
While there was applause for Reeves’ address, this didn’t stop a number of GMB members, including workplace reps, signing the petition calling for the trade union movement to discuss founding a new anti-austerity, anti-war party to challenge Labour. Near the end of the Congress, hundreds of members marched through Brighton in support of a £30 million equal pay claim against the Labour council. As GMB members in local government and the public sector more widely face yet further brutal attacks from Starmer’s Labour, the appetite for a political alternative to Labour in the union can only grow.
Debates across the movement are now taking place about what a new party should look like, including what programme and structures are necessary to see such a party succeed in taking on the interests and power of the capitalist system. All of the lessons of the previous period – including the lessons of Corbyn’s leadership of Labour, and the lessons from the experiences of the ‘first wave’ of new left formations internationally following the 2008 crash – need to be assessed and absorbed by the workers’ movement. But it is above all the centrality of the organised working class and its collective participation in any new party that needs to be to the fore. The debates, mood, and resolutions passed at this year’s trade union conferences, less than one year into a Labour government, are an indication of how the process towards independent political representation and a new mass workers’ party has begun.