"Future of Trade Unions and the Labour Party"

Last Thursday I was asked to speak to Shacklewell Labour Branch, Hackney North CLP on trade unions and the party by my blogging comrade, Dave Osler. 

There was a little bit of a mix up with the room booking in the local community centre and we ended up at Dave's and his partner Stroppy (daughter of a former Newham Labour Group Chief Whip) apartment, drinking tea and eating their biscuits amidst classic guitars, bags of clothes destined for Calais refugees and bookshelves of "Trotporn" (Dave's description).

I explained that I was a UNISON activist and a member of its NEC and a Labour Councillor in the Peoples Republic of Newham and this talk was in a personal capacity.

I started with one of my favourite stories about the relationship between Labour and trade unions. Famous union leader, Jack Jones, was once asked whether he thought that strains in the relationship would ever lead to a divorce? He thought about this for a moment and then replied "Murder yes, Divorce Never!"

The trade unions formed the Labour Party as its political wing because it realised it needed Parliamentary protection. The relationship has since ebbed and flowed but the tension between trade union and other activists has been there since the beginning. The trade unions lost control of the party leadership as far back as 1911, which resulted in cries of betrayal even then. 

I believe that despite the strains, the trade unions and the party need each other even more now than ever.

The union movement is definitely under threat as never before. The current Tory Reform bill will make industrial action even more difficult and hit membership levels. The unions need legislative protection and the Party needs funding and the political legitimacy that union affiliation and participation provides.

Both wings of the Labour movement family need to raise their game.

The unions need to understand their role and explain things better. As important as personal trade union representation is (and if you are being bullied at work or at risk of losing your job it is vital), membership is not just an insurance policy if you get into trouble at work. Collective bargaining is its number one role. Negotiating with employers about your pay, pensions, employment policies, sickness and holiday benefits is absolutely key.

We also need to recognise that the traditional Anglo-American model of trade unionism is not working and we should look again at other more successful models such as in Germany and Scandinavia. Here unions have greater density and more influence with employers and governments.

In other countries unions also offer real work related benefits such as pensions and employment services, which makes them more relevant to workers. After the second world war British trade unions were offered the opportunity to run UK employment exchanges. They refused.

Unions have also got to understand that just waving cheques at the party is not enough. Trade union members need to get directly involved in their local parties as well as regional and national structures. They need to be in positions of responsibility and advocates of unions and workers' rights within the party.

The party also needs to understand that unions still need political protection from employers and the courts.  The threat and ability to deliver strike action (as a last resort) is as necessary now for the union movement as it was in the past.  The strength of a union up against powerful employers is in its ability to stop work taking place.  If it is unable to deliver strike action due to restrictive laws then the employers will nearly always win and treat workers accordingly. This is one of the main reasons why we have had decades of worsening pay and conditions for workers in this country.

We have to have a more equal playing field between workers and employers rights. The party must provide protection for unions.

Equally, there are many parts of the UK economy such as the care sector where employers are so small and fragmented that it is practically impossible for unions to organise. Wage councils for employers and unions to bargain over pay and conditions should be reintroduced.

Labour needs to attract workers with policies that are directed at the modern UK workplace. I remember being really pleased to attend one of the party policy launch events last year on plans that promised to give employed and self employed workers greater benefits if unemployed or sick. These promises would have reminded workers that the Party of "Labour" was still their Party. Yet these policies seemed to just disappear from the manifesto.

To sum up Labour needs the unions as much as the unions need the party. The unions need an elected government to deliver and the Party needs constructive union help to get elected.

Then followed a pretty wide ranging Q&A not only with me but amongst branch members sharing their own thoughts and experiences about unions and the party.

I really enjoyed the experience and felt at home in this Hackney branch meeting as much as I do in West Ham.  London Labour parties often live in little "bubbles", so it is good to take part in this type of discussion and I hope that some of those present would come to my branch to present about a speciality that they know about.

(Mind you, I suppose I may have to draw a line on a meeting about "trotporn").

"Factional Magical-Leninism The Festive Quiz"

What a fantastic new site and brilliant post.  Check out the Quiz and many thanks for the Great Crimbo pressie "you know who".

Update: I will try and answer the Quiz on this page (responses in red). May take some time. 

"After six months of news, blog rants, screen-play scripts, musicals, leaked  emails, leaked Socialist Worker articles, leaked letters, leaked Party Notes, fairy stories,  angry polemics, thought provoking articles and journeys into trade union history, its time to end 2013 with our Traditional Festive Quiz.
 

Prizes, in the form of gift-links, will be awarded to those who answer correctly in the comments section or the facebook “discussion”. Answers will be revealed on this blog in the New Year. (Some people may not be happy with the answers. I don’t know everything for sure & apparently the internet sometimes contains errors)

1.  Which group had a faction fight at conference over whether all married members should be compelled to divorce, as marriage institutionalises women’s’ oppression?  No idea but possibly LaRouche stupidness?‎
2.   Which group has a member who wrote a book subtitled “Quantulumcunque Concerning Materialist Esthetix” ? And what the hell does that mean?  I think he was SWP? but no idea what was about?
3.  Which group once said that it would ideally call for the banning of alcohol “but the workers wouldn’t understand it”?  It was banned during early Soviet Union and there was some UK Communist Party support for abolition?
4.  Which group once handed out leaflets to Vietnam War Protesters explaining “Why We Are Not Marching”? No idea. Lots of usual suspects from sects wanting to seem "different".
5. A third of the 15 strong leadership of which Leninist Party were formerly students at Sussex University? I thought all Leninist UK based Parties leadership were former Sussex Uni Students?
6. Whose stall did Simon Watney and Edward King of the lesbian & gay rights group Outrage kick over at Gay Pride in 1990? And why? Revolutionary Communist Party because it did not think that AIDS was spread by gay sex.
7.  What was the key point about the end of World War Two according to followers of one faction of the Fourth International? Lots and lots of so called "key points" surely?
   
8. Which Fourth International Leader became a minister in the Algerian government after the revolution in 1961, and who’s funeral in his native Greece was a state event?  Michel Pablo
9.  How many monopolies did Militant want to nationalise in 1965 (400) , 1970 (350), 1980 (250) and 1990 (200)
10.  Which Leninist organisation explained the need for separate women’s organisation within Leninist Parties in order to combat sexism within the revolutionary movement in 1978? Don't know and pity that this was not taken up by the others.
11. Which Socialist Party threatened to take the Socialist Party (formerly Militant) to court, and why? I think the SPGB over SPEW using the "Socialist Party" election label which is registered to them.
12.  Which organisation fought hard in the 1980s to stop women, black, LGBT members of the Labour Party organising autonomously against sexism, racism & homophobia, claiming such organisation divided the workers Movement? I think Militant for sure and all the ultra left LP sects?
13.  Which organisation once wrote “We must call upon beings from other planets when they come to intervene, to collaborate with the inhabitants of the Earth to overcome misery. We must launch a call on them to use their resources to help us.” believing that socialism could arrive from another planet, and that a nuclear war might be an advantage for revolutionary Marxists?   (“Humanity will pass quickly through a nuclear war into a new human society – Socialism.”) Posadists - Revolutionary Workers' Party (Trotskyist)
14.  Which organisation discovered that their leader had become senile and their main theoretician schizophrenic, before they were both removed? Surely it should be which such organisation hasn't had this happen? (and most are still waiting to do something about it)
15. Which group lost a libel action brought by ITN and lost around £1 million, bankrupted their magazine? Living Marxism RCP
16.  Fidel Castro was “First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba” for nearly 40 years. In July 2014 a British Trotskyist leader will, health permitting, break that record as the worlds longest standing Leninist Party General Secretary. What is his name and organisation? I once went to a meeting of a UK Trade Council whose listed Executive officers were mostly dead? Is this something similar?
17. Which group stood against Labour in elections and got results ranging from 111 (0.24%) and 644 (2.1%)? Cricky - a lot of choice here, especially for the 0.24%ers. What about TUSO which was also beaten a number of times by the "Elvis Loves Pets" Party?
18. What was the Marxist Daily Building Fund and what happened to all the money it raised? was this spent by WRP on Trotsky's death mask
19. What is “The Hallas Foundation”? Don't know but it is registered with Company House as "private limited guaranteed without share capital"
20. Why did the International Marxist Group not join the “Anti Internment League”, despite the AIL’s organisation of Britain’s biggest ever Irish Solidarity march in 1972? And what slogan about the war in the six counties were their members supposed to chant on marches in Britain? No idea but no doubt something weird.
21. Which group banned its members from talking to each other across branches and international groups via the internet in the 1990s? The SWP for sure but pretty much all the sects took fright at the internet and still do.
22. Name 57 left wing groups in Britain. (The group does not have to be alive any more. If a name has been used twice, it counts twice) Heniz 57  Workers International League; Revolutionary Communist Party; Revolutionary Communist Party; Revolutionary Socialist League; Labour Party, Respect, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party (England & Wales), Socialist Party GB, Communist Party GB, Communist Party Britain, Communist Party GB ML, Socialist Appeal, Left Unity, Trade Union and Socialist Organisation, Workers Revolution Party, Committee Workers International, Independent Labour Party, Real Labour, Socialist Labour, Revolutionary Workers' Party (Trotskyist), Internal Marxist Group, Red Action... (got bored)

True or False?

1. In 2013, a member of the Central Committee of the SWP  hacked into other CC members computers and began  leaking stories to the Facing Reality blog TRUE
2. In the late 1970s, it was possible to go on a left wing march against the cuts or racism and be offered two papers, “Gay Left” and “Straight Left” Don't know
3. In a report by a police informant, Militant was described as “The most unbelievably boring and turgid newspaper I have ever read, never mind sold” TRUE (so true)
   
4. A police raid on the Workers Revolutionary Party Derbyshire training centre found only used bullets, so no action was taken. TRUE
5. The IS/SWP once had an opposition faction that called itself “The Right Opposition” Don't know
6. In 1980s Liverpool, GMB stewards using taxis to deliver redundancy notices to the entire council workforce, were picketed by NALGO stewards and taken to court by the local NUT TRUE
7. The SWP has over 7,000 members FALSE (less)
8. The leader of the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) produces such brilliant poetry that it is published on the groups website and sometimes even in print FALSE (it is mostly awful)
9.  Everybody’s favourite Left-Trainspotter paper/website, the “Weekly Worker” used to be called the “Daily Worker” Don't know. CPGB use to publish Daily Worker (now Morning Star)
10.  In the 1980s it was possible to go on a march and be offered to buy two copies of “Newsline” produced by rival factions of the WRP. TRUE
11. In the 1980s, tit-for-tat killings became the norm between the 3 main revolutionary socialist groups, which saw nearly 100 dead. TRUE (Northern Ireland)
12.  In the 1980s it was possible to go on a march and be offered two copies of “Brighton Labour Briefing” produced by rival factions of the Brighton’s Labour Left. Probably true
13.  There are three daily papers run by left wing parties in Britain. FALSE Update: only two daily.
14. A Trotskyist paper called “Workers Hamster” greeted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with the headline “Hail The Red Army in Afghanistan” Maybe - Not sure about Workers Hamster but Red Army quote was Spartacist League headline.
15.  At Labour Party Young Socialists summer camp in the 1980s, supporters of the Militant Tendency organised an attack on the tents of the openly LGBT campers. TRUE
16.  The CPB (M-L) ( founder John Buckle), with less than 100 members, currently organise rallies where they tell their membership how they “punch above our weight” TRUE (but don't they all claim this?)
17. The SWP in 1960s USA expelled lesbian and gay members because they were a security risk. Don't know.
18.  Occupy Marxism Festival was bigger than the real Marxism Festival in 2013 TRUE-ish
19. Joan Lester, a former Labour Minister who became Baroness Lester of Eccles Cakes in 1997, was once a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. TRUE
20. The Japanese section of the Fourth International expelled all its male members due to the high level of physical abuse of women members by male “comrades” Don't know
21. John Lennon wanted to join the International Socialists (SWP), but didn’t like the thought of the subs he was ask for, so he joined the Fourth International International Marxist Group” instead. Don't know
22. Surrey was the origin of two British left groups, the New Communist Party (AKA North Korea Juche International, UK section) and Spanner (a 1980s breakaway from the SPGB (AKA Small Party of Good Boys) Don't know

Which is the odd one out? And why?

1) Workers Power, 2) Socialist Resistance, 3) Anti-Capitalist Initiative, 4) Counterfire, 5) International Socialist Network, 6) Revolutionary Democratic Group, 7) Alliance for Workers Liberty, 8) Permanent Revolution, 9) Revolutionary Communist Party, 10) International Socialist Group, 11) Revolutionary Communist Group, 12) Red Action RED ACTION only ones to have ever actually done anything?

1) British National Party, 2) The SWP, 3) UKIP, 4) Liberal-Democrats SWP never stood for elections in own name?

1) Ted Grant, 2) Tony Cliff, 3) Gerry Healy, 4) Sean Matgamna Sean M Only one still alive?

1) Globalise Resistance  2)Right to Work Campaign  3) Youth Fight for Jobs 4) Education Activists Network 5) Fast Food Rights FFR only ones as well to have actually done anything?

1) Costas  2) Starbucks  3) Firebox  4) Café Nero  5) Coffee Republic Firefox pay taxes?

1)The SWP telling people to pay their poll tax, 2) Militant  refusing to call for the withdrawal of Thatchers Falklands Task Force, 3) The SWP saying collect money for the miners & take it to the picket lines instead of working with the Miners Support Groups and collecting food, 4) The Militant calling 1980s Syria a Workers State (deformed),5)  Militant staying in The Mass party Of The Werking Class (AKA The Labour Party) quite as long as they did. 6) The procedures of the SWP Disputes Committee in 2012 7) The SWP standing Lindsey German for London Mayor under a “Left List” platform after getting “witch-hunted” out of “Respect” In 2008 German was still in SWP?