Rebuilding the movement

Submitted by Anon on 26 September, 2008 - 10:37 Author: Stuart Jordan

A brief look at the current industrial news is enough to make any socialist’s eyes water. We have seen the GMB (with one eye to the sinking ship of New Labour) seek talks with the Tories, and Unison scuppering any possibility of a united public sector pay fight. Even in the unions, such as PCS and NUT, where the “left” control the leadership, there is little industrial strategy to win the pay fight, and scant effort is going into the most basic task of building a fighting, militant union movement.

With the economic crisis threatening spiralling inflation and mass unemployment, the working class and poor need a fighting labour movement to make sure that the bosses pay for the failures of their system. We need the industrial strength and confidence to take on the fight for decent wages and jobs if we are to weather the economic storm ahead.

We need to organise from the ground up, rebuild the rank-and-file movements, and wrest the leadership of our unions out of the hands of the fat-cat bureaucrats and place them under the control of thoroughgoing working-class democracy.

The new generation of workers and young anti-capitalists have not lived through a period of economic crisis and do not know what a fighting labour movement looks like. They do not see the trade unions as a fighting force against the grey logic of capitalism, and do not see the militants within the movement who in spite of the bureaucracy are still fighting and organising on the ground. Instead they see an enormous bureaucratic machine, a parasite on their wages that sells them out every time there is a need for a fight.

The defeat of the miners in the mid-1980s and the victory of Thatcher, followed by the successive Thatcherite governments of Blair and Brown, has taken its toll on the union movement.

During this period of capitalist triumphalism, the union leaderships have fallen in line, declaring the doctrine of social partnership. Social partnership unionism argues that the class war is over and the workers and the bosses have to work in harmony for the benefit of society. The fact that my boss wants me to work longer for less money and I want to work less for more money is a logic that is lost on union leaders whose class loyalties and lifestyles predispose them to the luxuries of the bourgeoisie.

As the banks are now dropping like flies and the financial system is falling apart, in hindsight social partnership unionism looks naive. Spineless union leaders who subscribed to social partnership are still in positions of power, protected by a strengthened bureaucracy and low levels of activism.

Fortunately there are also signs that things are changing. The recent dispute of the Tube cleaners highlighted the immense experience, courage and determination of a highly exploited group of mainly female migrant workers. There is now an opportunity that this group of workers who have been traditionally viewed as “too hard to organise” will be at the forefront of challenging New Labour’s racist immigration controls.

Last year we saw the first national industrial action in the charity sector as Shelter workers fought back against their bosses. And there are the beginnings of a rank-and-file movement developing in USDAW — the traditionally useless shopworkers’ union.

Against this backdrop, the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty is hosting its third Trade Union Day School to organise and develop strategies to build on these successes and rebuild the movement as a fighting force. The day school is an opportunity to learn from the rank-and-file trade unionists who have kept the flag of industrial militancy flying during this long 25 year retreat.

The day will focus on how to build rank-and-file movements within the unions, the Marxist understanding of the bureaucracy and the role of Marxists in the workplace. There will be a follow-up on previous work on producing workplace bulletins.

More than anything, this will be an opportunity to meet with other militants in your union and organise for the struggles ahead.

• Saturday 25 October 2008, 12-5pm, London. For more details email: thomas.unterrainer@talk21.com

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