19.09.1996

Make Blair’s attack our opportunity

Blair’s attempt to demonstrate that he has the unions under his thumb was not all plain sailing

Last week’s Trades Union Congress was deliberately upstaged by high-profile Labour Party interventions.

The week started with employment and education spokesperson David Blunkett calling for yet more anti-union legislation - compulsory, binding arbitration for public sector disputes and automatic reballotting of union members every time the employers come up with a fresh ‘offer’.

Next, employment spokesperson Stephen Byers weighed in with his disclosure to four journalists of plans to sever links with the unions, if a Labour government was faced with militant resistance to its anti-working class agenda. Byers then responded to union leaders’ cries of anguish by alleging that the journalists - from the Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express - had made it all up. Nobody believed him, and even Tony Blair’s denials did little to dissuade anyone that exactly such a policy is being considered by the leadership, as David Blunkett later admitted. The idea was being floated now to please the bosses and keep such a ‘threat’ hanging over the unions.

Finally, as the delegates were on their way home, Kim Howells, a junior trade spokesperson, put his oar in with a call for the term ‘socialist’ to be “humanely phased out”, a sentiment echoed by the party leader himself.

In an article in The Observer (September 15), Blair disclosed how he wanted to take us back to the 19th century, before the artificial “division in radical politics” appeared “between Labour and the Liberals”. He wrote: “Lloyd George, Keynes and Beveridge became separated from Attlee, Bevin and Bevan, though in truth they had the same basic ideals.”

In his address to a business audience of Liffe market speculators at London’s Guildhall earlier this week, Blair insisted that New Labour was now the party of the bosses just as much as the unions: “Business people as well as employees are joining us,” he said.

Labour has of course always dismissed the obvious truth that working class interests are diametrically opposed to those of the capitalists. It always claimed that workers’ interests could best be served through cooperation with the bosses. But, whereas before it tried to court workers by promising to deliver them specific gains, now it only offers platitudes.

No wonder even union bureaucrats are expressing sullen misgivings. As The Independent reported, “Mr Blair found greater warmth among an audience of businessmen at the opening of a new private business park in Coventry, where a number of men in suits told him they would be voting for him” (September 12).

The same newspaper, somewhat exaggeratedly, declared the next day: “Rift with Blair becomes a chasm” (September 13). This was in reaction to TUC decisions - in opposition to Labour’s wishes - to support a call for all workers to be entitled to employment protection from the day they start a job. The delegates also demanded the repeal of laws outlawing ‘secondary action’, which legally obliges workers not in direct dispute to scab.

Earlier the call for a minimum wage was overwhelmingly carried, and Arthur Scargill, president of the Socialist Labour Party, received an ovation when he said: “I’m fed up to the back teeth with people telling us not to rock the boat ... Let’s exert our independence and go for £4.26.” Admirable sentiments, but the demand falls far, far short of what workers need.

Other woefully inadequate demands were too ‘radical’ for the congress. For example, a move to allow strikes without a ballot for “urgent defensive action” was defeated, as was the call for unions to break the anti-union laws if necessary.

The unease with, if not hostility to Labour’s plans was what Blair had counted on. He needs to show the ruling class that he has the unions well and truly under control. However he does not want to risk any impression that they might rebel against his dictates. The vote for the £4.26 minimum wage was the last thing he wanted.

But Blair’s difficulty is our opportunity. The SLP reports that it received scores of applications for membership during TUC week. That is excellent. We must do everything we can to encourage the break with the Labour Party and the building of independent working class organisation.

That is why all partisans of the working class should join the Socialist Labour Party and raise its sights to fight for what we need. Then we can make the bosses’ worst dreams a reality.

Alan Fox