10.10.1996

Cardiff JSA campaign demobilised

Saturday October 5 saw a march in Cardiff against the Job Seekers Allowance. This was the culmination of a number of months’ work by the Cardiff section of the national campaign run by the TUC unemployed centres. Unfortunately the event was very poorly attended, with only around 150 marchers. This reflects the dire political problems and divisions surrounding the campaign in its penultimate weeks.

The campaign meetings were initially marked by a pleasant fraternal atmosphere with a wide variety of political groupings in attendance (Socialist Labour Party, Militant Labour, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, Cardiff Anarchists, Cymru Goch and Workers Power).

Initial problems came about as a result of the interventions of a number of representatives from the local TUC unemployed centre who consistently clamped down on the ideas of those attempting to push the campaign in a more militant anti-Labour direction.

This was seen as threatening the establishment of an unemployed centre for Cardiff, deemed to rely on the goodwill of various reactionary Labour councillors. This consistent inability to see the difference between the campaign and the proposed centre effectively tied the hands of the activists from day one.

The Trotskyist groups (WP and ML) proved unable and unwilling to confront these problems. When a number of anarchist and SLP members argued that non-violent direct action through the occupation of local job centres would be excellent publicity, the debate was suddenly hysterically pushed onto the practice of ‘Three strikes and out’ (which was never proposed by activists).

By forcing the debate onto these controversial grounds, the aforementioned Trotskyists formed a bloc with the TUC representatives to effectively move the campaign against any form of direct action, preferring to rely on leafleting and eliciting support from local trade unions. This led to a number of activists quitting the campaign, including the secretary, a well known local anarchist.

The way in which the march was built resulted in almost no representation from unemployed workers on the demo and therefore represents a failure in the strategy that dominated the campaign. Activists were consistently told that direct action in job centres which affects CPSA members was anti-working class and threatened unity.

Of course, this is a pretend unity. Unity between unemployed and CPSA members has to be won on the basis of mutual respect. Civil servants should respect non-violent direct action on the part of the unemployed and the unemployed should respect striking CPSA members. In the absence of this unity, the Cardiff campaign was strangled by those who consistently pretended it existed, giving activists no space in which to relate to the interests of the unemployed.

This is indicative of the social base of the various Trotskyist groups who are commonly organised amongst white collar workers. Their strategy in the Cardiff campaign against the JSA has less to do with unity than with narrow self-interest. A tragic way for a once optimistic campaign to end.

Phil Watson