16.04.1998

With or without the TUC

Simon Harvey of the SLP

The SLP-initiated Reclaim Our Rights delegate recall conference takes place this Saturday following its successful launch rally on March 28, which drew 676 registered participants. The timing of the campaign could not have been better. A conflict between Blair’s New Labour and the trade unions looms over promised union recognition legislation. Trade union bureaucrats are talking tough.

Two positive aspects so far have been its relative democracy and Reclaim Our Right’s non-sectarian orientation - it wants to include (take over) other campaigns against the anti-trade union laws.

The recall conference is open to delegates from any trade union organisation and officers from already existing campaigns. Its declared purpose is to elect “officers and a central campaign organising committee on a non-sectarian basis”. From there, the “elected committee should: formulate a programme of activities by May 1 1998; select a unifying name for the campaign; call a further delegated meeting before July 1 1998 to endorse the programme and name; continue to invite further sponsorship/affiliation from trade union bodies” (March 28 conference resolution).

However, there are some serious weaknesses in general approach. Delegates should vigorously argue for changes. Reclaim Our Rights (ROR) is basically pitched at the union bureaucracy. Centrally, as outlined by SLP NEC members Bob Crow and John Hendy, the “campaign can only succeed if led by the TUC”. Their joint pamphlet concludes: “the task is to commit the entire ... movement, through the TUC to these goals, and for the TUC to lead the campaign, as it did in the 1970s, to achieve these objectives”, namely the repeal of the anti-trade union laws. (Such an approach is a far cry from the outlandish suggestion floated by Arthur Scargill at the last TUC congress for the formation of an alternative trade union centre.)

The TUC sponsored campaign of the 1970s against Heath’s Industrial Relations Act resulted directly from the pressure the CPGB was able to exert. While it had not been a revolutionary organisation for decades, it still organised many of the best militant trade unionists. The victories of the Pentonville Five, Saltley Gates and the smashing of Heath’s laws was in no small part due to the CPGB’s industrial organisation and strength.

Comrade Jimmy Nolan obliquely and perhaps unconsciously pointed to this in his contribution to the March 28 ROR conference. He stated that one of the reasons he had joined the SLP was because its manifesto was similar to that of the Communist Party of old. And herein lies part of the tragedy of the SLP. Rather than becoming a mass socialist party of all working class militants, Scargill is trying to build it as a 1950s CPGB. He forgets that the CPGB was what it was because it had revolutionary origins - not least in the Councils of Action in 1920 and 1926, and the National Minority Movement.

Scargill therefore has another problem. In pursuing his strategy, he is attempting to occupy a space in British politics previously held by the ‘official’ CPGB, not least through the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions. With the liquidation of the ‘official’ CPGB, the so-called CPB has maintained the LCDTU albeit as a pale shadow of its former self. Neither the social nor the political weight is there. A vacuum exists and Scargill sees an opportunity.

Despite the March 28 conference resolution ‘recognising’ the work of the LCDTU, it seems that it is, as yet, not prepared to dissolve itself at Scargill’s call. This was made clear during the strike of the Morning Star journalists. Their NUJ strike bulletin, The Workers’ Morning Star, reported the ROR conference. In referring to this weekend’s recall meeting it reported: “Unfortunately, the proposed date clashes with a meeting already arranged for the same day by the Liaison Committee”.

Reading the tea leaves further, an advertisement appeared in the re-born Morning Star from Reclaim Our Rights. Signed by Crow and Hendy, it said: “Reclaim Our Rights ... welcomes the return of the Morning Star, the daily paper for the labour movement”. It then refers to the March 28 conference motion which contains the details of the recall conference as being supported by “anti-union law campaigns: those of the CWU and the FTUC (Free the Trade Unions Campaign). The Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions have been invited”. Obviously it is not playing ball - yet.

How this tension between ROR and the Liaison Committee is resolved remains to be seen. Clearly, ROR is attempting to occupy the same political space. Given that it is on a broader basis with fresh impetus, it should be supported. However, tying the success of the campaign to winning over the TUC is tantamount to surrender. It relies on the likes of Monks, Edmonds and Morris turning into militants prepared to break the law.

Comrades attending the conference this weekend must remove the over-reliance on legal reform and the self-defeating reliance on the TUC. Rather than appealing and pressuring the current pro-capitalist labour bureaucrats, our method must be to organise the rank and file. With or without the TUC - smash the anti-trade union laws.