11.06.1998
Unity and criticism
North West union rights campaign
Around 80 people attended the North West regional launch rally of the United Campaign for Repeal of Anti-Trade Union Laws in Manchester on June 3 1998.
The meeting was opened by Socialist Labour Party member Alec McFadden. He explained that the name change was intended to underline the equal partnership of the three organisations which had merged following the March 28 Reclaim Our Rights conference. He stressed that the campaign would be non-sectarian.
SLP national executive committee member, and joint secretary of United Campaign, John Hendy QC, informed the meeting that nine unions at national level, and 150 other trade union bodies, had affiliated. A national recall delegate conference will take place on July 4 to start planning the activities of the campaign. It had already been agreed however that there will be a major national demonstration on May 15 1999.
The other joint secretary, Lol Duffy, of Liverpool Unison and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty-backed Free Trade Unions Campaign, stressed his view that the campaign must be one which wins in the TUC. An immediate aim should be to secure a commitment from this autumn’s TUC congress to lead the May 1999 demonstration and the fight to defeat the anti-union laws. A question from the floor to comrade Duffy, as to what would happen to the campaign if it did not win in the congress, was not answered. Alec McFadden came back in to emphasise: “This organisation is not intended to be an alternative TUC. It is working within the TUC.”
Speakers from two disputes addressed the meeting. Shirley Winter, of the Magnet Women’s Support Group described eloquently the struggle that had been conducted by the Magnet strikers and their families.
Pat Buxton appealed for support on behalf of the 250 Tameside care workers who had been sacked that very day after two months of strike action against pay cuts. She was backed up by her Unison branch secretary, Socialist Party member Noel Pine, who spoke of the strikers’ defiance of anti-union laws.
But then a speaker from the Tameside Unemployed Workers Alliance stated that he had a criticism to make of the leadership of this dispute. Unemployed workers and students had initiated an occupation of the offices of a staffing agency which was supplying scabs and, as pre-arranged, had sent a mini-bus in order to transport strikers to the action. The bus had returned empty. Comrade Pine had allegedly told strikers that their participation in such an activity was inadvisable. It might lead to their victimisation after a return to work.
At the mention of the word ‘criticism’, murmurs of disapproval rumbled in those areas of the hall which were most noticeably occupied by members of the Fourth International Supporters Caucus. To his credit, the chair, comrade McFadden, intervened. “This campaign is a unity project,” he stated, “and as such, criticism must be allowed. The way to fight sectarianism is through unity in action.”
Indeed all who wanted to speak were given the facility to do so. The campaign has the potential to grow into something substantial and, if it is to become a genuine working class mass movement, then the space for the fullest of debate and comradely criticism will be a vital factor.
Despite this the Socialist Workers Party did not provide any speakers. The SWP has organised a ‘Union rights now’ rally in Manchester, on June 11, with the sponsorship of a number of local union branches. The publicity for this event, with its official TUC speakers, indicates that it is to focus on union recruitment activity and union recognition drives.
Ostensibly the SWP would appear to be offering its services as a TUC recruiting sergeant. The importance of getting the SWP on board was however acknowledged by Alec McFadden, who urged those present to attend the SWP-sponsored event in order to press for one united union rights campaign.
John Pearson