23.09.1999

Disappointed sectarian

Dot Gibson responds to Mark Metcalf’s criticisms of Steve Hedley (Weekly Worker August 26)

Mark Metcalf makes the classic, false division between the working class and its trade unions, and sets Steve Hedley up as a scapegoat for the failure to win his own reinstatement. Metcalf tells us that “the aim” is to show that Steve Hedley “preferred to rely on the bureaucracy of the RMT and its acolytes in ‘the British left’ rather than the rank and file railworkers who he had already inspired to take action”. “By doing so” he “turned his back on his closest supporters, and now he has clearly decided that ‘if you can’t beat them [the bureaucracy] then join them’.”

This last point refers to the fact that Steve is now a development officer for Ucatt, recruiting and organising on the construction sites. Metcalf’s childish view is that anyone who works for a trade union is automatically reactionary.

It is impossible to comment on his reference to the RMT’s “acolytes in ‘the British left’”, because he does not name them. Likewise he does not tell us who he means when he says that Steve Hedley “turned his back on his closest supporters”. This kind of phrasemongering is designed to develop an atmosphere of distrust.

There are many lies and distortions, and it is difficult not to suspect Metcalf’s motives in distributing allegations which, if true, could place Steve Hedley in great difficulty. I also consider that if a socialist newspaper receives such a piece about an active (and victimised) trade unionist and fighter for socialism, the principled thing to do would be to speak to the victim before taking a decision to give it space. We are not playing games. A gullible reader of the Weekly Worker could take it into his/her head that Steve Hedley should be the target for open and even physical attack.

Nevertheless Metcalf’s piece is worth commenting on because he is not the only one who rejects the Marxist world outlook, and reduces the problems of the working class to the abstract level of a single dispute, rank-and-fileism and even to a single leader upon whom he heaps blame for his own disappointment. Steve Hedley today, Tony O’Brien (Ucatt member and convenor of shop stewards on Southwark DLO) yesterday and somebody else tomorrow!

The trade union question is the most important question of working class policy. The unions have degenerated from organisations which raised the material and cultural level of the working class, and the extension of its political rights in the period of the rise and growth of capitalism, into the reactionary role they play today when capitalism for its survival is forced to attempt to take away all the gains of the working class. This is the central problem for the working class and for all socialists.

The trade union bureaucracies attack internal democracy, persecute the socialist militants and bend union rules to conform to bourgeois state laws designed to curtail the very reason for the existence of trade unions. But this reality does not automatically galvanise workers into a fight against the bureaucracy. Bourgeois ideology has to be fought at all levels in the labour movement, and this is the task of socialists in the reconstruction of the workers’ movement.

The turmoil in the trade unions, induced by state attacks and the break-up of traditional industries that accompanied the beginning of the end of the boom in 1972, produced the trial and imprisonment of the Shrewsbury building workers’ pickets, and the imprisonment and release of the Pentonville Five dockworkers. From 1985 to 1989 the ‘old guard’ workers attempted and failed to hold on to their jobs and trade union rights in the miners’, printworkers’, seafarers’ and dockers’ strikes. Each one was a test of the unions’ need to break the anti-trade union laws. Only the miners’ and the seafarers’ unions were willing to do so and they could not win on their own.

Subsequently the TUC was forced to expel the rightwing EEPTU for their scab role at News International (Wapping). Later OILC was formed by North Sea oil rig workers. Splitting with the TGWU, the AEU and other unions, skilled workers took a lead to organise the low paid domestic and cleaning workers on the rigs. The TUC would not recognise them, but did reinstate the EETPU, which then merged with the AEU to become the AEEU - an arch-reactionary union.

These events were, and are, signs of the break-up of old relations in the workers’ movement. A split was covered over and delayed by both wings in the trade unions on the erroneous basis that when the Tories were defeated and a (reformist) Labour government took office the working class and its unions would have political representation to enable them to fight the bosses and bring in legislation to restore basic rights, end unemployment and put a stop to privatisation.

In May 1997 we saw the return of a Labour government with a massive majority. All its policies are directed to upholding the international rule of capital (imperialism), developing the policies laid down at Maastricht. Together with the other social democratic governments in France and Germany, this government must attack all the gains of the working class, the unions, health, housing, all public and social services, education, rights at work, rights to asylum, etc.

Over the last 25 years exploitation of workers has enormously increased. Younger workers (even those in their 40s) who are lucky enough to have a skill and a job have experienced only privatisation, anti-trade union laws and the threat of unemployment. Communities have been broken up, most workers now have mortgages hanging over their heads and fear taking action they think will threaten the ‘stability’ of their families. Many are on individual contracts, and are not in trade unions. Millions of others have no skill, no job and no union. Class consciousness has suffered.

Metcalf makes no attempt to concretely reveal these problems and the isolation workers experience. The speed of the attacks by giant international companies on wages and conditions, the anti-trade union laws and the failure of the leadership to fight against them, the stream of defeated strikes of the ‘big guns’ in the working class (miners, steelworkers, dockers, printers) and the victimisation of militants have sapped the confidence of all workers. Now there is the shock of realising that the Labour government’s adoption of these same laws, and its continuation of cuts and privatisation, face workers with the very big responsibility to build their own new socialist party.

Metcalf’s conclusion ignores these central questions. His answer is not to understand where workers are coming from, to be with them and build their confidence and class consciousness, but to develop a kind of ‘ginger group’ to parachute in when workers are in dispute. He says that “the key to winning any industrial dispute is the organising of flying pickets and going directly to workers in their workplaces”. Compare this with the rules and aims of the Strike Support Group: “to give financial aid to workers in struggle; to give striking workers resources to print and publish their own leaflets, etc; to physically support pickets and other demonstrations of workers in struggle.” The main thing is to respect and assist the actual organisation that has developed on the job.

Metcalf puts great emphasis on establishing “a policy of organisation and action independent of the full-time union officials”. What does “a policy of organisation and action” mean? Metcalf does not explain. For him it is sufficient that this must be “independent of the full-time officials”, because for him all full-time officials are traitors. However, there can be no substitute for patient recruitment, the development of organisation and the building of a socialist tendency to fight for unions independent of the state, democracy in the unions, and for the development of internationalism to combat the attacks of global companies.

Workers’ loyalty to their union and respect for the leadership are not negative. Neither do most workers share Metcalf’s view that all trade union organisers are reactionary. What is the point of a trade union without organisers? And what is the point of militant workers avoiding this responsibility? Like everyone else these organisers must be tested; what they do must come within the campaign for inner-union democracy.

Metcalf treats workers as though they have no opinion, as though their basic organisations mean nothing to them and they can and will simply and easily jump out of their loyalty to their unions when he and his like come along and tell them obvious truths about betrayals, etc. The trade unions have a proud, historic place in the making of the working class. That history does not belong to the bureaucracy. Defence of the right to organise in trade unions on the job is the first step to making the necessary changes.

It was for this reason and against this background that Steve Hedley was victimised to deny representation to an important section of workers. From the outset he was faced with the RMT leadership’s refusal to defy the anti-trade union laws (the union conference decision, stating that such action could be taken, vaguely left it to the officials to decide when it was appropriate).

Therefore, when the Euston GTRM workers took unofficial action for his reinstatement, they were immediately weakened when they came into conflict with their union. General secretary Jimmy Knapp sent a letter of repudiation disowning the strike. This was later followed by the actions of some of the company reps (influenced by GTRM management) who insisted that Steve’s reinstatement could not be part of the negotiations on the new contract.

Then his industrial tribunal was cancelled because his legal advisors considered that the company’s CCTV footage contradicted some of his witness statements. After that the union’s EC recommended acceptance of the deal without including in their circular to the branches the principle of Steve’s reinstatement. By this time settlements had been reached on negotiations with all the other rail maintenance contractors, and the GTRM workers were getting fed up with the long drawn out negotiations. Many resented the fact that 14 days of strike had not resulted in a satisfactory settlement.

A number of key workers went off and got other jobs, and some RMT members left the union and joined the AEEU instead. Whether Metcalf likes it or not, years of setbacks do not create a militant working class. There is hesitancy, individualism, fear of breaking the law, of moving against official leaders and mainly of losing jobs.

Metcalf shamefully pours scorn on Steve Hedley’s real and not imaginary understanding of the GTRM workers, and his responsibility towards them. Under Steve’s leadership two issues of the Support Group paper, Unite!, were published explaining the issues, together with an issue of Unite! written and prepared by a meeting of rail and bus workers. Thousands of leaflets were distributed. But by then he was out of the workplace, separated from the rest of the workers. The company knew full well the importance of such an attack on worker-leaders in its dealings with the rest of the workforce. (Look at the record of the three-year industrial tribunal of the victimised London dockers after the 1989 strike.)

Steve was charged with criminal damage. Management-inspired rumours gave credence to the charges, spreading confusion among some workers, especially when a group of rightwing reps backed up these stories. Steve was innocent. The police dropped the charges and the case was not brought to court. However, all this took up time, during which the rightwing reps were busy on the job with their campaign to separate Steve’s reinstatement from the long-awaited wages and conditions settlement.

Continuation of the unofficial strike would no doubt have meant the sacking of the workforce in the Euston depot, and a further rift with the union leadership, both of which the workers were not ready to handle. As Metcalf reports, the Watford depot workers would only agree to continue the strike if the union made it official.

However, Metcalf is supremely confident of his own ability, and that of Building Workers Group leader Brian Higgins, to convince workers against the advice of their union leadership. He considers that by sending round a group of “flying pickets” from outside, workers should and could sustain an unofficial action against the wishes of their trade union leaders.

Disappointed that the workers were not prepared to do so, Metcalf says:

“It has never been possible to find out whether the workers had put forward this argument themselves or whether Ashcroft had put the idea forward first and the workers had latched on to this in desperation or in the certainty that the union would not give such support - as was to be proved!”

Nevertheless he has the answer: “It should be recorded that history has shown that workers very rarely, if at all, make official support a condition of spontaneously ‘downing tools’. These questions always come up and are raised after such actions by the fainthearts and those of a bureaucratic persuasion looking for a way out!”

Metcalf tells us that if the flying picket had talked to signalworkers instead of going to the RMT headquarters, if Metcalf himself had spoken to the workers, if Billy Ashcroft had not gone on holiday, etc, etc, “there was a real chance to smash management’s and the government’s plans to make railworkers pay for the catastrophe of privatisation”.

This may seem to be true in Metcalf’s imagination, placing an exaggerated gloss on the GTRM workers’ wage and conditions dispute and the victimisation of one of their reps, but - in the real world - it is an oversimplified and romantic view of the situation. To settle accounts with “the catastrophe of privatisation” requires a mass political campaign!

It is a pity Metcalf and Higgins do not stop to consider why they remain so isolated; why, after Higgins “gave an inspiring speech about the need to fight the employers whilst not expecting the full-time officials of any union to do the same”, the workers at that meeting in the railworkers’ club in Willesden on July 29 1998 said they did not want him, an outsider, speaking in such vitriolic terms about the union, on their platform again.

Metcalf should think about why those same workers did want Bob Crow on their platform. They reasoned that since he had authority in their union and was responsible for the negotiations they could have a fruitful discussion with him and tell him their concerns. They considered that without the union’s full backing they did not have the organisation in place to break the law by continuing the action. Workers are quite rightly wary of sectarian cheers and advice from the sidelines about going it alone without union backing, when they are the ones risking their jobs.

However, workers are concretely faced with fighting for the independence of their unions and the need for their own socialist party. To defend capital today the Blair government is on the attack. The working class will more and more come into conflict with the government and union leaderships which support and defend it. The split in the trade union movement is opened afresh in different circumstances.

How else can we view the decision of the three rail unions, led by the RMT, to oppose plans for the privatisation of London Underground? How else can we understand the necessity for the Fire Brigades Union to come out against Labour’s proposed laws to make a strike of its members illegal? But Metcalf abstractly warns workers that “when major events in the class struggle occur, the subordination of the left wing of the trade union bureaucracy to the right wing is pronounced”.

Yes, left reformists subordinate themselves to capital, and it is necessary to study and speak out about the reactionary nature of reformism. However, even the slightest movement of a union against this government will open up opportunities for building the mass workers’ movement. It is in the building of that movement that the GTRM workers and millions of others can shed their confusion, develop class consciousness and break their isolation.

At the time of writing the RMT leadership has not signed off the agreement with GTRM because the dispute continues over Steve’s reinstatement. His union branch has called an open meeting with Steve and Bob Crow speaking, where these issues can be discussed. Quite rightly the rank and file leadership of that union branch is patiently working towards clarification of the situation the workers face and what kind of organised fight they must conduct.

The working class has lost many battles, but it has not lost the war!