02.05.2001

Socialist Party snubs fightback

Unison workers in Hackney, protesting against the council?s cuts and closure programme, staged a one-day strike action on May 1 to coincide with the demonstrations taking place across London and the rest of Britain.

Workers had originally been balloted for five days of action to last all week. However, the turnout in the ballot was low and the majority in favour of five days was slim. Therefore stewards decided - sensibly in my opinion - to simply go for one day of action. The majority of workers did not have the confidence for a sustained strike. Therefore it would have been foolhardy for the stewards to lead a militant minority - to defeat? This was despite the arguments of many Socialist Workers Party members, who stated that the stewards needed to lead the members, not back down. But, as was pointed out at a recent weekly Hackney North Socialist Alliance meeting, there was no point in the leaders running ahead if nobody would follow.

There is no doubt, however, that Hackney council continues to feel the pressure - both from the government and from below. It has temporarily backed down on plans to close down yet another community facility - the Huddlestone Centre. But at the same time it is pushing ahead with privatisation in other areas and is planning to cut back even more on nursery provision. The success of local campaigns demonstrates that the council cannot easily resolve its crisis at workers? and residents? expense. It also shows the need to build the Socialist Alliance as the leading fighting force for a united fightback, rather than us simply supporting these uncoordinated single-issue campaigns. It also shows the need for politics.

Unfortunately - as I have reported many times before - the Socialist Party continues to play a sectarian role. The SP took the initiative to get its member, Brian Debus, chair of Hackney Unison, adopted by a shop stewards committee as an ?anti-cuts? candidate in one of the three forthcoming council by-elections - two caused by the departure of corrupt councillors found guilty of vote-rigging. The same meeting also endorsed Mitch Dublin, who is hoping to be selected as a Socialist Alliance candidate.

Shop stewards who are not members of the SP are simply concerned that there should be a working class challenge to the council. They are not interested or a part of the backroom antics of the SP. The SP leadership knows that a Socialist Alliance candidate would be supported by many union members. So in order to undermine that support it put forward its own candidate, hoping to get him endorsed quickly just in case the SA got in first.

Now Jim Horton, Taaffe?s man in Hackney, tells us that the SP is standing no matter what - and not as part of the alliance. It is obvious that it is not the shop stewards committee but the SP that is so vehemently against comrade Debus standing as part of the SA. In view of this there is a clear solution. In my view the SA should approach the shop stewards committee and invite them to stand their candidate as part of the SA. I cannot in all sincerity see any opposition to that, except from the SP.

An increasing number of Hackney trade union members are being won to backing a workers? challenge to New Labour - not just in the borough, but nationally in the shape of a single electoral force. And if their local leaders were to recommend the SA, that would carry substantial weight. We need to convince them that the way ahead lies through unity, not the self-seeking and sectarian antics of the SP, who are cynically using union members to shore up their own organisation against the Socialist Alliance. They have not attended an SA meeting for months and do not take part in any SA activities.

Despite these problems, the SA will go ahead with its selection meeting on May 9 to agree candidates for the three by-elections. Two of the elections will be in Hackney North - important in motivating members in the constituency. The decision not to challenge Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North, to stand on a platform to defend the working class had left many of our supporters feeling the SA had nothing to say in the constituency. The two council by-elections should rally all those members now to go out and campaign.

It is crucial that we build an effective SA in Hackney North. As one of the most leftwing areas in Britain - where even the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate describes herself as a ?Marxist-Leninist? - it has tremendous potential for us.

Anne Mc Shane

Council by-election selection meeting: Wednesday May 9, 8pm, Dalston Methodist Hall, Richmond Road (entrance via Forest Road and Forest Grove).

Stalls: Saturdays 11.30am, Brooke Road Post Office, Stoke Newington; and Safeway, Stamford Hill.