05.12.2002

Politicising FBU dispute

Firefighters need a republican answer, argues Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group

The surprising announcement by the Fire Brigades Union executive to suspend strike action and refer the dispute to Acas is a major retreat. It is too early to tell whether this will mean final defeat or merely another manoeuvre in a guerrilla war. It depends on what the 52,000 firefighters do now and whether the lessons of the dispute can be quickly learned and applied. Certainly the gutter press are crowing. The Sun headline proclaimed, "Fire strike crumbles" and the paper went on to say that the fire union "caved in": "Gilchrist knows he is losing" (December 3). They want to turn retreat into massacre. So as socialists it will not help if we are sitting on the sidelines shouting, 'Sellout'. We need to help rank and file firefighters to strengthen their organisation and political consciousness and hence their determination to fight on for 30K. We do not yet know the inside story of why the FBU executive made this turn. Has there been a secret deal for 16% and this is the cover story? Or was the executive split over the industrial versus political strategy? Has the executive simply lost its bottle and is clutching at the most politically naive Acas straw? Or is it a smart move to outwit the government? Or was the TUC helping the government out of a hole of its own digging? Time will tell. What is certain is that Acas will not deliver more than the government have already offered and may well deliver less. To have any chance of winning more, the FBU has to go on the offensive, both industrially and politically. This means combining industrial action with political action. Successful political action will in turn lead to wider and more general industrial action. Ironically Gilchrist pointed the way to political action immediately prior to this retreat. The firefighters' strike is a political dispute. The government ensured it was not simply a matter between employers and workers. They intervened and interfered continuously behind the scenes. The longer the dispute has gone on, the clearer this has become. It was absolutely clear by the time Prescott vetoed the 16% deal which the employers and the FBU had agreed last week. The government is using the dispute for its own political aims. The City of London has billions to invest in privatisation. The potential profits are huge and the risks are minimal. But Labour has to beat the public sector unions first. The FBU has been chosen as the sacrificial lamb. Blair continues where Thatcher left off in dismantling the 'Elizabethan welfare state'. Using more stealth than the infamous bomber, they are hollowing out the public sector from the inside. Most Londoners, for example, are surprised to find that their fire engines are now privately owned. When the firefighters greeted Tony Blair with the chant, "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie: out, out, out", you could see from Blair's reaction that it was politically bang on target. Attacking trade unions, busting strikes and cutting jobs is neither new nor modern. Thatcher spent billions beating the miners, when it was cheaper to settle. But she was investing taxpayers' money in smashing the trade unions so every employer could start cracking the whip. Blair is playing the same game with the public sector. 'President' Blair, like the monarchy, often pretends to be 'above' the messy business of politics, whilst interfering vigorously behind the scenes. So it is a tribute to the success of the strike that Blair was forced out into the open. Last week's press conference saw him intervene directly and personally in the dispute. This has raised the political stakes. Whatever the economic cost, the government will spend what it takes to make sure Blair is the political winner. No doubt 'contingency' funds are set aside for beating the FBU, just as Blair will spend what it takes to back a US war against Iraq. Political calculations are the primary concern. When Andy Gilchrist called for "real Labour" to replace New Labour he went to the heart of the matter. It would have been better if he had called for stripping away Blair's powers and making him accountable to parliament and the people. No matter how mild Gilchrist's statement, he was certain to be charged with interfering in the democratic process - challenging the democratic decisions of the electorate. It would have been better to get his retaliation in first by questioning the legitimacy of the whole rotten and corrupt system. The trade union movement is locked up in the prison of economism. The Labour Party was supposed to provide the political answers by speaking on behalf of the trade unions. It is a busted system. But if trade union leaders are forced to fill the political vacuum then they are opened up to political attacks. Hell has no fury compared to the thunderbolts which hit any trade union leader who 'interferes' in politics. TUC president Nigel De Gruchy was quick to say that the dispute was "industrial, not political". No matter that this was a barefaced lie. On Radio Five Live on December 1, Frank Dobson MP condemned Gilchrist for being "political", saying that the firefighters can only win if they keep out of politics and confine themselves to a pure industrial dispute. It is simply a dispute between the employers and the union and does not concern anybody else. Such a non-political approach is certain to lead to defeat. Meanwhile Labour spin doctors were feeding the press with their trump card that Gilchrist is "politically motivated" and this is Scargillism. In attacking the values of New Labour and calling into question the whole project, Gilchrist was responding to Blair's upping the ante. He should be congratulated for doing so. He raised the spectre that the strike might seriously increase the political cost for New Labour. At least in theory it was the right direction to take. But, unless this was part of a deliberate strategy, it would be a mistake. It would be like calling for an armed uprising and forgetting to tell the troops or explain when, where or how it was going to take place. It could lead to total confusion and division among the executive and the membership. The executive was soon claiming the retreat to Acas was proof of an industrial, not a political dispute. The government and the press were ready to counterattack. The most rabid dog was of course The Sun. Gilchrist was condemned as a "leftwing fanatic", a "political adventurer who wants to destroy Tony Blair" and a " Marxist revolutionary". Never afraid to make political statements of its own whilst condemning others, the paper slammed Gilchrist for saying that the chancellor has "earmarked £1 billion to bomb innocent men, women and children in Iraq" (The Sun December 2). The Observer headline exclaimed: "Fire union chief pledges to topple New Labour." That would have been good news if it were true. But he would certainly need the active help of firefighters and the rest of the working class to deliver. "Who," asks The Sun, "is Gilchrist to give anyone lessons in democracy?" Well, of course he is the elected leader of the FBU carrying out democratically agreed policy. This is not the case with Tony Blair. Elected by a dodgy voting system - yes. But implementing democratically agreed policy - no. Blair has no mandate to sabotage the firefighters' pay negotiations, or cut jobs and privatise the public sector in the name of 'modernisation'. He has no democratic mandate to bomb Iraq. He will use the special powers granted under the royal prerogative. Parliament will not get a vote at all or at best when the troops are already committed to battle. When the press attack the FBU on democratic grounds we must have a democratic answer. The working class movement has to cut through all the democratic bullshit with the acid of republicanism. We must not run away from the democratic argument: we must up the ante. The problem is not FBU democracy: it is the sham of so-called British democracy. The constitutional monarchist system gives Blair almost dictatorial powers to take on the firefighters. Thatcher prided herself in using the full weight of these powers against trade unions and elected local councillors or to impose the poll tax. Blair sees himself in the same Bonapartist mould. Not for nothing has this system been called an 'elected dictatorship'. 'President' Blair has all the powers of a head of state and prime minister rolled into one. Modernisation is not something to be directed against the firefighters. The Houses of Commons, Lords and the monarchy are the most archaic and antiquated institutions. The Commons shift system is designed to make sure that MPs who are company directors or lawyers can do two jobs or even 10 jobs, never mind driving two jags. They are more than likely down the bar. Hardly life-threatening. But this does not stop them having a 40% wage increase. Let them hit us with democratic arguments and let us hit them back even harder and expose their hypocrisy. That is what republican firefighters must be saying loud and clear. Unless the working class movement is ready to seize the democratic high ground we cannot fight politically. The FBU will not win if it fights with one hand tied behind its back. So after Gilchrist put his toe in the water, the FBU saw a political tidal wave coming and ran away. The government was now ready to go on the offensive. Nick Raynsford claimed that as a purely industrial dispute it would drag on for months. He warned the employers not to settle prematurely. The government were dug in and are ready to starve the firefighters back to work. It does not matter how much public money it takes. And when the FBU is defeated, the government will pass laws to restrict their democratic right to strike. The FBU is now in a cul de sac. Industrial action raised the struggle to a political level and then fell back to negotiations. Blair has already weighed up the cost and benefit of this dispute. To have any chance of victory we have to change that equation. Once Blair sees the costs are much higher than the benefits he will find a way of settling. The economic cost can be estimated. But the political cost is currently far too low because New Labour have a near monopoly over working class politics. At a recent public meeting to support the firefighters in south London, Tony Benn reminded the audience that the public sector grew up when the working class got the vote at the end of the 19th century. Workers began using their votes to support candidates who supported municipal services, known as 'gas and water socialism'. The foundation of the Labour Party grew from these votes and the trade union struggles of the period. The trade unions conducted the industrial struggle and the Labour Party took up the political struggle. The twin-track strategy gave us the welfare state and the public sector and made real, if limited, gains for working people. Compare the social rights of workers in Britain with America. Today the twin-track strategy is a busted flush. The problem is not enough politics rather than too much. Now the FBU is back to square one. The FBU must take the lead in building a public sector alliance. We must prepare for a renewal of strike action by building up financial backing from trade unions and public sector workers. We must build rank and file organisations in every workplace. FBU activists must visit workplaces and especially public sector workers - teachers, nurses, local authority workers, etc. Regular collecting for the firefighters will require the public sector unions to activate their shop steward networks. Many workers accept that skilled workers should get 30K. But when the 40% is quoted it sounds unreasonable. The firefighters must use the 40% figure against the government. Forty percent is a measure of how all public sector workers have been cheated and robbed by successive governments over 20 years. Everybody in the public sector needs 40% to get back what has been stolen. Forty percent for all. Forty percent for low paid workers. This is why MPs got 40%. Let us not be embarrassed by the fact that all public sector workers have been robbed by 40%. We must be better prepared to go political. Trade unions are not political parties. They are the best organisations for calling strikes and industrial actions. Political parties are the best means of organising political battles. The two must work in tandem. The FBU needs a party that fights the government and threatens to take away its voting base. Such a twin threat would change the balance of forces in favour of working people. The firefighters strike shows up the fact that the FBU does not have a political weapon with which to fight New Labour. But equally it shows that the Socialist Alliance does not have the politics to fill the gap. The highest level of politics for the SA is the call to democratise the funds. The SA should be out now calling for a new party. We should be calling for the party that would do what Gilchrist merely talked about - topple New Labour. We should be calling on the FBU to work together with the SA for political representation for the labour movement. Labour MPs who do not support the FBU should realise we intend to stand pro-FBU socialist candidates. Never has a section of workers been so disillusioned with New Labour and open to the idea of a new workers' party. But the SA cannot fill this gap because of the anti-party policies that the Socialist Workers Party has imposed on the SA. The firefighters have shown up the complete failure of the SA to campaign for a new workers' party. A new workers' party would not simply support the FBU. It would take up the challenge of democracy. It would seek to remove the dictatorial powers held by the prime minister under the constitution of the crown. We need to remove all Blair's 'presidential' powers and make them accountable We need to make parliament more accountable to the people. We need constitutional change so that the votes of working people carry more weight instead of being wasted. In a word the new party would not be a repeat of Labour, old or new, but a party of republican socialism.