05.05.2004

Gilchrist launches witch-hunt

On the eve of the Fire Brigades Union annual conference, the leadership has announced a witch-hunt of the union left wing - in particular the leaders of the rank and file grouping, Grassroots FBU.

The executive council, meeting on April 28, decided, on the recommendation of general secretary Andy Gilchrist, to set up a committee of enquiry into alleged “serious misconduct” on the part of a “hard left faction”, alleging they are involved in what amounts to a “union within a union”. It is thought various militants will be charged under the catch-all clause of the FBU constitution referring to “action prejudicial to the interests of the union”.

Under the normal disciplinary procedure local executive council members are responsible for investigating and if necessary bringing charges against those in their region alleged to have committed an offence, but on this occasion the leadership, clearly not trusting all EC members to deliver the goods, is bypassing the normal procedure and asking the committee of enquiry to make disciplinary recommendations. This committee is to be composed of assistant general secretary Mike Fordham and two other EC members, both supporters of Gilchrist’s own ‘Left Group’ or ‘Left Caucus’ (its unofficial and undeclared nature leaves some doubt as to what it should be called).

According to press briefings, “dozens” of local FBU officials face suspension from office. It seems clear that Gilchrist, whose authority and popularity plummeted as a result of his bureaucratic and disastrous misleadership of the 2002-03 pay strike, is attempting to remove potential rivals prior to the 2005 elections, when he intends to seek a renewed mandate from the membership. His supporters are also facing challenges in forthcoming ballots for individual positions and it seems Gilchrist has some of their key opponents in his sights. Up to now disgust with the leadership has not translated into coordinated opposition and it is clear that he now realises that, with the establishment of Grassroots FBU at the beginning of the year, that could be about to change.

However, Gilchrist is taking a big gamble in making his move in the week before the May 11-14 Bridlington conference. This will allow the left to organise and attempt to mobilise support amongst delegates against this disgraceful attack on members’ rights. The leadership could, for example, have to deal with an emergency motion exposing their hypocrisy in seeking to disband an internal union grouping while simultaneously organising as a fraction themselves.

It is not beyond the bureaucracy to attempt to rule emergency motions out of order - dozens of motions and amendments (around a third in all) already submitted to conference have been treated in this way, with left-led regions particularly targeted. This is a sign of weakness, not strength - the actions of a leadership under the greatest of pressure. Gilchrist, a supporter of the ‘reclaim Labour’ Campaign Group of MPs, is having to fend off strong moves to weaken the link with the Labour Party or even break it altogether.

His rearguard action consists of adopting himself the very position he so vehemently opposed at the last conference two years ago (the 2003 gathering was cancelled because of the ongoing industrial dispute). The EC issued a statement earlier this year which takes up the main thrust of the 2003 London motion, opening the way for support for non-Labour candidates in elections. However, whereas London wanted regional committees - which have their own political fund - to have the right to take such a decision, the EC, after having at first toyed with this, is now proposing that applications to support non-Labour candidates would have to be referred to itself for a final decision.

Up to now the leadership has opposed democratisation of the political fund by claiming that it would automatically lead to disaffiliation, but, in its desperation to defeat surviving motions proposing just that, the EC has had to retreat significantly. Even though it has ruled disaffiliation motions from the big guns of Merseyside and Manchester out of order, it has felt obliged to let three others - from Northern Ireland, Strathclyde and Berkshire - remain on the agenda. However, even if its own motion wins the day, in the current EC’s hands it is quite possible that democratisation would be in name only, as Gilchrist would not permit any regional autonomy and would almost certainly reject requests to back candidates to the left of Labour.

There are several amendments to the EC motion, including one which gives regional committees the right to take such decisions, and another which calls for the setting up of a union parliamentary group (not necessarily of Labour MPs only), based on support for several key issues of FBU policy. There is an alternative democratisation motion to be moved by Kent.

The EC motion signifies a retreat in another sense - it is recommending a reduction in the union’s affiliation payment to the Labour Party to £20,000 - a somewhat arbitrary figure, but the idea of paying even a penny to Labour provokes anger amongst large sections of the membership after the government’s full-scale assault on their working conditions. The union has received large numbers of requests from members wishing to withdraw from the political fund altogether. However, the EC has ruled out of order an amendment from London calling for an affirmative ballot of all political fund members to determine the size of the payment to Labour.

Hopefully this ruling can be overturned, as it surely points the way ahead - giving members some control over the use of their contributions and drawing them more directly into the debate in a clearly democratic manner. This would also seem to be the best way to prevent outright disaffiliation, which would, in the absence of any serious working class alternative, open the way to depoliticisation and cut the union off from the vital battles still to be had within Labour.

But there is a big danger that the leadership’s anti-democratic manoeuvres will backfire, with delegates opting for disaffiliation rather than placing their trust in ‘reclaim Labour’ loyalists like Gilchrist to allow any applications at all to support non-Labour candidates. There are noises coming from some quarters - those normally associated with democratisation - that if the EC’s motion is revealed at conference to be a device to actually prevent change, they would rather vote for breaking the link altogether. If disaffiliation is voted through, there may be some kind of emergency motion, attempting to map out a political strategy for the union. There is talk of trying to join forces with the RMT with the aim of sponsoring a new political formation.

If the EC’s or Kent’s motion is passed, however, there may be moves in some regions to use the new (at least theoretical) freedom to back non-Labour candidates. For example, Respect’s Linda Smith, the FBU regional treasurer, looks set to win the backing of London, while the Scottish Socialist Party could be the beneficiary north of the border.

The fallout from the pay settlement is still rumbling on and will also feature at Bridlington. The deal sold to the members included a staged rise of 7%, but only 3.5% has been delivered. As a supposed quid pro quo for the payment of the second phase, the EC implicitly recommended members should support changes to the firefighters’ national conditions in a consultative ballot. These changes involved accepting reduced pay for overtime, the ending of double time payments for two holidays, cuts in subsistence payments and so on. But on the very day the ‘yes’ vote was announced, the employers issued a statement declaring that their terms for fulfilling the second phase 3.5% had still not been met and they continue to insist it will not be paid.

Another conditional increase, this time for 4.2%, is due in July and a conference motion calls for the launch of a campaign for renewed strike action should this not be paid. How realistic this is after the 2002-03 debacle - particularly as the misleaders of that dispute are still in place - is another question.

A big problem within the union is the lack of accountability of the powerful regional officials. While branch and brigade officers are to a greater or lesser extent under pressure from the rank and file, that is not the case in many regional offices. This means that the anger on the ground is not reflected in the actions of regional officials, who are often seen as part of the bureaucratic machine, delivering votes on behalf of the leadership.

This is something that Grassroots FBU has started to challenge. While the organisation has the backing of some regional officers, it is mainly the branch and brigade representatives, the rank and file militants, who make up its support base, which at present stands at around 200 union members.

Unfortunately, attempts to unite rank and file groupings into one body have so far been unsuccessful. The Socialist Workers Party’s Red Watch was involved in talks with Grassroots FBU in January, but declined all proposals for a merger on the grounds that their supporters had not been consulted. There has as yet been no sign of any attempt to organise such ‘consultation’.

In reality, Red Watch consists of little beyond the handful of SWP members, although the ability to produce a publication, which also features articles from non-SWPers, has its advantages. In all likelihood it is the reluctance to relinquish control in favour of a common organisation with its own publication that causes SWP comrades to shy away. At present Grassroots, which has had three conferences since its founding, has only an email bulletin, although a printed journal is now under active consideration.

SWP comrades seem in general to take a softer line against the Gilchrist left leadership than Grassroots (‘The leadership’s not the issue; we’ve got to build rank and file organisation’). As a result, for the moment at least Red Watch supporters do not seem to have been earmarked as subjects for Gilchrist’s committee of enquiry.

In the current witch-hunting atmosphere it will be interesting to see how many delegates attend the Grassroots fringe meeting on May 12. Respect is organising its own fringe meeting on the evening of May 11.