06.10.2004

Defend rank and file unity

The left in the Fire Brigades Union fights back against witch-hunting attacks, reports Alan Fox

The crisis that has beset the Fire Brigades Union since the 2002-03 strike fiasco shows no signs of abating. It has manifested itself in disaffiliation from the Labour Party, a leadership split, backroom manoeuvring, an anti-left witch-hunt and now a rank and file fightback.

The FBU executive council has been dominated overwhelmingly by the so-called ‘left group’, with general secretary Andy Gilchrist at its head. But Gilchrist - recently back from extended sick leave - is now widely regarded as a “dead duck” after his dismal misleadership of the strike and defeat over disaffiliation.

In a desperate attempt to cling onto office, he has been targeting likely challengers to the unofficial ‘left group’, particularly those with links to the influential rank and file grouping, Grassroots FBU - described by the EC as a “union within a union”. This latter description is not without its irony, considering that most of the EC have themselves been operating as a left bureaucratic caucus.

Despite the increasing contempt with which he is viewed not only by the rank and file, but even within a section of his ‘left group’ comrades, Gilchrist still holds out hope of re-election in 2005. In order to test the water, he has decided to call the election for assistant general secretary (AGS), also due next year, early - it is thought that the call for nominations is imminent, even though the existing AGS, Mike Fordham, the sole rightwinger on the EC, is not due to retire until September 2005.

Already the battle lines are being drawn, with John McGhee, a high-profile pro-Gilchrist FBU spokesperson during the dispute, likely to be opposed by Matt Wrack, the newly elected London regional secretary. However, it is feared that Gilchrist may attempt to exclude comrade Wrack - a former member of the Socialist Party and author of the Socialist Alliance pamphlet Whose money is it anyway? - by suspending him from the union under the anti-Grassroots FBU witch-hunt. Members associated with, or thought to be associated with, Grassroots FBU are threatened with disciplinary action under the catch-all “bringing the union into disrepute” constitutional clause.

The left bureaucracy has already made one attempt to discipline comrade Wrack, along with three other London senior officials, for alleged connection with Grassroots - which is led, according to Fordham, by a “group of politicos” with a “hidden political agenda”. Fordham wrote to London EC member Mick Shaw instructing him to suspend the four after the June FBU conference. But Shaw, himself a follower of the ‘left group’, refused, stating that the instruction had no constitutional validity and, in any case, as far as he could see, the London four had no case to answer.

This rebellion was indicative of the effect the union’s crisis is having on the ‘left group’ - six or seven former supporters, including comrade Shaw, a Labour Party member, have now broken with the Gilchrist-Fordham-McGhee clique, citing abuse of democracy and misleadership. Clearly the discontent is making itself felt at the top. After all, to remain associated with a “dead duck” might cost EC members dear when it comes to their own re-election. Another reason for Shaw’s refusal to play ball was undoubtedly the backlash he would have suffered from London rank and file members.

It is, however, rumoured that the October 11 EC meeting will hear a report from Fordham on the disciplinary cases. If he thought he could get away with it, Gilchrist would suspend the London four, thus ruling McGhee’s main rival out of the AGS election. There is even talk of action being taken against Shaw for refusing to follow Fordham’s instructions.

But can Gilchrist get away with it? He has recently suffered another setback in the case of Paul Wolstenholme, an FBU national officer who was suspended in June for allegedly disclosing EC voting patterns to the Grassroots website. Revealing how representatives cast their vote on their members’ behalf is, in the eyes of the bureaucrats, a criminal betrayal of confidentiality. The members have no right to know how well - or, in the case of the current EC, how badly - they are being served by their representatives.

The ‘evidence’ against comrade Wolstenholme has proved to be worthless, however, since it was immediately demonstrated that the information had already been posted on the Grassroots website before he could have supplied it. Not that a minor detail like that was going to stop the witch-hunters. But one thing that did delay proceedings was the sudden, unexpected departure of the EC’s ‘chief prosecutor’ in the case, vice-president and national treasurer Dave Whatton.

Whatton was unceremoniously dumped as EC member for the West Midlands in August - defeated by Birmingham divisional rep John Vernon. West Midlands has traditionally been a ‘moderate’ region, but such is the anti-EC mood among the rank and file that a relatively unknown figure, campaigning on a platform of criticism of the leadership’s sell-out of the dispute and its trampling of democracy, was narrowly voted in. Whatton has had to give up the vice-presidency under union rules and return to his firefighting duties.

No wonder the Gilchrist leadership is worried. If Whatton can lose in a region like the West Midlands, what will happen if McGhee has to face such a nationally well known militant as the London regional secretary? However, it could be that deliverance will come for the ‘left group’ in the shape of a split vote. Unless an agreement can be reached, comrade Wrack could be opposed by another militant, Adrian Clarke, the Cambridgeshire brigade secretary.

Comrade Clarke, who stood as an Eastern region candidate for Respect in the June 10 European elections and is close to the Socialist Workers Party, is said to have a difference with comrade Wrack over the relative weight within the union of the women’s, black, and gay and lesbian sections, which each have one representative on the EC.

The obvious problem with this state of affairs is that it very difficult to hold these ‘section’ EC members to account. As well as the ban on disclosing the votes of EC members, ‘confidentiality’ also demands, apparently, that the membership figure for the gay and lesbian section, for instance, is kept secret. That in turn means that section elections, the views of section members and the nature of section democracy are all rather murky areas. Yet the vote of the gay and lesbian rep, whose members can number no more than 100 or so, has equal weight with a 6,000-strong region like London on the EC.

This a is not a minor matter, since usually there is nothing to stop section reps voting purely as individuals, with even less accountability than regional representatives. And their vote can be vital. For example, it was Nick Nicholas, the black section EC rep, who ensured the recent leadership recommendation on night-time ‘stand down’ was carried when, it seems, on this occasion he broke his section mandate and backed the ‘left group’, whose proposal went through by nine votes to seven.

Comrade Wrack, like very many rank and file members, is said to have strong reservations about this system. Many comrades believe that, while the idea of sectional representation is fine, current voting weights need to be challenged. But even this mild criticism is too much for others - including comrade Clarke, it seems - for whom such views leave those who hold them open to accusations of pandering to racism, male chauvinism or homophobia.

In this writer’s opinion, the concerns over these sections are totally justified. Of course, there should be provision for women, gay and black members (or any other group) to come together to discuss their common interests if they wish - something that should be facilitated by the union itself. And it goes without saying that the union must give the utmost priority to combating anti-gay, anti-women and anti-black discrimination. To do so is to further the unity of the entire membership.

But there is no reason why, say, gay members should have additional voting rights (for their sectional as well as their regional EC rep) over and above their heterosexual brothers and sisters. This measure, aimed at promoting equality, could end up exacerbating divisions. In any case, on most trade union issues members’ views are not determined by their sexuality, gender or ethnicity.

While this is an important question, it should not be used as an excuse to split the vote in the forthcoming election. It is essential that the genuine, as opposed to bureaucratic, left unites around a single rank and file candidate in order to strike a blow against the Gilchrist clique.

The members themselves must call a halt to the anti-democratic manoeuvring of the ‘left group’. To defeat both the witch-hunt and the bureaucrats driving it, they must rally behind the rank and file candidate most likely to win.