04.11.2004

Incoherence

The union workshop was actually all talk shop and no workshop. There were two fundamental problems.

Firstly, the meeting was structured to achieve very limited aims (promoting Respect in the unions), and controlled from above by the chair. The two speakers set the agenda and also had the right of reply - thereby squeezing contributions from everyone else into what remained of the allotted hour. This was illusory participatory democracy in action. The second problem, inextricably linked to the first, was the lack of any concrete analysis of the real situation in the unions, the lack of programme and hence the lack of any strategic or organisational plan for union work.

The result of these two problems was that contributions were little more than a list of ad hoc generalisations, mostly incoherent and superficial. The lowest common denominator was simply ‘to go out and raise the Respect profile’. Yet there are serious difficulties in the union movement - structural, demographic and democratic - which were not addressed.

The chair posed a fair enough question. Referring to tensions within the unions relating to the Labour Party link and the search for an alternative amongst some of the more radicalised, such as the FBU rank and file and RMT, he asked how we should approach and involve them in Respect.

Speaker number one, Yunus Bakhsh (Unison NEC), set out, in typical SWP fashion, to enthuse and motivate the troops. Whilst noting that there are only two “breakaway unions”, he went into exaggeration mode - there was “tremendous pressure building up from below”; “for once we are swimming with the stream”; there are “incredibly favourable conditions”.

Speaker number two, Linda Smith (FBU), seemed to me to have a more serious approach and, compared to many others, a distinct working class mentality. She made the point that getting to the rank and file will not be easy for Respect. Linda has done OK in the FBU, but “they know me”. Also, though the RMT was kicked out of the Labour Party and the FBU “stomped out”, both union leaderships will be trying to “pull us back”. To kick off the discussion, comrade Smith suggested Respect get involved in the coming PCS strike.

Monica Axson (Unison and SWP) took the level back down a peg or two, referring to the need to raise Respect’s profile in local campaigns to save swimming pools and parks rather than union work. Elaine Heffernan (Unison, SWP) made two reasonable but very general points: we should have a non-sectarian approach to Labour Party activists and different strategies will be required in different unions. But she believes that “we are the people who lead in the unions”.

A comrade from Sheffield optimistically raised the idea of Respect workplace branches, while an RMT member warned that a lot of union activists see left groups as “just after political funds”. People are defensive in relation to the left, he argued. There was enormous potential, but it could all be squandered if people “get cynical about us”.

Fred Leplat (Unison NEC and International Socialist Group) argued that we have to work in the communities against privatisation and contracting out council services: “We have to be seen as political allies of the unions.” He added that we should fight to democratise the unions. However, he seemed to be referring only to democratising the political funds. He reminded us that only 10% of under-25s are union members and that in Unison the average age is 48. This is a very serious issue, recognised, but not addressed, by many on the left.

Various other speakers mixed exhortations to visit picket lines with the need to “persuade the grassroots”, “connect with the rank and file” and “build from the bottom up”. However, the confusion, lack of strategy and amateurishness of it all was encapsulated by the plaintive appeal of a London teacher: “I don’t know where to begin”. There were different unions operating at her school, as well as migrant workers who, in all likelihood, were not in any union.

Little of practical significance came out of this meeting. It was politically very low-level stuff - well meaning, but incoherent.