Unite leaders pin their hopes on Miliband instead of fighting back

To engage in a battle with employers which then ends in defeat or a setback is no disgrace. To run up the white flag at the first whiff of grapeshot is shameful, however hard Unite leader Len McCluskey is trying to spin the Grangemouth debacle.

Stung by references to “capitulation” in the media, the Unite general secretary has used both the Guardian and the Financial Times this week to try and regain some credibility as a militant trade union leader. What happened, however, amounts to the most serious setback for trade unionism in recent times.

The facts are indisputable. Ineos demanded that the Grangemouth workforce accept substantially reduced conditions. A ballot showed a majority of the workforce against the terms and willing to fight. The employers then threatened to close the petrochemicals plant and review the future of the refinery. Both are at the heart of the Scottish economy.

Alarm bells rang at the Unite HQ in London. McCluskey flew up to Scotland and within hours had signed the surrender terms unconditionally. Pay is to be frozen for three years, pensions will be reduced, a no-strike pledge was given and the position of convenor was to be abolished. A few days later, the convenor Stevie Deans, Unite’s branch secretary, resigned before he was sacked over alleged political activities on company time.

In his Guardian article, McCluskey says that what happened at Grangemouth “shines a vivid light on the nature of power in our society today”. He adds: “The central message is clear – the rights of private ownership are unchallengeable, even in a vital economic sector like energy, and the ability of the capitalist to hold workforce and community to ransom is undiluted.”

But with all due respects to the leader of Britain’s biggest trade union, this could have been written at the beginning of the 19^th century. That’s been the nature of the industrial class struggle since the early confrontations. Then, as today, effective strike action was illegal. Then, as today, the employers had the state and the political class on their side.

Of course, some employers are more ruthless than others in pursuit of profit. And at a time of global recession, the bosses are on the offensive to drive down costs, which is what happened at Grangemouth. Jim Ratcliffe, chairman and majority owner of the Ineos chemicals group doesn’t disguise his objectives in this regard.

In the Financial Times today, McCluskey warns others employers that Unite would not be “cowed” by its defeat at Grangemouth and would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with any workforces who were mistreated. But is this anything more than sheer bluster?

The Grangemouth workforce was prepared to fight. If the union leaders had prepared one, they would have taken part. An occupation against closure would have rallied workers throughout Britain. No such plans were contemplated, unfortunately.

McCluskey bemoans the existence of draconian anti-union laws. These were introduced by the Thatcher governments and retained by the subsequent Blair-Brown governments. But why not defy them? It’s been done before – successfully. In the early 1970s, the engineers’ union – now part of Unite – simply ignored the anti-union laws brought in by the Heath government. Discredited, they were repealed by a Labour government soon after.

Four decades later, McCluskey is pinning his hopes on a Miliband government coming to the rescue. But Miliband is pursuing another path. Firstly, he is using the Falkirk candidate selection shambles – which Deans and Unite were heavily involved in – to review the party’s links with the trade unions.

There’s absolutely no way that Miliband and his One Nation Labour populist party are going to curb the power of the employers like Ineos. Miliband, like the Westminster and Edinburgh governments, were on the side of the employers at Grangemouth and against strike action. The global corporations hold the whip hand and Miliband’s ambitions are limited to making capitalist markets work better!

The six million union members and their families are bearing the brunt of the ConDems’ austerity policies. For that to change, they’ll need leaders who will put their money where their mouth is.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor 

Thatcher's 'children' alive and well in the mainstream parties

Margaret Thatcher was a class-war warrior who dragged British capitalism screaming into the 20^th century at the expense of millions of working people. She lives on in the shape of leaders of the main parties who, in a variety of ways, espouse her reactionary policies.

Individuals can and do make a big difference in history. Thatcher confirmed this in a brutal way. While aristocratic Tories dithered, a petit-bourgeois woman acted decisively at home and abroad.

She used the power of the capitalist state to create a Bonapartist form of rule. The impact of a virtual dictatorship was felt during the 1982 war with Argentina over the Malvinas/Falklands, to the hunger strikers who starved to death in Ireland and the miners’ union which for a year fought a civil war with the Thatcher regime.

Right-wing Tories had long prepared to destroy the union, which was provoked into strike action by a programme of pit closures. While the NUM responded, the leaders of most trade unions sat on their hands, along with the Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Anti-union laws – which remain in force to this day – frightened the TUC and the miners were driven back empty handed

It would be a mistake, however, to see Thatcher’s policies just as some kind of personal crusade, though that element was certainly there. They reflected changed international circumstances which perilously exposed an outdated British capitalist economy.

The post-war consensus actually ended at the beginning of the decade Thatcher first came to power, in 1971 when the Bretton Woods agreement collapsed. This system of tight capital controls, fixed currencies and tariff barriers sustained by a gold-backed dollar fell apart.

What followed was a decade of massive inflation, economic depression, soaring interest rates and class confrontation. In Britain, a tripling of oil prices coincided with a miners’ strike, a three-day week and the bringing down of the Heath Tory government in 1974.

A minority Labour government implemented a series of cuts and also fought the trade unions. It too was defeated. The consensus – which was essentially a period of class compromise accepted by all the parties - was shattered, never to return.

Enter Thatcher, stage right.

Influenced by the monetarist theories of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, she set about giving capitalism a new lease of life. Industries nationalised by Labour after World War II because they were bankrupt were sold off. Public spending was cut back and local councils lost their historic powers to raise revenue. Others, like the Greater London Council, were simply abolished.

And yet, it was a close run thing. The recession of 1981 was devastating and led to mass unemployment, reaching 3.5 million. Huge mid-week demonstrations saw her poll ratings plummet. Argentina’s military adventure played into Thatcher’s hands. So did Michael Foot, then leader of the Labour Party.

When the Commons met on a Saturday morning to discuss the response to the invasion of the Malvinas, Foot gave his blessing to sending a task force. Peace deals brokered by the Peruvians were literally torpedoed when Downing Street authorised the sinking of the Argentine battleship, General Belgrano as it was sailing away from the conflict. 

By the mid-1980s, the intense period of corporate-driven globalisation was well under way. Thatcher’s response was to internationalise the City of London in 1986 through what became known as the Big Bang. From that moment, the financial sector went global and the seeds of today’s present crisis were sown.

Party leaders past and present fell over themselves yesterday to pay tributes to Thatcher. Ed Miliband said he we should “greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength”. Here speaks one of Thatcher’s children, politically speaking.

Labour has no intention of returning industries to public ownership or of reconstructing a financial system that in large parts resembles a global casino. Miliband believes in monetarism too, citing the need to cut the public spending deficit. His party began the dismantling of the welfare state and the introduction of market structures into the National Health Service. He is for a “responsible capitalism” that rewards “wealth creation”.

Rejecting Thatcher’s poisonous so-called legacy will require a vision and real alternatives to an economic and political system in terminal decline.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Coalition prepares for showdown with unions

A massive provocation against the trade unions in the public sector is openly being prepared by the Coalition government as it prepares to force through spending cuts that will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and wreck vital services.

The question is: how will union leaders respond to the Coalition’s relentless assault on jobs, wages, pensions and redundancy terms that is building on a daily basis? 

In the last 24 hours alone, there are reports of:

• government departments being asked to prepare cuts in budgets amounting to 40% of current spending, which would terminate much of what they do
• new laws to toughen the already-draconian anti-union legislation introduced by the Thatcher government and sustained by New Labour
• legislation to impose reduced redundancy terms on civil servants after the courts ruled that New Labour’s attempt at the same was unlawful.

Staging an effective strike in Britain is well nigh impossible – if unions stay within the law. Solidarity action in support of other workers is illegal, as is mass picketing. Even sticking to the rules on balloting is no longer sufficient. Employers are challenging virtually every ballot, enjoying favourable judgements in most cases.

Now the Coalition is reportedly planning to toughen the ballot regulations even further. At present, a simple majority of those voting is required. The government is discussing plans to impose a higher threshold and is also being lobbied by business to allow striking workers to be replaced with agency employees.

All this follows hard on the heels of a two-year pay freeze, which even Cameron admitted amounted to a salary cut as inflation moves ahead; immediate cuts to local authority budgets with job losses; and plans for higher public sector pension contributions. In October, the Coalition will announce details of unprecedented spending cuts which will take effect from 1 April 2011.

Cameron and Clegg are calling the bluff of the trade union leaders, who – with a handful of honourable exceptions representing firefighters, rail workers and civil servants – cosied up to New Labour for 13 years to no avail. The biggest public sector union, Unison, sat back as Blair/Brown carved up the health service and public services. Loads of cash was sent New Labour’s way, however, even though muted pressure to drop the anti-union laws was treated with contempt.

Union membership has declined to 6.9 million from over 12 million and is barely present in the private sector. But unions represent almost 60% of public sector employees and so are in a position to organise against the cuts. So far the signs are not inspiring. At its annual conference last month, Unison adopted a 1,300-word motion on the “austerity agenda” that in the same sentence referred to “working with employers who share our aspirations “(!), and being ready to take industrial action “where necessary”.

This will simply not cut the mustard. The Coalition is preparing for war while the main trade union leaders are looking for a deal. There is no compromise on offer, however. The crisis of global capitalism deepens day by day and this is what is driving the Coalition’s attempt to transfer wealth to big business at the expense of working people and the millions who depend on public services.

In September, the Trades Union Congress will meet in Manchester from 13 September. Those who are up for the fight like the rail union RMT have a responsibility to take the fight into Congress. Nothing less than the preparation of a co-ordinated, indefinite General Strike against the Coalition, alongside anti-capitalist policies that answer the crisis, will measure up to the task in front. The time for cheap talk is over.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Time to defy anti-union laws

The High Court ruling against the planned British Airways cabin crew strike is not simply the outcome of a clearly partisan decision by Mr Justice McCombe. It is also the result of more than two decades of fearful inaction on the part of the trade union leaders.

Strike action did not become illegal only with yesterday’s ruling that a ballot of BA cabin crew was invalid because of failure to notify members about 13 spoiled ballot papers in an 81% vote in favour of action. For the abolition of the right to strike you have to go back to a series of anti-union laws passed by the 1979-1997 Tory government.

The law that was cited by the judge to block 20 days of planned strike action in defence of jobs and against victimisation was actually passed in 1992. And the union leaders have done nothing to challenge this or any other aspect of the anti-union legislation ever since. This is especially the case in relation to laws banning solidarity action as well as the requirement to hold a postal ballot.

As a result, strikes have often been ineffective and isolated with the union bureaucracy running scared of massive compensation claims by the employers. As it is, the Unite union could still face a £250,000 bill for strikes against BA in March as a result of yesterday’s judgement.

We mustn’t forget the legacy of the last 13 years of New Labour government either. Tony Blair once boasted that the laws restricting strike action were the toughest in Europe. So they were and that’s how they remained until Brown left Downing Street last week. And yet union leaders, especially Unite’s, continued to send the cheques through even though campaigns for the repeal of Tory anti-union laws fell on deaf ears.

There were, naturally, lots of fine words from the joint general secretaries of Unite, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson outside the High Court. They said: "This judgment is an absolute disgrace and will rank as a landmark attack on free trade unionism and the right to take industrial action. Its implication is that it is now all but impossible to take legally protected strike action against any employer who wishes to seek an injunction on even the most trivial grounds."

Leaving aside the concessions Unite has offered BA in terms of reducing its wages bill and accepting a two-tier workforce, this statement would mean something more if it were a call to action to ignore a law that clearly denies cabin crew their human rights. Instead, Unite is relying on the Court of Appeal to find in their favour.

Even if the appeal is won, the employers will be back time and time again to frustrate workers (this is the second time BA alone has won in the courts). The technicalities of the postal ballot were largely ignored for a long period. But the recession has brought the employers out of the woodwork. Just before Christmas, the RMT rail union was prevented from going ahead with strikes over jobs.

After the BA ruling, Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, said: "We warned after the [Easter] judgment that it bent the anti-trade union laws even further in favour of the employers and so it has proved. There is no doubt that this new Con-Dem government wants to effectively outlaw strikes in publicly used services before they swing the axe at our hospitals, schools and fire stations, and the courts are the battering ram to make that happen."

The trade unions were built in the face of laws that banned combinations, sent workers to prison, deported them to Australia and victimised activists. Protecting the funds of the unions such as they were was of secondary concern. Crow is right about what’s to come as the massive cuts programme bites. Workers cannot resist with one hand tied behind their backs by laws that prevent effective action. It’s time for union leaders to put up or shut up, to defy the anti-union laws or go meekly to the slaughter.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Don't let BA cabin crew fight alone

As New Labour ministers lined up with the right-wing press over the weekend to condemn the strike by British Airways cabin crew, you had to ask yourself what had the national leaders of the Unite trade union done to prepare for a confrontation that the company had clearly planned for some time. The answer is not very much.

While BA management implemented a systematic policy of bullying and harassment – suspending or disciplining 38 crew members, nearly half of them union reps – Unite joint leaders Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley were shocked by the turn of events. So much so that at a recent Unite national committee, they apparently turned on Len McCluskey, the assistant general secretary who was then in charge of the dispute.

Under marching orders from Gordon Brown to get the dispute settled, Woodley took over the talks and tried to broker a deal based on offering up more than £60 million in “savings” at the expense of the workforce. Finally, the penny dropped. Woodley announced that BA chief executive Willie Walsh was leading a war against Unite with the intention of undermining the union within the airlne.

Writing to striking cabin crew – who have defied vilification and slander to sustain their three-day strike against job and pay cuts – Woodley said: “I pledge that your union Unite is putting all its resources and strength into supporting your dispute and securing a decent agreement.”

If that were truly the case, then the cabin crew would not be left to fight alone. For it is clear that the strike-breaking operation mounted by BA can only be countered by solidarity action by other Unite members working for the airline. The future of the whole union is at stake and that is what the membership needs to be told.

That would require the union to defy the anti-union laws that ban solidarity action, legislation that was introduced by the Tories in the 1980s and retained by the present government. Cabin crew should demand that Unite’s leaders stop pussy-footing around and get serious if the union is to have a future.

It will be an uphill battle. Unite has given £11 million to keep New Labour afloat and is diverting huge resources in a bid to get Brown back into Downing Street. This is the same Brown whose foreign secretary David Miliband said yesterday: "We deplore the strike...the way to resolve these disputes is through negotiation. It's damaging for the company, it's damaging obviously for the crews and it's damaging for the country." From a strictly business point of view, you could say that Unite’s return on investment in New Labour is well below the bottom line.

BA’s problems are just one indication of the way the economic and financial system is taking its toll. The market for all sorts of goods and services, including flights, has plummeted in the recession. Capitalism has but one answer – cut wages, shed jobs and destroy capacity. And what does this do? It deepens the crisis and makes a full-blown recession a certainty. That’s how mad and bad this system is.

The assault on BA cabin crew is part of a general offensive by the employers – public as well as private – to destroy hard-won conditions like pensions and decent wages. Network Rail is doing the same to signal workers and the universities are planning large-scale sackings. And this is before the savage cuts in public spending that will follow the general election, whoever comes out on top.

Resistance to paying for the crisis is clearly building up. We urgently need a strategy that turns defensive action into an offensive that highlights the capitalist economic and political system itself as the problem. A good first step would be to “hang on to your vote” at the election and take part in building People’s Assemblies throughout the country.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Unite leaders scared of anti-union laws

British Airways cabin crew should not only be angry at the partisan decision of the courts to declare their planned strike illegal – they should also direct their rage at the way the leaders of the Unite union have conducted themselves.

Unite’s leaders spent months in negotiations with BA management only to stand by when contractual changes were suddenly introduced without agreement. BA then went ahead and reduced crew numbers on flights and imposed a pay freeze while new entrants begin on far worse conditions.

Any self-respecting union leadership would have called the 12,700 cabin crew out on strike there and then in response to BA’s provocation. But oh no, Unite’s leaders dillied and dallied out of sheer fear, not just at what BA’s response might be but at the consequences of defying the anti-trade union laws.

These laws, introduced by the Tories in the early 1990s, make it illegal to have a strike without a ballot. This is not aimed at enhancing democracy but at defusing workers’ anger while weeks are spent on an expensive ballot operation in place of the traditional show of hands at a mass meeting.

Even then, Unite’s officials couldn’t get it right. They opened the door to a BA challenge by balloting a small group of cabin crew who had taken voluntary redundancy. Of course, the 92% vote in favour of a strike on an 80% turnout easily outweighed those balloted in error. But with the media engaged in a ferocious witch-hunt, Mrs Justice Cox ruled that the ballot did not conform to the 1992 Trade Union Act.

As an official from Bassa, the branch of Unite that covers the cabin crew, is reported to have said: “"The decision questions your faith in the whole system. It makes you wonder if you have the right to strike any more.”

Precisely. The right to strike has long since disappeared in Britain and the union leadership has, by and large, gone along with this. After yesterday’s court ruling, the leaders of Unite declared it “a bad day for democracy”. Well, if they are so concerned about democracy, why didn’t just they simply defy the court and go ahead with the strike instead or planning another ballot? If they had done that, it would have been a blow for democracy against undemocratic laws.

At one time, union leaders were bold enough to defy the state and fight for their members. In 1972, the predecessors of Unite in the Transport and General Workers Union ignored anti-union laws brought in by the Heath Tory government. As a result, five dockers were jailed for contempt of court. This sparked moves towards a one-day General Strike and the ruling class quickly found a legal loophole to free the dockers within days. Within a few years, the unions compelled a Labour government to abolish the anti-union laws.

How things have changed! New Labour has retained virtually all the anti-union legislation passed by Thatcher. Former prime minister Tony Blair congratulated himself for declaring that Britain had the most draconian anti-union laws in Europe. And the union leaders have done nothing in 12 years of New Labour to change the position. Yet rank and file trade unionists like those who staged “unofficial” walkouts at the Lindsey oil refinery have demonstrated that the anti-union laws quickly disintegrate in the face of mass defiance.

The moral of this tale is that in order to defend jobs, wages and conditions in the midst of a capitalist slump, serious, dedicated, principled leaders, who are not frightened of the state, are absolutely essential. Hot air and bluster are well past their use-by date.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor