Don't belittle the Occupation

As Occupy London waits on the Court of Appeal’s decision on whether the City corporation can proceed with its eviction of the camp outside St Paul’s, the obituaries are already being written.

In the Guardian, which for a time assumed the role of newspaper of the Occupation, columnist John Harris bemoans the camp for failing to come up with an “exit strategy”, for over emphasising consensus decision-making and, as a result, failing to offer clear alternatives.

The occupation “had such profound problems articulating what it wants” and now, according to Harris, “the story is now seemingly one of decline, exhaustion and imminent defeat”. He is disappointed that the Occupation has no plans to out with a bang.

Readers are informed: “We all know the drill: clear demands have been spurned, any idea of leadership remains anathema, communing with mainstream politics is largely off the menu, and the running of everything is almost painfully collective.”

This painfully liberal whine begs a number of questions: What would “victory” look like in the eyes of Harris and the Guardian? The overthrow of the system? Hardly a cause that the Guardian that backed the Lib Dems in 2010 and New Labour for a decade, argues for.

As to the Occupation’s failure to “articulate demands”, it is not alone. Even the Financial Times has spent weeks and hundreds of column inches debating the crisis of capitalism in the search for “solutions”.

In Britain, the ruling political class has failed to come up with a single “demand” or proposal that does anything other than lay the burden of the economic and financial crisis on the backs of ordinary people. Such is the state of present-day democracy.

The occupation movement that began last October and spread to 1,000 locations at its peak, was a response to this social and political impasse, which was remarkably similar in content if not in form wherever the tents were pitched.

In truth, there are no simple “demands” that can form a coherent response to an historic crisis that embraces democracy, economics, finance, ecology, international relations and other features of globalised capitalism. No wonder Occupy London has had problems “articulating what it wants”.

Some at St Paul’s have favoured revolutionary alternatives while others, like those in the economics working group, have concentrated on plans for reform and re-regulation. Yet others have been content to see the practice of the occupation itself as a statement and wanted to go no further.

Occupy, to its merit, has provided an open space for debate and dialogue on these issues, even if this diversity has often been lost in the search for consensus and an over-emphasis on process. And if Occupy London attracted people with mental health and addiction problems, that is evidence of a crumbling welfare state more than anything else.

Harris tell us that the state organises in a “top down” or vertical fashion, citing the events in Athens, and implying that Occupy’s disavowal of formal leadership/organisation puts it at a disadvantage. But surely the challenge is not to replicate or mimic in actions, an alienating, hierarchical state that functions to maintain the status quo?

Following that path must lead inevitably to incorporation into the very same system of capitalist state rule. That has been the experience of the Labour Party and, to a great extent, the trade unions whose bureaucracy would make Byzantium jealous. In any case, the power Harris refers to is not subject to reform and is itself dominated and weakened by the interplay of market forces.

There is a unassailable case for a revolutionary transformation in society, one that breaks the state’s intimate relationship with capitalism and creates the conditions for new forms of democratic, horizontal rule in every sphere. Whatever happens next, Occupy London will come to be seen as part of this process.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

The stakes couldn't be higher

The stakes are being raised in the confrontation between BA management and cabin crew members of Unite who are fighting to protect jobs and conditions. Coming a quarter of a century after the end of the biggest confrontation between unions and the state when the miners fought pit closures in a struggle lasting a year, the company’s reaction to the strike means it is more than just another industrial dispute.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh has overt and covert backing from the state in the form of New Labour and all the major political parties as well as every single major media outlet that endlessly highlight the predicament of stranded passengers. Newspapers like the Daily Star and the Evening Standard spend large sums to dish up the dirt on union leaders like Derek Simpson and Bob Crow.

The cabin crew strike is, therefore, a crucial test case. From the employer’s and government’s point of view, any resurgent trade unionism must be nipped in the bud. That is why there is similar hostility to the plan by members of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union to stage the first national strike for 16 years to block the loss of 1,500 jobs.

A few days ago, the BBC hosted a discussion on its “Moral Maze” programme in which it was said that the right to strike should not exist. This was supported by former Tory MP Michael Portillo. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stated a similar view pontificating that “we cannot tolerate large-scale industrial disputes in this country, particularly at this time as the economy comes out of recession.”

While BA claims that the strike is costing the company £7 million per day, financial analysts in the City have estimated a daily loss of £15 to £20 million. Calling on BA to negotiate a “sensible” agreement, Unite estimates that seven days of strike will cost the company over £100m. When a company is prepared to sustain losses on this scale, Unite is right to say that BA “has embarked on an ambitious and expensive attempt to destroy trade unionism among its cabin crew”. But Unite leaders are failing to draw the key lessons from history and are pussy-footing around. We have been here before.

At “Digging the Seam”, a three-day conference held the University of Leeds last week, participants reflected on the consequences and legacy of the 1984-1985 miners’ strike. The outcome of that year-long confrontation was that members of one of Britain’s most powerful unions, the National Union of Mineworkers were compelled to return to work. Thousands of its members ended up in jail and thousands more sustained injuries due to police violence. Within a decade the NUM was reduced to a shadow of its former self by the destruction of the coal industry. Pit village communities continue to suffer devastation.

Just as then, the struggle being conducted by BA cabin crew and rail workers is more than just an industrial dispute. It is over rights to have a job and provide a service to their fellow human beings under terms which are not dictated by a management motivated solely by shareholder returns.

The history of a single union taking on a ruthless employer under conditions of economic and political crisis is highly relevant in today’s situation. Even more now than then, no single group of trade unionists in today’s globalised world and with a far smaller trade union movement, can take on and defeat a state-backed company.

These confrontations come as Alistair Darling admits that New Labour is preparing public spending cuts which will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s. Treasury cuts will add up to a staggering 25% of departmental budgets and will last until 2017, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It warns that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain”. The employers and the state have launched a war on several fronts. And Unite is funding New Labour’s attempt at re-election!

An increasing danger is that with the present bunch of union leaders patently incapable of learning from history and organising a co-ordinated resistance that defies laws banning solidarity strikes, groups of workers will be picked off one by one. Firm, decisive, bold leadership is key to the outcome of these struggles. At this point in time, its absence in the trade union and working class movement is there for all to see.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

New Labour lines up with BA

There’s nothing like a looming national strike to bring out the true class credentials of the political parties, together with the baying hound-dogs of the media. The democratically-agreed industrial action by 12,000 BA’s cabin crew workers in defence of their jobs, pay and conditions is certainly having this effect.

Leaders of all the major parties are only too anxious to condemn BA workers. Leading the pack are New Labour’s Lord Mandelson and transport secretary Lord Adonis (NB: There are no elections to the Lords). Adonis said yesterday: “I absolutely deplore the strike… it’s totally unjustified.” Today Gordon Brown declared: “It's not in the company's interest, it's not in the workers' interest and it's certainly not in the national interest."

Never mind the fact that cabin crew staff have now voted twice for strike action with overwhelming majorities. In the latest ballot nearly 79% of the membership voted 80.7% for action. New Labour, you will recall, was elected with the support of 25% of all registered voters at the last election. As for turnout, the BA ballot is far higher than anything you can expect in the upcoming general election.

And the notion peddled by the Tories that New Labour is “soft on the unions” is complete and utter hokum – and they know it. It is a fact that Britain’s biggest trade union, Unite, has paid a total of £11 million into the Blair and Brown’s coffers since 2007. It is the biggest single donor to New Labour. Without this support, New Labour would be unable to survive. The £11 million has brought Unite nothing in return.

Rather than making New Labour more pliable towards the interests of trade union members, the opposite is true. The rights of trade unions are perhaps even more restrictive than they were under the Tories. Secondary strikes and effective picketing remain illegal because this government retained all the anti-union laws introduced by Thatcher. Union leaders, with a few honourable exceptions, have fallen over backwards to comply with New Labour and its capitalist policies such as bailing out the banks.

Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, who is paid £735,000 a year, is determined to sack up to 2,000 staff and undermine the union Unite. The company has been running courses for strike breakers ever since the union’s first ballot showed a huge majority in favour of strike action. Walsh plans to use a 1,000-strong force of strike breakers to keep a skeleton service running and to defeat the strike.

Instead of getting ready to mobilise its membership at Heathrow and other airports against this threat, Unite leaders Len McCluskey and Tony Woodley have expressed shock at Adonis’ outright support for BA management. But this is a false naiveté. The real danger for BA cabin crew is that Unite leaders and the Trades Union Congress will quickly buckle under pressure and impose some rotten deal on their members. In any case, McCluskey and company certainly have no intention of defying the anti-union laws, which would be necessary to defeat BA’s strike-breaking actions with solidarity strikes.

British Airways, like the economy as a whole, in a major crisis. Walsh knows what is at stake. He needs to enfeeble the trade unions to save the airline for shareholder returns. Pretending that New Labour will broker a favourable compromise deal because it faces an election is living in a dangerous cloud cuckoo land. Precisely because of the election, Brown, Adonis and Mandelson will take the hard line. The future of a private corporation like BA is more important to them than the jobs and pay of the workforce.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

Time to cook Electrolux

The closure announced today of the Electrolux cooker factory in County Durham with the loss of 500 jobs is an opportunity for the trade unions to reject the profit and loss approach of the global corporations and mount a worldwide campaign against the decision. The early signs are not hopeful.

Electrolux’s decision is the worst kind of Christmas news for the workforce in an area of permanently high unemployment. Just as bad is the initial reaction of the workers’ union, Unite. Speaking after the announcement, Jeff Morland, North East divisional officer for the union, said: "I'm standing in the canteen with a lot of our members and obviously there is a lot of disappointment, fear and some anger. It could not have happened at a worse time and I think there will be the ghost of a few Christmases past rattling around here over the weekend. There is a lot to take in for families and this is the worst possible Christmas present."

These less-than-inspiring words were a reaction to the news that the plant in Spennymoor will close next year, with some production moving to Poland, where labour is cheaper. Morland’s pessimistic words are typical of a union leadership whose own jobs are safe following the merger of the engineers and transport workers to create Unite. The merger was driven by statements that it would create a stronger base to oppose closures like the one Electrolux has announced. Well, here’s their chance.

Electrolux had sales of almost £8 billion last year and a workforce of 57,000. The company has 22 factories in Europe and is the world's second largest appliance manufacturer. In other words, there is a powerful network of factories and workers that Unite could turn to. The union could mount a campaign against the closure throughout Europe to begin with.

Electrolux says it is moving production to “improve competitiveness”. This is the heart of the matter and the union has to reject this profit-driven approach if it is serious about fighting the corporations. Instead of calling on the New Labour government “to do more to protect British manufacturing” – as Morland did today – Unite should make the case of running production on a not-for-profit, co-operative basis. Giving money to the corporations simply doesn’t work, in any case. In 2005, regional development agency One NorthEast agreed to plough £1.6m into the plant, in an effort to retain manufacturing jobs in County Durham.

In the coming months, corporations in every country will come under pressure to cut workforces as the economic recession bites. If Unite takes up the challenge to resist the Electrolux closure, it would inspire workers in every Electrolux plant whose owns are on the line. The first step would be to prevent the closure in Spennymoor with an occupation of the plant, supported by the local community, and to launch an appeal to Polish workers to reject the switch in production. That’s the kind of Christmas message the unions should be sending to Electrolux.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Opposing the new EU treaty

The gathering storm over the new European Union treaty, focused on the growing demands for a referendum, raises deep issues about the nation-state and its place in the globalised market economy. At the heart of the proposed treaty is the further development of the EU as a regional bloc better able to compete in increasingly tough capitalist market conditions. This in any case is what the EU has been doing for some time, compelling member countries, for example, to open up industries and services to competition and ruling out hidden state subsidies. The British government, under both Tories and New Labour, has gone faster than the rest of EU in imposing what some call the neo-liberal agenda of free markets and a flexible labour force. Central to this is the continuing opt-out from the clauses which set out a minimum framework of social rights for employees. In fact, one of Blair’s last acts as prime minister was to ensure that this was carried over into the proposed new treaty and his successor is in full agreement with this approach.

So one strand of opposition to the new treaty comes from the trade unions, led by Bob Crow of the RMT rail workers and Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB. Crow says: “Whatever you call the EU Reform Treaty, it contains the same anti-democratic mix that was in the constitution supposedly killed off by French and Dutch votes in 2005. It is the back-door constitution which would still transform the EU into a state, and transfer power to an unelected EU government. For working people it would be a disaster, further institutionalising the mis-named economic ‘liberalisation’, forcing more privatisation of public services and abolishing vetoes over transport and a host of other areas.” Kenny says GMB “members are sick and tired of being treated as second class citizens in Europe. If these rights are good enough for French, German and Spanish workers then they should be good enough to apply to UK workers too”. Both unions have tabled resolutions against the treaty at next month’s TUC Congress.

Another strand of opposition comes from the Tory right-wing, led by the Daily Telegraph. This is a nationalist, anti-European trend that is based on days long gone when there was such a thing as “British capitalism” powerful enough to defend its own interests. The global point of view comes from the Financial Times, which yesterday declared: “Most generals avoid fighting the last war. The motley band calling for a referendum in Britain on the European Union’s constitutional treaty has failed to learn this.” The paper of global rather than national big business claimed that their ultimate goal was “either withdrawal or a do-nothing Union” and that neither “serves the national interest”.

The fact is that the British ruling elites have had to surrender large measure of political and economic sovereignty in the last 30 years, not just to the EU but to supra-national bodies like the World Trade Organisation. This is one of the main consequences of the corporate-driven globalisation process, which Gordon Brown in particular has embraced wholeheartedly and driven forward. The trade unions are right to oppose the new treaty and to join New Labour MPs demanding a referendum. But to distinguish themselves from Little Englanders, union leaders have to go further. Even a refomed British state – which itself is a highly unlikely prospect - would have little control over economic and financial processes that transcend borders and state bodies like central banks in their operation. In opposition to the corporate-dominated EU, unions have to adopt a perspective of a democratic alternative to the EU, based on shared common ownership of the region’s resources and new political structures that reflect the aspirations of the disenfranchised majority.

Paul Feldman, communications editor
A World to Win

Postal leaders duck the fight

Postal workers start another series of actions today which are scheduled to last on and off for two weeks. But there is a real danger that the leaders of the Communication Workers Union are frittering away the energy and determination of their members instead of mounting a serious challenge to Royal Mail’s job cuts and below-inflation pay rise. There are no signs that Billy Hayes, the general secretary and his deputy, Dave Ward, are willing to mobilise the union’s membership in a sustained way. One-off, one-day, regional, sectional strikes have the effect of minimising the impact on the mail service, which then serves to weaken the morale of the membership. The Royal Mail employers sense this and have decided to introduce the very “modernisation” plans the strike was aimed at stopping without reference or agreement with the CWU in a week’s time. This, says the union, will involve significant changes, including later delivery start times and permanent reductions in customer services. But the CWU leaders’ response was hardly impressive. “The imposition represents an unnecessary attack on postal workers’ jobs, pay and conditions,” a statement said. They may be “unnecessary” but the unilateral changes in working conditions are happening.

If the CWU leaders were really intent on opposing the massive job cuts that are coming up the line, they would have prepared the membership for all-out, indefinite action and sought the support of other trade unionists like London firefighters facing similar attacks. Instead, Ward pleaded yesterday with the Royal Mail to pull back, saying: “Despite Royal Mail’s stated position and with the prospect of imposed change, the union has made a fresh offer for a period of calm. We have made yet another offer to Allan Leighton and Adam Crozier [chairman and chief executive Royal Mail] to call off the next planned strikes. All Royal Mail have to do is take a step back and engage in meaningful negotiations.” The employers– with the support of government - have made their position clear: In a period of global competition, the Royal Mail has to cut costs and “modernise” in order secure a position in an open market. In other words, despite still being state owned, the Royal Mail is behaving like any other major corporation when it comes to costs and revenue.

The CWU leaders don’t want to face this reality because of their close, even cosy, connections with the wretched New Labour government, together with their inability to offer a perspective for winning the dispute. CWU members have to call their leaders to account before it is too late and before some half-baked deal is forced down their throats. The union has to answer the challenge of global capitalist competition with an alternative strategy, which stresses the importance of a not-for-profit public service and acknowledges that the business-friendly New Labour government is part of the problem not a solution. All-out, indefinite action could be linked to a campaign to secure wider public support as well as sympathetic action by trade unionists, including other sections of the CWU, whether this is unlawful or not under current anti-union laws. All links with New Labour would be cut as a first step to opening a discussion about alternatives to the political status quo under which all the major parties are committed to corporate-driven globalisation. If Hayes and Ward are not prepared to go down this road, they should step aside for others who are committed to the fight and to the future of the CWU as a viable organisation.

Paul Feldman, AWTW communications editor

London's firefighters oppose 12-hour day

London’s firefighters are gearing up to resist unilateral changes to their shift system by employers who are determined to impose the government’s cost-cutting “modernisation” agenda on the service. A staggering 98.5% of firefighters are opposed to the plans to compel them to work a system of 12-hour shifts and strike action is a distinct possibility if current negotiations break down. The conflict arises out of the unsatisfactory agreement that the then Fire Brigades Union (FBU) leaders reached to end the 2002-03 pay dispute. This was linked to proposals to alter working conditions in a way that would reduce the effectiveness of the service and undermine working conditions. A series of disputes throughout the country since then has tested the FBU’s resolve. But the major challenge is in London, where there are almost 5,800 firefighters.

London fire employers originally intended to replace the nine-hour day and 15-hour night shifts with the new 12-hour system in April 2006 but backed down in the face of a strong FBU reaction. Now the employers are on the warpath again and the FBU’s London region is preparing the membership for a struggle. A detailed submission in defence of the existing watch patterns of work has gone out to all members, as well as to brigade chiefs. FBU regional secretary Joe MacVeigh says: “If the brigade ignores the wishes of our members, we will have no alternative but to hold a ballot for industrial action, including strike action. We do this reluctantly, but we also do it in the knowledge that we simply cannot stand back and allow the brigade to emasculate our working conditions so flagrantly.” With travel-to-work times increasing because of affordable housing shortages, it is easy to see that a 12 -hour shift starting at 8am would result in a firefighter leaving their home at 6am hours and not returning until 10pm. A sizeable proportion of the workforce would receive less than seven hours rest between day duties, which would effect performance as fatigue sets in.

Undermining the existing watch system will have serious consequences for Londoners, who depend on crews to put their own lives on the line each day to rescue people from fires and crashes, to deal with floods and terror attacks and to educate the community about risk and dangers. Firefighters obviously depend on each other and the FBU states: “Teamwork is vital in emergency situations, where reliance on your colleagues is paramount to ensure that safety is not compromised. The current watch system is based on the principle of teamwork. Individual members within a watch will have unique personalities, experience and qualities that determine both their strengths and weaknesses. Collectively, these attributes are harnessed on a watch, whereby those strengths are capitalised upon and the weaknesses are improved upon, thus resulting in an effective team.” The abolition of the watch system would reduce firefighters to individuals, which is what the employers – who hate and fear the FBU’s collective strength – actually want.

If a dispute breaks out, it will once more bring the FBU into direct conflict with the New Labour government. As the submission points out: “The fire and rescue service is currently experiencing a period of dramatic change, brought about not only by changes in legislation but by over-zealous fire and rescue authorities which have as their central aim the cutting of costs and resources in the name of ‘modernisation’… All too often, modernisation is a euphemism for frontline cuts whilst opening up the service for private sector involvement.. without a proper examination of the long term consequences.”

Paul Feldman, AWTW communications editor

New Labour puts unions out to grass

What Tony Blair started, Gordon Brown will finish. And that includes winding up what remains of democratic procedures inside the New Labour party. The principal victims will be the trade unions, whose substantial voice at the annual conference will be reduced to a whisper. As for the conference, the final touches are being made to a plan to reduce the event to an annual rally, with no votes from the floor on anything significant. The changes are outlined in a document currently out for “consultation” inside the party. According to the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), which campaigns against New Labour inside the party, under the proposals:

• the right of each Constituency Labour Party (CLP) and affiliated organisation to submit a contemporary resolution for debate and voting at conference would be abolished
• the policy forum process would be subject to even greater centralised control by cabinet ministers and the inbuilt government powers of veto on policy proposals strengthened
• one member one vote ballots on policy would not allow members a say on policy alternatives, but would be restricted to the occasional “take it or leave it” votes on the entire party programme.

If implemented the proposals would mean that:

• party members and trade unionists would lose the right to bring forward any kind of policy proposals to be voted on by conference
• 99% of the remaining votes still permitted at conference would be on “take itor leave it” proposals from the leadership
• all the formal powers that conference once held to determine party policy would be transferred to the leadership which would only have to “consult” with the policy forum.

The LRC’s response says: “The proposals from the leadership are not just an attack on Labour Party democracy, they are a very serious attack on democracy itself. If implemented, the proposals would finish off annual conference as a serious political event. There would be only the most tenuous link between the political life of CLPs and affiliates and the policy making process of the party as a whole. Under these proposals Labour Party conference would become the least democratic annual gathering of any major political party in Britain. The proposals represent an attempt to destroy the Labour Party as a democratic political organisation based on the labour movement. Instead of a broad based party grounded on the participation of organisations with roots in the communities and workplaces, Labour would be reduced to the status of a US style political party. It would be nothing more than a narrow political machine populated by members of the professional political elite.”

Currently, affiliated trade unions can bring forward motions and are entitled to 50% of the vote on a given resolution. This itself is a substantial reduction on the pre-Blair years, when the unions could muster a majority. John McDonnell, the backbench MP who unsuccessfully sought to challenge for the leadership, has pointed out that that the plans were a "kick in the teeth" for trade unions who loyally nominated Brown. The termination of the influence of the trade unions in the party they founded over a century ago is an historic moment. It brings to a close the period of history when workers through their unions were able to exert some degree of influence on Labour governments. In practice, this ceased to be the case under Blair in the mid-1990s, when the union leaders voted for the abolition of Clause IV of the party constitution relating to social ownership. New Labour’s proposed changes will seal the exclusion of the unions from the political process and reinforce the disenfranchisement felt by millions of voters. The Blair-Brown governments are capitalist business regimes and as such have no interest in democracy or the aspirations of working people. If the union leaders can’t understand this, and commit themselves to participating in the creation of political alternatives, they understand nothing.

Paul Feldman, communications editor