NUPE turns sharp right
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
IN A SHARP swing to the right, the NUPE conference has effectively prepared the way to support a wage controls deal in the form of a National Economic Assessment involving the TUC and a Labour government.
NUPE's new 'left wing' general secretary Rodney Bickerstaffe steered through this fundamental shift in NUPE policy, from free collective bargaining to wage controls, with many of the skills of more experienced general secretaries.
He had nailed his colours to the mast on the first day of the conference. "The press will be waiting to know the NUPE view of the National Economic Assessment. Is it an incomes policy or is it not an incomes policy? I will tell you what NUPE sees it as. It is an attack on unemployment in this society and an attack on the low pay of our members".
The pay policy debate on Tuesday was a walkover for a well organised platform. The left was weak and disorganised, and most seemed oblivious to the issues involved, although the timing of the NUPE conference clearly made its decision crucial for the immediate adoption of a new social contract should a Labour government be elected on June 9.
Opposition
Composite resolution A, moved by Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) member Alan Walter from Camden, called for "total opposition to any form of wage restraint, incomes policy, or productivity scheme, whether introduced by the Tory, SDP, Liberal or Labour Parties". Unfortunately it went on to make a number of demands about the conduct of a future wages struggle, such as a common review date and a united struggle of the public sector. Although correct and important, these were completely subordinate to the main issue of wage restraint.
Composite A was counterposed to an executive statement on pay policy which took no position either way on wage restraint, and a resolution from the Stafford branch calling for a statutory incomes policy.
The major issues involved did not come out in the debate. The mover of Composite A managed to mention the National Economic Assessment not at all, and incomes policy only briefly. Both he and the SWP speakers who followed him spent the bulk of their speeches talking about tactics for the next pay round.
The Communist Party openly supported the executive statement (and this was reflected in the uncritical report in Tuesday's Morning Star). Only one delegate, Anna Lunts from Manchester NHS, a Socialist Organiser supporter, spoke on the National Economic Assessment and called for specific rejection of it along with all forms of wage controls.
Bickerstaffe could not have had an easier ride. In his summing up Alan Walter failed again to mention wage controls or the National Economic Assessment.
The platform successfully called for rejection of both composite A and the Stafford resolution, and acceptance of the executive statement.
This left the conference with no policy on wage controls except Bickerstaffe's unchallenged statement the previous day supporting the National Economic Assessment — which will be used in the event of a Labour government to support a social contract Mark II.
Although the SWP, which had the biggest group of delegates on the left, fell into the trap because they regard the struggle within the Labour Party as irrelevant and direct themselves ever more to minimal 'rank-and-file'-ism, all this was consistent with the general mood of the conference, which was not to take up the Labour Party or a future Labour government, but simply to have an anti-Tory jamboree.
Conference opened with long militant speeches ridiculing Thatcher and Thatcherism from assistant general secretary Tom Sawyer and from Rodney Bickerstaffe, without a word about why Thatcher has been able to impose her policies so effectively. Labour Party general secretary Jim Mortimer was brought in to make a militant speech. The overwhelming mood of the delegates, including the Labour Left, was to go along with the unity bandwagon and to cooperate with the platform in order to 'win the election'.
This could have been challenged in the wages policy debate if the implications of what was happening had been forcefully pointed out. The sharpest reflection of the mood for sinking differences was the success of the leadership in getting the withdrawal of the motion condemning the witch hunt in the Labour Party in favour of an anti-Tory statement by the executive.
Section
The key section of the motion was as follows: "We urge this year's delegation to the Labour Party conference to vote in National Executive Committee elections first for those candidates who support NUPE's main policies, including opposition to expulsions from the Labour Party under the register. We also ask that our member of the NEC opposes any expulsions, and supports the reinstatement of any member. Conference defends the traditional right of Party members to belong to pressure groups within the Party, and considers that such groups should no longer be subject to arbitrary powers of the Party's National Executive Committee".
The Labour left went along with the withdrawal of this motion, as did Militant. Speech after speech justified the withdrawal of the motion. In the words of one delegate, "We have to drop this resolution in order to win the election".
The daily bulletin of the NUPE Broad Left, heavily dominated by the Communist Party, commented that this action "confirms the tactical sense of the comrades in the Labour Party debate in remitting their resolution in order to avoid what would have been an acrimonious debate in the election run-up".
The unity mood even overtook the debate on last year's eight-month NHS dispute, and the failure of the NEC to carry out the all-out strike decision of last year's conference. The platform spent their time congratulating themselves on the way they had led the dispute, and despite some sharp criticism, got an overwhelming vote against a resolution which sought to censure them for not carrying out last year's conference decision.
Privatisation
Privatisation was inevitably a major item on the agenda, since if it is not stopped it will wipe out not only thousands of jobs but NUPE as a union as well.
Although the resolution called for joint trade union committees at local level to organise against privatisation and private contractors, and pledged "maximum support to members fighting contractors", many delegates pointed out that a similar resolution was passed last year and privatisation has not been seriously challenged by the union.
The platform had an embarrassing time when one motion in the debate revealed that NUPE has bought shares in Grand Metropolitan, one of the major contractors involved. The resolution said the following: "This conference is appalled that NUPE's funds are invested in private service companies such as Grand Metropolitan and calls for the immediate and complete withdrawal of union investment in any company or institution that is in any way connected with the attempted privatisation of local authority services".
Although the platform immediately pledged to sell the shares, they actually defended their decision to buy them on the basis that they had been able to make a successful intervention into the share holders' meeting.
In the course of the debate it was noted that 50,000 women have lost their jobs in the devastation of the school meals service, but school meals delegates had to organise and campaign in the conference to get the item discussed.
The conference passed overwhelmingly a motion calling for unilateral nuclear disarmament, but an amendment from Manchester NHS "to secure Britain's withdrawal from NATO membership, which inevitably draws Britain into the centre of any future conflict" was rejected on the advice of the platform.
Manchester delegate Anna Lunts said: "NATO is not just a military alliance. It is a political alliance developed in the cold war period. Whilst we are tied to NATO, Britain is tied to an alliance which is prepared to use nuclear weapons". The right wing opposed with the argument that the Labour Party will be fighting the election on the basis of continued membership of NATO. "We should not get unilateral nuclear disarmament and NATO mixed up". The EC opposed the amendment with the argument that it was "divisive at this time".
There was a useful debate on Ireland, around a successful motion, supported by the executive, to "continue to exert pressure for the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and in particular to highlight the deplorable use of the Act on NUPE members and other trade unionists in the course of their union duties".
The brevity of the conference — effectively two days — led to important issues like women's oppression and racism being left off the agenda. The conference ended as it began, with calls for unity around the election and for a Labour victory on June 9. Little, however, had been said as to what should be done on June 10 or after.