Organising the left in the unions
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
Trade Union Briefing is holding a day-school on April 20th. Here ALAN THORNETT starts the discussion on some of the issues posed in the trade union movement at the present time:
• Was this present period of damaging defeats inevitable?
• Who is primarily repsonsible for the successes the Tories have achieved?
• What shape are unions in after the Thatcher onslought?
• What is the political basis of today's "New Realism"?
• To what extent have the traditional industrial bases of trade union strength been destroyed?
• What is the shape of the employers' offensive?
• Is "post Fordism" a valid concept?
• Does the trade union movement still have the strength effectively to confront the Tories and their new anti-union laws if there was the will at the top to do so?
• What effect will 1992 and the single European market have on the trade unions in Britain?
• Can new realism be successfully challenged in the unions today?
Where did "New Realism" come from?
Today's "New Realism" was never simply a British phenomenon.
During the late 1970s Social Democratic parties across Europe responded to the general economic depression by shifting to the right and embarking on austerity programmes aimed at improving the productivity of labour and the competitiveness of their own national capitalist economies.
In Britain James Callaghan capitulated to the demands of the IMF (and the pact with the Liberals) and implemented austerity, wage restraint and rising unemployment.
The response of the trade union rank and file was the "winter of discontent" — a wave of militant struggles which rocked the Callaghan Government during the winter of 1978/9.
Disillusion with Labour deepened, and the Tories won the 1979 Election.
Failure of Labour at the polls triggered a deep crisis in the labour movement. The right wing blamed the defeat on militant strike action and deepened their class collaborationist trajectory.
This took the form of a conscious determination to refuse to support industrial confrontations with the new Tory Government — a decision which quickly became the main political basis of "New Realism".
Establishing "New Realism" as the dominant trend in the labour movement, however, was not so easy.
The upsurge of working class struggle at the end of the 1970s (1979 saw 29,474 strike days, higher than the early 1970s) had already produced a spectacular new radicalisation, which was boosted soon after the election by the Steel strike.
Its clearest political expression was the Scargillite leadership of the NUM and the Bennite movement in the Labour Party.
It culminated in Tony Benn's challenge for the deputy leadership which mushroomed into a national movement inside the Labour Party and the trade unions.
A series of betrayals
Benn's defeat, however, albeit by a hair's breadth, marked a turning point and the beginning of a revival of the right.
This shaped itself through campaigns against the left and the conscious betrayal of a series of major strikes in the early 1980s.
The level of these betrayals was shown most starkly during the train drivers dispute in 1982 with the decision of the General Council to expel ASLEF from the TUC unless they ordered a return to work immediately and accepted management terms on flexible rostering.
The betrayal of the NGA by the TUC during the Stockport Messenger dispute at Warrington in 1983 marked the de facto acceptance by the TUC of the anti-union laws.
During the dispute the General Council instructed the NGA to comply with the Tory anti-union legislation in defiance of the TUCs own policy established at a special Congress the previous year.
The direct result was massive fines on the NGA and a huge defeat for the print unions. Within a few years the Fleet Street unions were virtually smashed.
By this time the shape of the Tory project was clear.
They wanted nothing less than the demolition of the gains of working class struggle and past Labour Governments, the reduction of trade union strength, and to put the employers back into the driving seat.
Unemployment
To carry this out they closed down huge areas of industry, created mass unemployment and pushed through extensive repressive laws against the unions and the destruction of local government.
The Miners' Strike was planned by the Tories as their strategic showdown with the trade union movement.
The defeat of the Strike, through its isolation by the trade union leaders and Kinnock, was a disaster for the working class. It immeasurably strengthened both the Government and the employers.
It has led to the closure of more than half the pits and the sacking of half the miners — even more than Scargill forecast.
Leaders
The soft left union leaders and the Euro-Communists soon distanced themselves from the Scargill leadership and attacked the strike. The "New Realist" project moved from its relative isolation during the strike to centre stage.
These defeats strengthened sinister developments taking place to the right of "New Realism" — the EETPU's evolution to US type "business unionism".
Hammond organised with Murdoch against the print unions at Wapping. Instead of expelling them the TUC leadership made concessions and adapted to their politics.
The most important counterweight to "New Realists" remained the Scargill leadership of the NUM.
Scargill maintained a class struggle line after the strike, both in the NUM, the TUC and the Labour Party despite a bitter campaign against him within the NUM by the right-wing and the CP.
His decision to stand for re-election and his victory despite a media campaign against him was a blow against new-realism.
The Tory victory at the last election gave the Tories the green light to proceed with their full project.
Kinnock's response to Labour's defeat was to move further to the right and step up the witch-hunt of the left. He initiated a fundamental "review" of Labour Party policy.
Positions
He attacked traditional Labour positions on nationalisation, lesbian and gay rights, Clause 4, and the more recent gains on unilateralism and the move away from bi-partisanship on Ireland. He has dropped opposition to privatisation and Council house sales.
Was this response the only one possible? It depends how we assess the strength of the Tory Government. If the Tories are strong now what made them strong?
Was it a strength which came from the ruling class itself? Or was it a result of a weakness within the working class?
Determination
The only conclusion which fits the facts is that their "strength" has been based primarily on the determination of most of the trade union leaders to stop a fightback against them.
Repeated betrayals robbed the working class of vital victories. Even one clear victory in a major confrontation would have created a different dynamic and the possibility of a generalised fight-back.
Opposition to the Tories in the first half of the 1980s was such that the number of strike days was not significantly different from the second half of the 1970s.
The number of strikes, did fall, reflecting the difficult conditions strikers faced and the more protracted nature of the strikes when they happened.
The number of strikes (though again not days "lost") for 1985, the year of the defeat of the miners, was the lowest since 1938.
Conditions
Management has taken full advantage of these conditions with repeated speed-up and the widespread introduction across industry of management techniques imported from the USA and Japan: Quality Circles, Team leaders, and other forms of "employee involvement".
These are now being extended to the white collar and service sector with, for example, Quality Circles being brought into the Post Office.
"Flexibility" and "Multi-skilling" has been introduced alongside new "flexible" shift patterns.
Thousands of protective agreements have been abolished and the power of the managers and the supervisors reestablished on the shop floor. Under the drive for profit industrial accidents have escalated since 1980.
Payment systems have been rationalised with attacks launched on national pay bargaining, which, with a weaker rank and file movement at workplace level, is often now against the interests of the employers.
Abolished
Wages Councils have been abolished and with them the basic employment entitlements of millions of workers.
In the public sector the unions have been hit by privatisation and by contracting out which has decimated sections such as the ancillary workers in the hospitals.
The changing composition of the working class and post-Fordism
As Marxism Today claim, the Tory project has changed the composition of the working class.
Rationalisation automation and new technology have wiped out millions of jobs in the traditional industries such as coal, steel, shipbuilding, cars and docks.
Where new jobs have replaced these they have often been white collar or service sector jobs.
Part-time, low paid, unorganised jobs have increased through privatisation and restructuring, creating a vast new workforce the majority of whom are women workers.
How do we assess these changes? Do they represent a fatal weakening of the working class, seen by Marx as the grave digger of capitalism? Should we now look for some other force to challenge capital or conclude that it cannot be challenged?
Not at all. This is not what the Tory offensive has been about. Their aim has been to increase the exploitation of the working class, not attempt to abolish it.
Despite huge cutbacks, manufacturing industry workers are still many millions strong and still remain the key factor in trade union and political developments in this and other advanced capitalist countries.
Whilst the number of workers in traditional industries has declined, those left remain in potentially powerful positions. Smaller numbers of people control vast operations.
For example rationalisation in the docks has reduced the number of registered dockers to below 10,000 (there were 60,000 in the 1960s). Those remaining still handle 75% of all cargo moving in and out of the country.
Marxism Today also talks about "post Fordism".
This is the idea that new technology is changing the production process out of all recognition; workers are no longer alienated from the product of their labour and thrown into conflict with the ruling class through the objective conditions of their exploitation.
Instead they are drawn in as partners in the employers' plans. In fact there have always been developments in the production process, but they have not changed the relationship between workers and employers.
What is taking place is an intensification rather than a dissolution of the old relationships through speed-up and competition on a world scale.
Trade union membership remains high though it declined by 1 million during the early 80s.
In 1970 there were 11,178,000 trade unionists — 10,002,000 affiliated to the TUC. By 1985 there were 10,716,000 trade unionist with 9,586,000 affiliated to the TUC.
More damaging than the net loss of trade union members has been the break-up of shop floor organisation.
In most blue collar sectors fewer stewards have facility time, while viable shop stewards and combine committees are the exception rather than the rule.
Growth
There have been important developments and growth in both membership and organisation of the white collar sector. However, extensive damage has been done in the blue collar sector which was the bed-rock of the trade union movement.
Despite this damage it would be absurd to argue that the present 9,000,000 trade unionists affiliated to the TUC do not have the power to take on the Tory Government or the capitalist state itself.
The problem is one of organisation and the development of class consciousness: something which is influenced not just by the representatives of capital but the politics of the workers' movement and the quality of leadership it is able to develop.
It is equally absurd to argue that the movement is incapable of taking on the anti-union laws.
If unions were prepared to defy the law as a matter of policy, and be prepared to lose their funds as a part of the struggle, a generalised fight-back could be developed.
The present disastrous policy of complying with the law imposes a damaging straightjacket on the movement.
The current period
The upsurge of militancy early last year demonstrated the ability of the working class to struggle. The fightback in the NHS, most spectacularly amongst the nurses, was a part of it. The London local government day of action was another.
At Fords the workforce rejected a three year pay deal, tied to a package of new working practices, and voted for strike action. The powerful strike which followed closed down most of Ford European production.
This could have led to a much needed victory for the trade union movement, fuelling the growing militancy at that time and raising the possibility of developing a more generalised fightback.
Betrayed
Instead, the strike was betrayed by the officials just as it reached its strongest point.
There was a simultaneous radicalisation in some of the white collar unions, with the protracted struggle of the teachers and the radicalisation in NALGO over the attack on local government.
The strength of that militant action began to open up divisions in trade union leaderships. The TGWU elections were an example of this.
Although they were more a defeat for the right and a victory for Ron Todd than a victory for the left, they were an important step forward, clearly influenced by the militant struggles at that time.
The battle to hang on to unilateralism at Labour Party Conference last year was one consequence.
The wave of militancy had receded by the autumn through the problems of leadership which it faced — not just the betrayal from the top but the weakness of the rank and file movement.
It left the nurses continuing their grading struggle. But it did demonstrate the possibility of militant action and how quickly it can emerge.
Despite the serious defeats inflicted the working class in Britain has not suffered a definitive defeat, such as that of 1926 which rendered the movement almost powerless for more than a decade.
In fact the dynamic of the present period is towards higher levels of class struggle. The single European market in 1992 may lead to struggle across Europe as the restructuring of European capitalism gets underway.
In Britain the pressure of higher inflation and the tensions created by the implementation of the Tory project point in the same direction.
The postal strike in September again showed the ability of militant action to break through the dead hand of the leadership. The result was a a temporary disruption of the introduction of changes in working practices planned by management.
Organising in the unions
The weakness of the hard left in the blue collar unions is not new. In the Miners' Strike it proved unable to tackle the political problems which arose and to chart a way to victory past the political limitations of the NUM leadership.
But these weaknesses can be overcome. The struggle in the unions is for the leadership of the working class against existing reformist leaders.
As Trotsky pointed out, trade union leaders in Britain have a unique authority, rooted in their role in British imperialist expansion.
This authority has occasionally been challenged from below, by spontaneous struggles, but it has never been broken.
This makes a united front approach to the labour movement in Britain crucial to a socialist perspective.
A class struggle current must be built within both wings of the labour movement. Long term work is needed to build bases in sections of the working class through involvement in day-to-day struggles.
Socialists must be prepared to take positions in union structures, as shop stewards and representatives, and to work in Broad Left formations, setting them up and fighting for their democratisation.
These lefts should fight for a class struggle line and leadership.
The struggle for democracy in the unions is central to the struggle for a union leadership which will fight. It would open up unions to the voice of the membership.
The struggle to break the white male domination of the labour movement would similarly help democratise trade unions more generally.
Some unions such as the TGWU and the G&M motivated largely by loss of membership have taken initiatives to recruit women workers.
Success would involve addressing issues which affect women particularly, such as abortion rights, nursery facilities and the accessibility of meetings.
We have to defend the interests of lesbian and gay workers within the unions in terms of discrimination and abuse at work.
There have been attempts, most successfully carried through in NALGO, to set up black organisations. NALGO has the best record of any union for successfully fighting immigration cases.
The organisation of low paid and part time workers must be taken seriously. The current expansion of the building industry with a largely unorganised labour force must be tackled.
The tasks of Trade Union Briefing today
Despite current difficult conditions there is scope for constructive work in the trade unions. There are signs of a regeneration of trade union organisation, in which the left and Trade Union Briefing in particular must be involved in it.
Briefing should consider developing a charter for democracy in the unions which would deal with election procedures, the conduct of meetings and the accountabitity of those elected. The struggle for democracy is essential to the struggle for a fighting leadership.
Solidarity is a central issue too. Tory laws have made it illegal but it is central to each major strike in this period — the seafarers are an example.
The solidarity established during the miners strike through the support groups and WAPC needs to be preserved and developed. The Solidarity Network, which Briefing supports