Recent strikes, the move to cut union funds to the Labour Party and the defeat of right-wing Labour union leaders indicate a new mood of hostility against the Labour establishment among low-paid workers. This would be welcome after years in which low-paid workers like the Liverpool dockers and Tameside careworkers and the workers at Hillingdon Hospital and SkyChefs were betrayed by unions preferring to accumulate huge funds to pay union leaders fat-cat salaries rather than fighting for their members.
Union leaders want to save Labour ties
Low-paid workers will be betrayed again unless they maintain the momentum for a complete break with Labour and all it represents. Labour poodles such as John Edmonds, General Secretary of the GMB, have been warning the government of the need to moderate its attitude to the unions. As Edmonds said, following the defeat of Sir Ken Jackson of Amicus (formerly MSF and AEEU): ‘This reflects Downing Street’s mismanagement of its relationship with the unions. Ministers have been warned for months that they were ignoring Labour supporters at their peril’. Union leaders like Edmonds want the Labour government to help them ‘manage’ the growing discontent among their members. Their backing of the council worker strikes has more to do with holding on to their members until Labour gives enough ground for a settlement rather than supporting the protests.
Middle class unions
The middle class and better-paid working class dominates the trade unions. These people are amongst those who provide the decisive electoral support for the Labour Party and in return expect Labour to protect their privileges. Whilst these people might grumble about threats to their privileges from cuts in manufacturing, proposed privatisation of the public sector and declining pension prospects, things will have to get a lot worse before they cut off the hand that feeds them. At present they have no genuine interest in the plight of low-paid workers, who provide them with cheap services, but they will be willing to use the anger and action of the low-paid as a lever to adjust the links between the Labour government and the unions in their favour.
Beware ‘left-wing’ leaders
Much has been made in the media about the ‘swing to the left’ among union leaders. But who are these ‘left-wingers’? All of them have accepted the same huge salaries taken by their predecessors, giving them a life-style way beyond the day to day concerns of their low-paid members. All of them talk about ‘reclaiming traditional Labour values’. Derek Simpson, the new leader of Amicus, has been a Labour Party member for ten years and has made it clear he wants a partnership with the Labour government. Micky Rix of ASLEF has joined the Labour Party since taking office. Bob Crow of RMT and Mark Serwotka of CPSU, regarded as amongst the most radical union leaders, are collaborators of the Socialist Alliance. On a recent national leaflet, the Socialist Alliance proudly reproduced a quote from the Daily Mail that ‘…the Socialist Alliance…has taken over from Old Labour as the authentic voice of the left’. This traditional Old Labour they all hanker for is the one that fought low-paid council workers in the 1979 strikes and attacked the miners in 1984-85.
If low-paid workers are to make progress they will need to rely on their own actions, reclaim their unions and be vigilant against union leaders making settlements with Labour behind their backs. Their natural allies are all the other low-paid and unemployed workers at present outside of and neglected by the middle class unions and the Labour Party.
Jim Craven
FRFI 168 August / September 2002
