I have just been at a well attended meeting of UNISON activists in Birmingham, discussing the various attacks upon socialist activists and the pressing need for a better and stronger Union to defend our members.
I will blog a full report later, but am enthused and encouraged that activists are mobilising now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
How many attended, roughly?
I am concerned at this being a "splinter" movement....
Well over 100 activists from all UNISON's English Regions were in attendance on Saturday.
Given that this was something done entirely at our own expense without a penny of UNISON money I think that this shows a high level of commitment from a broad range of activists.
I wouldn't call this a "splinter" movement!
I think this shows the possibility of unifying activists across the Union to achieve significant improvements.
If leading lights could shed their sad obsession with icepick-politics we could have even wider unity...
Sounds great.
Too many in the "leadership" have coasted by on a cosy footing, and the bubble has burst. UNISON will die without new members; we need to start looking at our subs levels, as in the current econonic climate, all member - not just those on the lowest pay scales - start to question "well, UNISON, what do I get for my money?".
And the answer CANNOT be "a swanky new head office and a set of disciplinaries against anyone who questions the unions policies and agenda". I think - with 100 there - this should be the start of a good fighting front. Pity I'm too much of a wimp or coward to stand up myself, for fear of a reprisal myself. I conclude that I am wrong and I now have to join in and make a stand myself.
Cheers!!
Wouldn't a better and a stronger union be achieved by activists staying at home and building stronger density in their workplace and convincing non members of the worth of belonging to a union rather than a sterile debate amongst a minority of existing union activists? Possibly even convincing new members that this isn't about what we get for our money - but what do we contribute in addition to our subs and how do we all work together to make our union stronger.
It must be comforting to go off to a distant location and convince each other that a stronger union would be possible if somehow our leaders were more left, more socialist, more revolutionary etc; ie if the deficiencies were someone else's and not our's. Less comforting and much harder is the task to talk to those who have chosen not to be part of a union and to persuade them to act as a genuine collective rather than a factional interest group. We lost our fight on pay this year because we were weak locally and couldn't deliver - and we'll continue to lose such fights until we address effective workplace organisation
I think that you miss the point my anonymous friend.
It is silly to counterpose work at branch level to talking to other activists about wider issues. We need to do both.
I certainly always learn when I listen to the Secretary of UNISON's most succesful branch (in terms of density) who was a keynote speaker in Birmingham on Saturday. If you need to learn about building a union branch I strongly recommend you ask Paul Holmes or someone else from the Kirklees branch.
I regret that I never find it "comforting" to have to spend a Saturday at such a meeting. I was enthused rather than comforted - and that was because we were not sitting around blaming other people. On the contrary I was in the company of over a hundred serious UNISON activists who are passionately committed to building our union.
What I said to the meeting when I spoke was that I found it refreshing to be at a meeting where instead of simply placing demands on other people I was able to address those present and tell them that we ourselves have work to do.
If there are people (as you appear to believe) who think that we don't need to do the work locally but just to change the leadership then they are daft.
It is however equally foolish to imagine that leadership is irrelevant to the development of a trade union, which is the implication of telling everyone that we should stay home and build up our union density rather then worrying our little heads about the political direction of our Union.
If meeting and talking is "factional" activity then I have to plead guilty to behaving in a "factional" way. I think though that I was doing what a good trade union activist should.
All those socialists in our union who can put down the mental ice pick will be welcome to join those of us who are determined to see a better stronger UNISON.
Jon
I will take you at your word that Kirklees have the best union density of our branches.
But the vast majority of of hard left branches, particularly those in London (but not only London) have crap density. So I'm not sure your presumed assertion that having a left leaning branch means you will get more members.
And I'm sure there are less militant branches with good density too.
Union density in Kirklees is a matter of fairly public record.
But there is no need to presume that I am asserting that left led branches have a higher density than branches led by those who are not of the left.
I think that the range of variables which influence union density in a branch probably do include the nature of the leadership alongside factors like Region, Service group, presence or absence of other unions, tradition of political control (for local government branches) and many others.
I do not think that left led branches are invariably better than other branches (any more than I would imagine that anyone with a brain would think that support for UNISON's national leadership on the part of branch officials would be some sort of certificate of adequacy).
I do however think that it is lazy and wrong to assert that hard left led branches have lower union density. This is the sort of poor scholarship that would embarrass not only any good Marxist but any good scholar.
There are branches in Outer London and elsewhere in the South East with very low density. The factor which determines this is to do with the Region, its demography and political history, and not the leadership of the branch.
As a Marxist I strongly recommend the use of evidence in such debates.
Post a Comment