Workplace 2020 - make Labour policy

Whilst the Labour leadership election is rightly commanding a lot of attention, the policy of the Party (and of a future Labour Government) will not be determined by the election of a leader.

Indeed one of the issues which Party members need to address is how to democratise the cumbersome and opaque policymaking process the Party adopted in the 1990s. That is as important as arrangements for democratic selection of Parliamentary (and all other) candidates.

Right now however, the Labour Party is asking for ideas about how to improve our workplaces and our working lives through its Workplace 2020 campaign. For those of us in trade unions with relatively complex and slow moving policymaking machinery, the opportunity to engage directly in this exercise is worth taking.

We know that we face a Government determined more than ever before to hack away at workers’ rights – if we can help to shape the policy of the Opposition, and campaign, under the continuing leadership of the current Party Leader, in support of those policies, we will maximise our chances of resisting the attacks which will come upon us before any General Election.

The policy relationship between the trade unions and the Party exists generally at a national level, and the decisions which will be taken at Conference (and at the TUC) are of course important – however, Workplace 2020 is an opportunity for us to engage at a local level, and one which we should take.

Labour needs criticism and debate

http://www.l-r-c.org.uk/

I joined the Labour Party at the age of fifteen, going to meetings of the Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS) at which I was (initially) the only person who wasn\'t a supporter of the Militant Tendency (as it then was). I learned to argue with people to my right and people who thought they were to my left.

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I learned that the Party was a contentious place, and that what it needed from its left-wing was consistent criticism as we tried to hold our leaders to account. The Party then had a socialist left-wing, engaged in political activity wishing to change the world, and a social democrat right-wing, whose focus was on winning and holding office in order to ameliorate the worst of the world around us.

We didn\'t then have a pro-market neoliberal faction, such as Progress is today, to use the Party as a career path for a caste of professional \'politicians\'. Nevertheless, we had vigorous debate and disagreement.

One of the greatest strengths of the Labour Left, in my opinion as a part of that strange political creature for more than a generation, has been our mistrust of leaders. We have a healthy desire to knock down those we have raised up, and an emphasis on accountability of the powerful which distinguishes us not just from the careerists in our own Party but from the \'democratic centralists\' (ostensibly) to our left, trapped in the various decaying remnants of twentieth century Leninism.

That is why I have not joined Momentum, an entity with no obvious internal democracy which is essentially indistinguishable from a fan club. The jury has to be out on the question of whether this top-down organisation is or will be part of the Labour Left. ‎It\'s not just that I justifiably mistrust some leading figures in Momentum - though I do. After all, I am arguing that the authentic politics of the Labour Left is founded, in part, precisely upon mistrust of leaders.

No. There are careerists and opportunists around Momentum as there are in all spheres of political life - and they are as vile there as anywhere - but a vibrant rank and file, informed and energised by critical thought and the proper veneration of disobedience and dissent, can hold such people in check. Our current problem is that we are failing to encourage such a rank and file and to honour dissent and disagreement.

‎The sometimes absurdly vitriolic recent online response to the slightly silly overstatement of \'pessimism of the intellect\' from Owen Jones is one expression of this problem.

Of course it is essential to choose sides right now in defence of Jeremy Corbyn\'s leadership of the Labour Party. Owen Smith is a completely fabricated construct of the corporate interests whose expression in the Party is generally through the thoroughly anti-working-class \'Progress\' faction. Loyalty to socialism and our class requires unequivocal support for Corbyn against Smith.

Such loyalty also requires constant criticism of Corbyn as a leader, as we would expect to criticise any leader. Whilst the nonsensical \'justification\' for the pathetic choreographed resignations of Shadow Ministers (that Corbyn\'s honestly critical support for the EU is somehow responsible for Brexit) is transparently absurd, that does not mean that the best Labour Leader of my lifetime should escape criticism for the stupid decision to \'rule out\' a second referendum on the UK\'s membership of the EU.

To say that there could never be such a second referendum is as daft as the silly \'promise\' of such a second referendum from Owen Smith (who knows, of course, that he shall never be asked to keep that promise as he will never even make it to Leader of the Opposition, let alone Downing Street). Since the reactionary decision to leave the European Union is contrary to the interests of the working class (and particularly threatening to migrant workers and all those who experience racism) Corbyn was wrong to rule out the possibility of reversing this. There is no principle of socialist political thought which states that a plebisicite must always be respected.

Thankfully, the policy of the Labour Party is determined by our Conference, not our Leader (not even Jeremy) and so socialists who believe that the exit of the UK from the EU should still be frustrated if possible can continue to support the socialist (incumbent) candidate for Leader.

Owen Smith (who did far less than Corbyn to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU and - in common with the \'coup\' plotters - failed to win those who elected him to support the policy of our Party and the TUC against Brexit) is a tedious irrelevance to working class people. No socialist or genuine trade union activist would waste a moment considering a vote for that corporate lobbyist.

However, whilst giving unequivocal support to Jeremy Corbyn in the current leadership election, the true Labour Left will continue to value criticism, debate and dissent and will prepare ‎to continue to argue hard for the interests of working class people and to hold to account all those whom we elect.

Even when we win.‎

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Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

A second strange coincidence

A couple of months ago I reported here that I was the subject of a UNISON disciplinary investigation (and observed the strange coincidence of timing which had led the Union to notify me that I was under investigation just after I had revealed that I had made a complaint to the Certification Officer concerning the UNISON General Secretary election).

UNISON has been very concerned that the correspondence concerning complaints to the Certification Officer should be kept confidential and so I have not been blogging a running commentary of developments (because there are rather more important issues with which to be concerned just now). I did not therefore blog my comments on UNISON’s response to my complaint, which I sent to the office of the Certification Officer on 26 July (to be forwarded to the Union).

In another astonishing coincidence I have been notified of a further disciplinary investigation in a letter dated 1 August, which informs me that there has been a complaint by “senior UNISON activists in Wales relating to postings on social media concerning elections in that region.” I have been instructed to keep the fact of this investigation confidential, so please don’t mention this to anyone as I may otherwise face further disciplinary action.

Coincidences are funny things.

Reversing a striking decline?

Whilst trade union membership may be holding just about steady, the activity of trade unions, as measured by the level of strike action, is at an all-time low. The 2015 working days lost total (170,000) is the second lowest annual total since records began in 1891 (the lowest was 157,000 in 2005). There were 81,000 workers involved in labour disputes during 2015, the lowest since records began in 1893. 

These official figures only measure official disputes – but the incidence of unofficial disputes has been low since the imposition of the anti-trade union laws in the 1980s and 1990s (retained by the subsequent “New” Labour Government). Whereas in the early 1950s (for example) apparently low levels of official strike action coexisted with considerable unofficial stoppages, this is certainly no longer the case.

Gregor Gall offers some sensible suggestions about the reason for this decline in strike action. A generation of timidity has produced a workforce often unwilling to stand up for ourselves, generally starting from a weaker point than a generation ago because of the decline in union density and now facing a trade union officialdom to whom obedience to the law is often the most important consideration.

Whatever the reason for the decline in strike action, it is associated with a decline in real wages – according to the TUC we in the UK have suffered the same decline as workers in Greece, worse than any other European economy. With strike action involving fewer workers than at any point in the last 120 years, and further restrictions due to come into force when the relevant provisions of the Trade Union Act are enacted, our movement does not appear to have any strategy to improve the lives of our members and potential members.

Local Government workers, part of the largest single collective bargaining unit in the UK economy, have suffered a drop of 20% in our standard of living since the financial crash, and – in spite (or because?) of the fact that we are organised by the three largest unions in the country, we have repeatedly failed to mobilise effective action to reverse this decline.

Whatever the outcome of the Labour leadership election (and it would be a catastrophe for working people if the corporate candidate, Owen Smith, were elected) – indeed, whatever the outcome of the next, or any other, General Election – trade unions will not be able to improve the living standards of workers until we find a way to apply our collective power at the point of production to exert pressure on employers. And that means being prepared to take strike action.

Whilst the trade union movement generally (and in particular) clearly needs in many instances new, more militant, leadership, the critical ingredient in any recovery must be the development of a layer of activists prepared to encourage and lead workers in taking action in pursuit of our interests. At a local level we have to be prepared to identify and pursue disputes which we have a chance of winning through collective action. We have a very long way to go.