Workers' Liberty

This [NUT 2008 Easter] conference comes at a crucial time for trade unionists both in education and across the Public Sector. Both the NUT and UCU are balloting members over the government’s 3 year pay cut, which will hopefully lead to the first national strike over pay for a very long time.

RMT’s Executive is consulting about the constituencies from which delegates to the union’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) are chosen.

The debate within UCU, the University and College Union, on whether to launch a boycott of Israeli academia has been called off after lawyers consulted by the leadership declared a boycott “illegal”. After a unanimous vote by the Strategy and Finance Committee, including members of UCU Left, union branches have been told they cannot vote on a boycott,

Trade unions are democratic bodies - unlike, say, employers! All have rule books which, though they could be improved, allow members to have a vote in electing their representatives and deciding policy. But not only do we need to improve union democracy, we must defend it against abuse. Examples:

This is a longer version of a leaflet given out at the UCU left conference in London on June 24th 2006.

The deal which the University employers, the UCEA, has made with the new union, the University & College Union (UCU) has caused outrage amongst the membership of both component unions, NATFHE and the AUT.

A young worker writes...

"I am a member of Amicus. When I joined AMICUS two months ago there was one Union rep in my workplace because another rep had just retired. Both of these reps were honest unionists cowed by their fellow workers' apathy rather then being the bosses' lackeys.

By an Amicus member

Some 30 Amicus members lobbied the March meeting of the Amicus National Executive Council (NEC) in protest at the previous week’s sacking of three Amicus employees: Des Heemskerk, Jimmy Warne and Cathie Willis. The three had been suspended from their jobs in Amicus in mid-September of last year.

Draft by Stan Crooke, old AWL text from 1980, and comments by Mick Duncan, Mark Neville, Peter Allen, and Martin Thomas.

Maybe for the first time ever, a trade union has tried to block its members’ access to a website, in a move similar to the Chinese government’s restrictions on Internet access.

On 7 April Kevin Curran resigned as General Secretary of the GMB union, to be replaced as acting General Secretary by the man whom he defeated in the election for the job two years, Paul Kenny.

The proposed “super-union” formed from a merger between AMICUS, TGWU and possibly the GMB, is an issue that should be taken seriously by all socialists.

By Jim Denham

The proposed creation of a giant new union, made up of the TGWU, Amicus and (probably) the GMB has caused much excitement and some misgivings within the trade union movement.

Matt Wrack, a militant activist from the London region, has won a resounding victory to become the Fire Brigades Union's new Assistant General Secretary.

Off The Rails has a vision of railway trade unionism which we believe would be more effective that what we have now. We have a document which sets this out in detail - a kind of OTR manifesto.

You can read the full version here. If you agree with us, join us in working to make it a reality.

RMT's 2004 pay claim for London Underground was for an above-inflation pay rise, a 35-hour week for all staff, and a minimum salary for station assistants of £22,000. The cost of living in London is soaring, and our demand for shorter working hours has been outstanding for years. Management reckoned they "couldn't afford" the claim, but they could afford to discuss it in a posh hotel. And while there is “no money" for us, there is enough money to give Bob Kiley up to £½million per year and a £2m house!

The leadership of the Fire Brigades Union has finally conceded that Paul Woolstenholmes, the FBU National Officer suspended for over three months in a witch-hunt directed against those who were critical of the leadership during the pay dispute, has no case to answer.

By Nick Holden

Fire Brigades Union (FBU) leaders are claiming a victory in the final stages of their two year long pay dispute. They say management are finally paying previously-agreed pay increases from the 2003 pay deal.

The Tubeworker bulletin of 25/08/04 says that on the 2004 pay and hours campaign, Tube workers have been "sold short again". "Needed: democratic control of strikes".

As we go to press, Tube workers still have to rely on rumour to guess what is happening in their dispute on pay, hours and jobs, which was due to be settled over four months ago, on 1 April this year.

By Nick Holden

As the dust settles from the FBU's decision last month to disaffiliate from the Labour Party, union activists continue to prepare for a possible strike over pay, with at least one hand tied behind their backs by their own union leadership.

We need unions that serve the members

Sanjay Sirikanth, GMB member

With the recent takeover of the print union GPMU and the forthcoming acquisition of banking union UNIFI, AMICUS is fast becoming the union of choice for trade union bureaucrats seeking to secure their pension funds by pushing merger through their union Executives.

What kind of union do we need? The story of the fight against PPP shows up the strengths and weaknesses in our current union set-up. Union officials will often have you believe that things can only be done the way they are done, because ... well, because they have always been done that way.

We do not agree. We have made several serious criticisms of the unions in this pamphlet, so it is only fair that we set out in more positive terms what our ideal union might look like. Let's call it the Fantasy Union of Railworkers (FUR).

By Nick Holden

After suspending conference on 11 May the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) exec went into extensive negotiations with the employers over the conditions they wanted to implement in stage two of the 2002 pay award.

According to reports from a number of AMICUS Executive members, a deal is being struck between Derek Simpson and Kevin Curran for Amicus to take over the crisis ridden GMB next year.

Simpson has only a few years before he retires and the deal seems to be that Curran would assume the role of General Secretary after he goes. The arrangement has the full support of the TUC who seem to be spending much of the £10 million Blair gave them to "modernise" the unions on campaigning for yes votes in unions about to be taken over by AMICUS - Unifi, GPMU, and the merged KFAT/ISTC for example.

Resist the sell-out, reject the deal

Firefighters fighting further attacks on their terms and conditions found this week that the FBU leadership was intent on negotiating a deal which would open the door to changes in the four-watch shift system, and even allow fire service management the option of closing some fire stations overnight, even while it encouraged firefighters to risk suspension in pursuit of a union policy it no longer believed in.

By a RMT delegate

The RMT Special General Meeting held in Glasgow on the 6 February upheld the decision of its 2003 AGM to affiliate to organisations outside the Labour Party. The union has now been expelled from the Party. The outcome should be no surprise to the wider labour movement. The RMT has a proud tradition of standing by its principles and facing up to bullies.

Three former TGWU shop stewards have called off a hunger strike after claiming victory in their dispute with their trade union.

Gordon McNeill, Madan Gupta and Chris Bowyer were dismissed as shop stewards by the TGWU and sacked from their jobs as security staff at Belfast International Airport in May 2002 - along with 21 other people - after a strike. They were demanding a TGWU inquiry, made up of rank and file members of the union, to uncover the truth about the role played by their union official, Joe McCusker, and other officials.

I attended, as a visitor, the RMT SGM on Feb 6th in Glasgow. As you will all be aware the Union rejected the bullying tactics of the LP and upheld the decision of last years AGM to allow the political fund to be used to support other organisations other than the LP.

The London region of the Fire Brigades Union says in its "News Report" of 29 January 2004 that all its motions to the union's 2004 conference have been ruled out of order. The London region FBU is known as a strong base of left-wing criticism of the FBU leadership.