AWL pre-conference meeting, London 06/05/07
AWL PRE-CONFERENCE MEETING, LONDON 06/05/07
IRAQ
Paul: This document sums up what we have been saying in the paper, and what some of us said in the Discussion Bulletin 270 discussion. It includes a summary of what's happened since 2003. It makes the assessment: civil war. That's new since last year. It's running at about 1000 attacks and 1000 deaths every month now. Worse than last year.
The Iraqi government stands only because of the framework provided by the US. On paper it has 130,000 troops, but they are not reliable. And meanwhile the Sadrists have a force of some tens of thousands. SCIRI and Da'wa also have their own militias. In Basra there is an incipient civil war between two Shia Islamist factions.
The Sunni militias are less numerous, but strong in some areas.
The labour movement in Iraq is in a very weak position.
Conclusions? Same basic policy as in previous years: solidarity with the Iraqi workers' movement against both US/UK and sectarian militias, for self-determination through a democratic secular Iraq.
David's document? Flawed in two ways.
It starts from a slogan, troops out, and then works backwards. That's even worse starting from the slogan troops out now and then working backwards. Last year we had an amalgam between the troops-out-now people and the people who don't want troops-out-now but do want great anti-occupation emphasis some way or another.
So the conclusions are blurred, and not conclusions. And there is no assessment. Properly, clear conclusions should follow from assessments.
What does troops out mean in practice, now or in the immediate future? Certainly not self-determination. It would lead to the break-up of Iraq. So if you're for self-determination you cannot vote for David's position.
Unleashing full civil war would also mean the destruction of the Iraqi labour movement. And for us the survival of the Iraqi labour movement is the highest principle.
David: I agree with most of the assessment in the document. But then how do we derive slogans from assessment? The document lacks talk of how the working class can become a strong and independent political force.
The central fault of the anti-war movement has been lack of focus on the working class as the force for social change.
There is no easy sloganistic answer to these questions, but the document depicts the working class as a passive force.
The occupation forces will not protect the working class against the Islamists. In fact they are intertwined with some of the Islamists. It's strange to hear Sean saying that we could back the Islamists if it were a straightforward colonial situation.
I don't claim that the withdrawal of troops would mean self-determination. But there should be a struggle for self-determination. There can be no democracy without self-determination. And self-determination will not be won unless the Iraqi labour movement does something about it.
In the paper before last, Martin had an article with some suggestions for policies the Iraqi workers' movement could fight for. But it's not possible to win a better occupation. It's not possible to win the things Martin mentioned without taking the occupation head-on.
Paul says troops out means the destruction of the labour movement. But the task of the working class and its organisation is to build its forces to take on its opponents, to change the situation. Unless the working class can do that, there is no prospect of democracy and self-determination.
Clive: This whole discussion is framed by the fact that the Iraqi labour movement exists, but it is extremely weak. Its survival is an issue, but it is not immediately in a position to reshape the situation.
Look back at the South African unions in the early 1980s. Before then the left in South Africa had a policy of "boycotting" the state. But those unions sought legal recognition under the apartheid regime. The ANC denounced them. In the unions there were calls for a workers' charter; there were leaders who argued for the working class to take the lead in the struggle against apartheid.
The Iraqi labour movement exists, but it is a very long way from imposing its will on the situation. We can advocate ways where it should, but for the present its survival is what's at stake. Is this movement going to be destroyed in the next 12 months?
The situation is slowly getting worse. But that does not mean that we should demand it suddenly getting worse.
It is very difficult to argue our views, mind you.
Stuart: We have to think about who we're talking to, and where we are. If for example John McDonnell became prime minister, would we oppose him when he withdrew troops from Iraq?
Cathy: David poses troops out as a slogan to cohere the Iraqi workers' movement, but does not address how it "plays" as a slogan in e.g. Britain. In Britain it means "bring the boys home".
Anyway, how does the slogan "troops out" help the Iraqi workers' movement? Nobody disagrees with it there, as a general statement of aim. And how does it help the Iraqi workers' movement mobilise around the social issues?
Self-determination is posed as an issue by the troops' presence? Yes, but that does not mean that troops out means self-determination.
Also, self-determination is not the highest principle. We found that when we discussed Ireland. Workers' unity is a higher principle.
Martin: Why not side with the Islamists (without politically endorsing them) if it were a straightforward anti-colonial struggle? Then if the Islamists won there would at least be one clear gain: self-determination. But it's not like that in Iraq.
David's argument sounds a bit like the Healyites (SLL) on Ireland in 1969: Healyites said British troops had gone on the streets to divide the workers and the answer was for workers to unite to drive them out. We criticised IS (SWP) de facto support for the troops, but said their position at least had the advantage over the Healyites that it was linked to reality.
I put forward outlines of positive policy for Iraqi workers' movement in last-but-one paper. Fine. But "troops out" adds nothing to that, unless you're arguing that Iraqi workers' movement should put itself in the "ultra" "troops out now" "resistance" camp. And it is fantasy politics to pretend that us suggesting policy for an Iraqi workers' movement which is weak and on the defensive transforms the meaning of a "troops out" slogan into "troops driven out by a workers' movement on the offensive".
Sacha: But what would we do in Spain when they withdrew their troops? I don't agree with troops out now, but what do you do in that situation?
Laura: What do we say about the situation that the elements of the Iraqi labour movement close to us say "troops out now"?
David: Well, FWCUI says US troops out now and UN troops in. GFIW actually work with the occupation.
Laura: And what do we say if we can't communicate with the rest of the left?
Robin: I've not found it so difficult to communicate our position. People can see that just saying troops out now is reckless. But they can't see the Iraqi working class as a positive agency. Shouldn't we have more to say about what the British government should do?
Cath: What would we say in Italy? The Prodi government was talking about withdrawing troops. We would focus on solidarity with the Iraqi labour movement. We take no responsibility for Prodi withdrawing troops and its consequences, but no responsibility for the troops either. We demand aid for the labour movement.
John B: I agree with Cath. If Britain scuttled, we would point out they were doing it without regard to the Iraqi labour movement, and demand they arm the Iraqi labour movement. John McDonnell is just parrotting conventional left wisdom on this.
I would ask David: is there, or is there not, a contradiction between troops out and self-determination?
We're isolated on this? Sure. And we should be constantly seeking ways to break our isolation. And we're isolated mostly on the left, rather than in the population. True, in the general population there is a lot of despair - "it's all a hopeless, just get out" - but there is still some receptiveness to our ideas. See for example the SWP's gambit to push our amendment on the Iraqi unions off the agenda at NUT conference.
The old analogy - if there were 1000 fascists surrounding us, and some police between them and us, we would not raise the slogan "cops out", though we would maintain our general attitude to the police. David argues on too abstract a level.
Mark O: The "what would you in the Spanish parliament?" argument is a bit contrived. More important is our attitude in the USA. Now, I don't think the USA will scuttle from Iraq. If they did, I would denounce them for recklessness towards the lives of Iraqi citizens. In that situation, Iraq would be ripped apart.
We should not let our views be dictated by the pressure of the left. We should not let our hostility to the bourgeois state lead us into advocating disasters. In Britain we do not simply demand the abolition of the bourgeois state. We advocate building up the labour movement to be strong enough to smash the bourgeois state.
Mike R: David and Dan say in their amendment that there is no easy sloganistic way to deal with the question of the troops... then advocate an easy sloganistic way.
Troops out now has a different content in this case than in others. In other cases, it means the local national state should take over, even if it is run by people like Ho Chi Minh. It does not mean that in Iraq. The major armed forces are fighting to smash the national state. Ho Chi Minh shot the Trotskyists and crushed any independent Vietnamese labour movement, but he did not unleash civil war to rip Vietnam apart.
Troops out now makes sense when it has a democratic national-liberation content.
David: Contradiction between troops out and self-determination? You can't give a yes or no answer. Troops out is not the same as self-determination. But the troops continuing there will not help self-determination. It is possible to be for both troops out and self-determination. When the labour movement internationally calls for self-determination and troops out to achieve that, that is very different from "bring the boys home".
Self-determination is the central question. No other democratic freedom can exist without self-determination. If the government is subordinated to an external power, then there can be no democratic freedom.
Mark said that we're reckless about events in a faraway country. But what about Laura's question? Some of the Iraqis say troops out. We do not have to agree with the labour movement in Iraq. We should listen to what they say. I do care what happens to the Iraqi labour movement. The point: the working class internationally struggling for Iraqi self-determination and troops out is a different matter.
Cathy says: in Iraq it's a no-brainer to say that the occupiers should go. But then how we can have a different position in Britain? The point is that the working class should have a positive stance.
Spain and Italy? Cath's response is a bit evasive. You have to vote one way or the other on withdrawing the troops. From the majority view it would vote that you vote for the troops to stay.
Yes, the Iraqi labour movement is weak. But the question is, what can it do best in order to survive and grow? It must take up the question of self-determination.
Just to say that the consequences of the troops leaving are bad is not enough. While cops in a bourgeois democracy may sometimes protect us against fascists, the US troops do not protect the labour movement against Islamists. We do not call for the abolition of the state in Britain because it is not a burning issue, but in Iraq the occupation is a burning issue.
The only thing that matters is the working class building its forces. I don't see any value in anti-imperialist struggle as such. I would not back the mujahedin in Afghanistan, or Hamas or Hezbollah in Palestine or Lebanon.
Paul: The current Iraqi government is propped up by the US; the sectarian militias are strong; therefore troops out in the near future means full civil war and the break-up of Iraq.
The US is intertwined with the sectarian militias? Yes, partially. But it is not identical with them.
David is making a fetish of the slogan troops out and equating it with self-determination. But in this situation troops out does not mean self-determination, rather the opposite.
Our advice to the Iraqi labour movement? It should lead the struggle for national liberation, says David. He suggests the AWL majority position is economistic. Not so. E.g. we argued that WPIraq should contest the elections, we argued against the Iraqi Freedom Congress project.
David's document is based on a misunderstanding of what's going on in the Iraqi labour movement. All its elements are in favour of troops out in some way or other. We've criticised WPIraq/ FWCUI on the UN troops thing, for example. But it's not that they need us to push them to be more "troops out".
Does David mean that the trade union movement in Iraq should pretend to be a national liberation movement?
Our key task in Britain is to build support for the Iraqi labour movement. We have intervened in the Stop The War movement. The main thing to intervene about there is their position that they're for troops out which means the victory of the "resistance", and they're happy about it.
Sure, there's a majority in the US Congress for withdrawal. What do you expect? They are bourgeois politicians who don't care about Iraq. If one of us were to become Foreign Secretary in a John McDonnell government, the first thing we'd argue for is aid to the Iraqi labour movement, not British troops out as soon as possible.
PUBLIC SECTOR ALLIANCE
John M: There has been a de facto pay squeeze announced by Gordon Brown - pay rises limited to 2%. Inflation is well over 4%, so that means real wage cuts. Many public sector workers had a cut in real wages last year, and Brown wants the 2% limit in 2008-9 too.
The union leaders have been feeble. We put a motion to PCS conference on pay last year, but it was defeated by SP, SWP, etc. The leadership delayed doing anything about pay, and now talk about doing nothing on pay until September. PCS is agitating among general secretaries for a one-day public sector strike on pay. Unison health and NUT conferences have voted for united industrial action on pay, but without a mechanism to translate that into action.
Whatever weight we have in the labour movement we should throw behind the idea of a public sector fightback on pay. There is coordination among unions mostly only at general secretary level, no real linkage at rank and file level.
Robin: What's our attitude to the OFFU initiative? AWL NC says we don't want trade union branches to support it, but we do want to intervene. To what end? And what exactly do we want in terms of RMT Shop Stewards' Network and LRC?
Cathy: OFFU is an SWP initiative. We go along to intervene, but we should have no illusion about. The RMT thing is a bit different, but it is still the same small circle of existing left activists.
The public sector pay issue is a way of breaking out of the limits of the existing left and reaching other activists in the unions.
Sacha: At this year's NUT conference there were votes about industrial action on various issues, and all the left except us were saying no, it's not realistic. Then the left found that the conference was more militant than the left was...
It's not just that OFFU is SWP-dominated. It is also just not very left-wing. The charter they've published is no more left-wing than the TUC.
Becky: Is the SP really so bad in the PCS?
Martin: It's a fundamental clash between the Government tightening up after years of expanding the public sector, and the immediate interests of millions of workers. Part of the same thing as the cut in public sector pensions, the job cuts in the civil service, the job cuts and pressure for hospital bankruptcies in the NHS, etc. There's a problem that the pay issue presents itself differently in the different sectors, but we have to fight to make the links.
Robin: Not satisfied with Cathy's answer. RMT seems to have been pulled into the slipstream of OFFU...
Cathy: No, it has its own conference on 7 July.
Robin: We need a more positive intervention, more people than we had at the OFFU and RMT-sponsored conferences last year, not just a leaflet.
Paul: Yes, there was a problem with our turnout at those conferences last year. It wasn't that we lacked perspectives in general. We say: support delegations etc to the RMT Shop Stewards Network conference, even though we may be sceptical about its potential; but no credence to the SWP/ OFFU event.
Sacha: We had quite a few people at the OFFU conference last year. Trouble is, they weren't our experienced trade unionists.
Mike R: In Oxford, anyway, there is much more take-up from trade unionists for the RMT event.
John M: We should give much more weight to the RMT initiative. It's much more open. The SP in the PCS is not just the SP. It has its own committee which is an alternative power base to the SP party committee. If the SP were in charge in Unison, they would act as the SP does in the PCS, but they are not in charge.
What we can do is consistent propaganda. We have to recognise that we are small, and our key task is propaganda. Where we have some small levers in the union structures, we should use those to promote action; but our key task is to tell the truth as it is, and advocate consistent working-class demands.
ANTI-FASCISM
Cathy: The BNP has shifted its self-presentation, to try to make itself look mainstream, to turn to more affluent areas. It has more activists. It put up more candidates on 3 May than ever before. Meanwhile, Searchlight/ Stop the BNP and UAF are both very inadequate.
How do we organise an anti-BNP response based on class politics and taking up the social issues?
BNP results on 3 May: "a mixed bag", they say. They've made some inroads in some areas, e.g. Wrexham, where hostility to migrant labour seems to be the big issue.
There are very large numbers of new migrant workers now in Britain, including in some run-down areas.
UAF and Searchlight are both deficient on social issues, but also deficient on the immigration, asylum, migrant workers issue. E.g. last UAF conference had nothing on that issue. Searchlight have an orientation to the labour movement in general, but also go for the "don't vote Nazi" line. Sometimes they implicitly back Lib-Dems. Also, they go along with the "Strangers Into Citizens" campaign - for an amnesty for some migrant workers.
The motion talks about a national get-together of anti-fascist activists interested in a more class-based and radical answer than UAF and Searchlight.
Sacha: Anyone have any more info on Brinsley?
David: BNP gained 10 council seats and lost 8. They tend to lose councillors after one term, because they're incompetent.
John M: I disagree about point 7. At the PCS rally in Folkestone on 1 May I heard the Respect/SWP speaker disagreeing explicitly with someone who said vote Labour against the BNP, and insisting that it should be a vote for anyone who's not BNP.
Mark O: In September 1993 Derek Beackon got elected as a fascist councillor in the Isle of Dogs. There was an enormous furore. It was the first fascist councillor elected anywhere for decades except a couple in the north-west in the 1970s. The left was very agitated. There was a big TUC demonstration in East London. The Lib-Dems wanted to speak and were refused.
Now you have lame acceptance of 50 BNP councillors.
A get-together is a good idea, but we have to find prominent people to sponsor it, or else we'll just end up with a scattering of anarchists.
Clive: Are there any areas where the BNP have done well, where there is also a Respect vote?
Mark O: Yes, Preston.
Cathy: We could get some of the NOII activists involved in a get-together. Could we get Bob Crow or someone to put out a statement? It would be good if we could.
INSIDE ORGANISING
Sacha: Document is trying to restate and re-establish our policy on what jobs people should go for, but the policy goes back a long time.
The working class is the force that can change society. The eight hours you spend at work should not be wasted time, but time in which you can be effective as a workplace activist.
That has implications about what sort of job we encourage people to get. We should focus on areas where we can have most impact, such as rail, post, health service; and generally on areas with a high degree of trade-union activity, civil service, local government, etc.
The document does not attempt to coerce people either administratively or through moral blackmail, or to say that people who get strategic jobs are morally superior to others.
We also want to encourage contacts to get strategic jobs. The model is what Solidarity-USA has done, a project to help and support young people to get rank and file jobs, with which they have had some success.
Some people have said that the balance-sheet of "colonisation" is not that good. Yes, we have people who have taken rank and file jobs and then dropped out politically. But the same with people who have taken other jobs.
And some of our better fractions, e.g. rail, only exist because we have had a policy of encouraging people to get jobs in those key areas.
Amendments? Cath's text in itself is reasonable. But we have to spell out which areas we think are most useful.
Union officials? There's no absolute principle that revolutionaries should not become full-time union organisers. E.g. Farrell Dobbs in the late 1930s. But he was a full-time union organiser for a short time, on the back of and supervised by a large active Trotskyist fraction in the union.
Our situation is different. Ten years ago no AWL member thought of being a union official. Now we have a drift into such jobs. Working for a union can be worse than working for a NGO. We can support NGO workers going on strike for higher pay, but not union officials going on strike for higher pay.
Cath: My text, amendment 6.2, is a better expression of the policy than producing a target list. The discussion comes up because it is perceived as a problem that the policy isn't working well and people are going into NGO and union-official jobs.
The policy has had most success where people are in jobs which they enjoy doing. If we have a small list of target areas, that creates a lot of pressure on a small number of individuals to go into those target areas. People refuse those target areas and then refuse to discuss at all where they would work.
We should have some collective criteria, but not just a list of target areas. Sometimes jobs in teaching are better than jobs in the post. And we can explain to people who want NGO jobs that they can get equivalent jobs in the public sector.
On Mark S's amendment 6.1: danger of inside organising being seen as a quick fix to get a base in the working class. There are lots of examples of successful outside intervention in working-class struggles, especially when it comes to organising the unorganised, e.g. the match girls' strike, sparked off by an article by Annie Besant.
Maggie: The union full-timers are generally bad. But we should not have a blanket refusal of people working in full-time trade-union jobs. We should support people where we have them in full-time trade-union jobs. Certainly there are some unions where there's no point in taking organiser jobs.
Mark O: Cath's amendment 6.2? Yes, of course, we should discuss. It reduces it to a level of personal conscience. The AWL should have a policy and fight for it. The AWL leadership should be asked by the membership to fight for the policy.
It's good getting jobs in places like big post offices. Mark S himself says he learned a lot from working in the post. It may mean some sacrifice? Yes, but doesn't revolutionary activity generally?
Union organisers? No, NGO jobs are not as bad as union organiser jobs. Yes, you can do it sometimes, like Farrell Dobbs. But in Britain today we will lose people if they go into full-time union organiser jobs. They will be drawn into the bureaucracy. That is why Solidarity-USA have developed their policy, to fight against it.
Cannon as an IWW organiser? The IWW was a revolutionary organisation. Union officials in Britain are not comparable. Even the more left-wing unions like the TGWU put great pressure on their officials. There is no Chinese wall between organisers and the rest of the union bureaucracy. Even when the unions are organising, they are not doing it in our way, with our politics.
Cathy: We are not so unserious an organisation that we have no definite idea on what people should do. We should have a policy. We are not advocating that everyone works on the post. But if not that, something else useful. This is not asking people to put themselves in the front line to be shot by fascists.
Yes, in the history, revolutionaries have been full-time union officials. But taking full-time union official jobs today is not the same. There are exceptional jobs, e.g. migrant workers who become organisers working in their own language.
Robin: What do members think we're about? Our comrades have all sorts of influences on them about their job preferences. Why shouldn't we also exert an influence?
Martin: Most revolutionaries become revolutionaries when in their teens or early 20s. In previous epochs, that meant, when they were young workers. Ray Dunne, referred to by Mark S, became a revolutionary when a lumberjack aged 16 through reading The Origin Of Species (lent him by an IWW delegate) and listening to a talk on the Russian Revolution of 1905 from an IWW organiser. Full-time jobs in Britain's union bureaucracies today are not like being IWW organisers. IWW would send their organisers to get jobs inside the industries where they had organising drives.
Today most revolutionaries become revolutionaries when in full-time education. What when they finish? If they have been studying chemical engineering or whatever, fine, they should become chemical engineers. But most have studied social science, cultural studies, etc: no job qualifications. Best if they'll become AWL full-timers, or get part-time jobs enabling them to work almost full-time on politics. Other choices? Managerial jobs, which they rightly won't go for. Or an "inside organising" job. Or... hundreds have disappeared into NGO and union-official jobs. We should encourage them to go for "inside organising" jobs.
John M: The document makes the qualifications necessary. But it states general preferences, and that's right.
Suggestion from Mark S that we would want to have Max Shachtman work loading lorries? That's ridiculous.
Becky: It's a question of how you persuade people. A lot of people agree in general but are not easily persuaded. We should get the fractions to promote it, people who work in the industry where we want them to go.
We need to emphasise organising wherever we are, because often we can't get into the target jobs.
Robin: You have to outline a perspective first, even if you can't persuade a single person to do it. I think the motion is too soft. We put the perspective. If people don't do it... well, you treat them as people, of course.
John B: I'm not in favour of a blanket rejection of union organiser jobs. Yes, you might get someone who is a longstanding workplace activist and is blacklisted and can't get another job than union organiser. But that is not the general case with people around us getting union organiser jobs. Being an organiser will involve conflict with the bureaucracy, as long you remain true to your ideas. You won't last very long, one way or the other. It would be better to have one of our members as a Gate Gourmet worker than as a TGWU official dealing with the Gate Gourmet dispute.
We are a voluntary organisation. People choose whether to join. If they choose to join, that involves something. Then we try to concentrate our forces to be effective. Obviously people can't always get a job in the best area.
Lots of our recruits come from a middle-class background, and they're under pressure to get higher-status jobs. We should provide a counter-pressure.
Maggie: What does a union organiser do? You do tell the members when the union bureaucracy is selling them out. You can get away with it. You do have scope to be a socialist agitator. The organisation should support you.
There's some use in having organisers. We have to get rid of the right-wing full-time officials. The organisers do not all get sucked in. Surely we need to have some people there.
Cath: Top-down pressure to get jobs can be counterproductive. The fractions may be better able to draw people into jobs.
It seems to work quite well on the Tube. Not so well on the post. Yes, Mark S learned a lot there, but he also found it impossible to continue being a postal worker active in the union and at the same time continue as an active Trotskyist.
Why are these particular jobs a priority? Having a generic list of criteria rather than a specific list of target areas is not necessarily watering down the policy.
Some people saying that if people feel bad about not getting target-area jobs, that is just too bad; other saying that the policy is very easy-going. Which is it? Is it a get-tough policy, or not?
Sacha: Pressure from full-timers or EC not as good as encouragement from the fractions? Sure. The point is that the AWL leadership should take responsibility for organising it, including getting fractions to talk to people.
Union organisers? It's worrying that Maggie talks about it being desirable to have people higher up the union hierarchy.
There are lots of students who've gone straight from university into union organiser jobs.
Yes, we're not talking about sending Max Shachtman to load lorries. A revolutionary organisation needs full-timers.
Is it a get-tough policy? It's a policy that seeks to encourage and support and persuade, not punitive, but which also has a clear idea of what it wants.
Just a target list? The document does quote the 2005 list, but in a lot of context which makes it clear that it's not only those areas we are talking about.
Yes, sure, some people can't get jobs in the target areas. Chris L couldn't get a job on the rail despite making many applications. Eventually, he got a job in local government. That's all right.
Mark S found it unlivable on the post? Fair enough. But there are plenty of other jobs he could have got into other than full-time union official.