SWP on the unions, and on the doorsteps

Submitted by martin on 5 February, 2008 - 7:35 Author: Matt Cooper

Reports on two recent SWP-related events. First, I attended the Organising for Fighting Unions London dayschool in London on 2 February. Probably 60 people, probably 80% SWP.

Three sessions: Plenary with a range of speakers (including the Screws', sorry, Prison Officers', Association, and a South American cleaner from SOAS called Jose Stalin, who was actually a syndicalist), all of whom were very good on saying how bad the government was, and none of whom really mapped out a way forward (it was all about how Unite would accept 3 year deals, rather than our response).

The paucity of the discussion is demonstrated by the fact that the best contribution was from Jeremy Dewar from Workers' Power, who suggested that we should live in a world with a thriving rank and file in the unions that organised strikes in the face of opposition from the union bureaucracy and set up local councils of action on the back of this.

It might have been abstract and sterile, but he was (I think) the only speaker who made any concrete suggestions at all rather than repeating the stock ideas that "people are angry" and "the union leaders are in thrall to Brown".

Then two parallel workshops: being an effective rep and the world economy. Most people chose the world economy, which is pretty symptomatic of the left's ability to strike a radical pose while waiting for economic collapse, and its miserable failure to relate to the immediate struggles of the working class now.

Even with the self-selected bunch discussing how to be an effective rep, we seemed all at sea. The key thing here, surely (or so I said), is how to link the small scale, even individual, work we do as trade unionists in the workplace with collective action in our workplaces and bigger struggles beyond, this relating to the need for the left not just to take positions on union execs, but try to build up reps at the base.

While the SWP didn't seem to be overtly hostile to this, they couldn't really run with the idea, and instead talked about going around their workplaces giving out Stop the War Leaflets, or in one case, reading up on Zionism to attack a bullying Jewish boss (I am not making that up, it was worse than I have made it sound).

The discussion usually only took the direction that doing decent case-work meant that people would take you seriously in other stuff, which while true and not unimportant, is hardly the key point in building a rank and file with a perspective of transforming the unions into fighting organisations.

I went out canvassing with Respect Sunday morning in a by-election in Leyton. The canvassers, about twenty I guess, were mainly SWP, although I recognised precisely nobody from the local SWP. The organisers there seemed to be national. SWPers I spoke to were from Luton, Merton and Tower Hamlets. None of them were very interested in drawing any lessons from Galloway, or what Respect should now become.

The Respect candidate is a long standing local (non SWP) activist (and a Labour Party member for a long time). The leaflet is, I'd say, pitched a little low. It is all about opposing cuts, nothing (even by implication) about the working class (although it does mention a strike by community wardens and it has a picture of striking refuse collectors, although no caption to tell you that). It's all along the lines of Labour and the Liberals both vote for cuts, vote for me because I won't.

That's it. Doesn't go on about the war, and, interestingly, since Waltham Forest has the second or third highest percentage of Muslims of the London boroughs, has no specifically "Muslim" pitch (and the photographs in the leaflet are as all white as a 1970s school textbook). It is much more like one of those bread and butter Socialist Party campaigns of old, only more apolitical.

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