AWL conference 2009: documents defeated

Motion against “fallback vote Labour”
“Graduates can be workers too”
Engineering construction strikes

Our main focus in elections should be to campaign positively for our own candidates and other socialist and labour movement candidates. In certain constituencies, i.e. where there is a left Labour candidate and no positive better option, we would still favour a Labour vote (i.e. a vote for that Labour candidate). In general, however, we do not favour a Labour vote as a default option.

Insert in ‘The Unions and the Crisis’
After third para of section headed ‘Background’.
These major changes in employment have happened at a time of qualification inflation. In 2007/08 43% of 18 to 30 year olds entered higher education. That is 49% of women and 39% of men. (DIUS: Participation Rates in Higher Education: Academic Years 1999/2000-2007/08 (Provisional).
While it remains the case that those from poorer backgrounds are still a smaller proportion of university students, and that fees and the lack of grants have been a major blow against equal opportunity, the hard statistical facts should put an end to the workerist myth that graduates can not really be seen as part of our class.
The Marxist understanding of class has always been about a relationship to the means of production rather than the multiple categories of sociology. However too often socialists including some in the AWL have lapsed into sloppy workerism based on sociological categories. In the modern British economy approaching half the young female workforce are graduates, a very large minority of young male workers are graduates too. Our class is changing we can not afford to ignore the realities through misty eyed, outdated workerist romanticism.

Solidarity’s approach to the recent construction strikes has been very poor. While they were a national news issue and a major focus for everyone interested in how the British working class respond to the crisis, we wobbled and ended up downplaying the massive threat of nationalism to our class. We did not heed Trotsky’s advice in the Transitional Programme
“To face reality squarely; not to seek the line of least resistance; to call things by their right names; to speak the truth to the masses, no matter how bitter it may be..”
The key reason these strikes spread was because they touched a nationalist nerve that is plain to see in any workplace. No active Marxist should be shocked that injustice focused on nationalism can mobilise workers in a way that other issues have failed to do. Marxists do not idealise workers. We think the working class is an international class that has the capacity to tear down capitalism and create a classless society. But we don’t think workers are generally socialist, or more anti nationalist, or generally better people than non-workers. In fact the idea that we are a slave class, whose ideas are dominated by the ruling ideas of our age, like nationalism, is central to our understanding of the state of our movement.
During the recent disputes we bent over backwards to justify, explain away or ignore the depths of the nationalism involved. (See note 1) The group went into shock at the idea of protesting at the complicity of the union leaders ‘read between the lines’ use of nationalism. Unlike Socialist Worker (See note 2) we did not expose the nationalism of the dispute from the picket lines through the reps right up to the union leaders. After the event in the face of a blatant Daily Star stunt we had to attack Simpson, but only then.
“No European worker should be barred from applying for a British job and absolutely no British worker should be barred from applying for a British job." Derek Simpson on the Unite WEB SITE
It should not be hard for us to understand Janus faced union leaders. From the very start of the dispute it was obvious how the union leaders and even rank-and-file leaders would play the strike. It is patronising in the extreme to think that trade unionists can’t work out a line of spin that can seem to play it by the book while having an obvious content that will be understood by others. Of course none but the stupidest union spokesperson called for sacking foreign workers (I did hear one GMB official call for exactly that on radio 4) and of course union leaders, who spend their lives asking lawyers what they can do, are not going to demand something they know to be illegal. The call for British workers not to be discriminated against has obvious subtext that you can only ignore if you want to delude yourself. (Double speak was rife during the dispute, like the person on the AWL website who lauded the change of focus by some workers from British jobs for British workers to local jobs for local workers.) In championing the deal the SP quoted the BBC as ‘understanding no Italian workers would be sacked’ without explaining that Italian firms are not legally allowed to ‘sack’ permanent staff (getting round the law by giving people endless unpaid holidays). So no Italian firm would be stupid enough to say it was going to sack permanent staff. Of course there was no mention of the crippling levels of youth unemployment in Southern Italy. The union leaders knew what they were doing, however. The Unite chief negotiator, Bernard McAuley, said: "We've made sure that no Italians have been made redundant, we've got jobs for 102 British people and we've also made sure that Fabio Capello stays as England manager. We want integration now, not segregation." Championing his belief that the deal would mean 102 new jobs for British workers only.
And what happened about organising the Italian workers?
The ramifications of ‘British jobs for British workers’ hegemonising the battle for jobs are massive, especially in the current British workforce. It will derail every fight in every workplace; it will make the vital workers’ unity across Europe even less likely than it was. It is a massive problem for basic trade unionism let alone socialism.
Anti Europe little Englandism is a very powerful in the UK and this strike has strengthened it. I think nationalism is perhaps the biggest ideological enemy of our class. I can hear readers of this saying “we know all that!”- so why downplay it, half excuse it, or even joke that the construction workers were only taking the piss out of Brown’s slogan of ’British jobs for British workers’? Why not condemn and protest at union leaders who help to support or even whip up this poison?
The left has a nasty history of downplaying or ignoring the real politics that blight our class. Instead of facing up to the problem too often we try to ignore or explain away backward ideas. It’s what the Stalinist CP did, and I have witnessed SP paper sellers laughing at racist jokes ‘to stay in with the lads’ on a picket line. Taking the SP’s word on this dispute given their tradition of ‘turning a blind eye’ and workerism was a mistake.
We do of course denounce the Daily Star, Gordon Brown, and once he has made himself a blatant nationalist even Derek Simpson but at the time we baulked at criticising the role of the unions, the reps and the backward ideas of the workforce.
In this period of low class struggle some in the AWL have increasingly fetishised ‘workers’ as angels with dirty faces. In the context of declining unions some of us have become the first line of defence of the unions, leaders included. The slogan of some seems to be ‘my union right or wrong.’
Although Marxists can not wait for events we can test our ideas and our analysis by looking at events as they unfold. Our second editorial claimed that the main lessons workers will learn from the dispute is to fight back and break the anti-union laws. Above I have argued that the dispute was chiefly defined by its nationalism. Yes, contracting out is an outrage, and has long been so. Yes, the recession has increased the need to defend jobs, but this dispute was focused on the idea and not just the slogan of ‘British jobs for British workers’- that is also why it spread. Even Derek Simpson understands that much. I hope I am wrong, but it seems clear to me that the lesson most workers will take from the dispute and its result will not be the one the AWL and left groups would like it to be, but will instead be the poisoned logic of nationalism.
At the height of the dispute the group softened its message, the message it was our key role to shout over the Union Jacks, some of the group went even softer than that. It does not speak well of our ability to swim against the tide in the Labour movement when we need to.
Note 1
On the second web editorial;
The lead article on our website said.”It is an eruption of class struggle that may be the harbinger of many such struggles. Other workers will, indeed, learn from this example to act and to defy the anti-union laws.” To what extent the dispute focused on breaking the anti union laws and fighting the bosses’ crisis is crucial here. It seems to me that the key issue that made this dispute happen was nationalism. That’s why this contracting out, this new contract was fought when others have not been. It is also why this dispute spread, while others have not. Those who want to downplay the nationalist demands have said the media or the bosses have played up the ‘British jobs for British workers’ stuff. Perhaps, but it was central, for the very good reason, that it was the key idea that made the strike spread.
Our article went on to say:
“But some will also be mis-educated into picking up the worker-dividing demand: “British jobs for British workers" It seemed clear to me that it was this slogan was the reason the strike spread.
The article went on to sort of accept this not very convenient truth;
‘If the British "Labour" prime minister raises the slogan "British Jobs for British Workers", as he has done, it is not surprising that workers pick up on it.’
So it’s not the nationalism of the brave workers that’s to blame? Still the article is silent on the crap soft pedalling of nationalism by most levels of both unions involved in the dispute.
After the deal our leaflet hailed a ‘substantial industrial victory’ in probably the group’s most glowing assessment of any dispute in recent history. Was it that good? Did it deal with subcontracting? Or any other major issue? No but it got some more British jobs. The claim that no Italians lost work is impossible for us to check and a claim made by the company.
Note 2
Socialist Worker reported
In a similar vein Danny Melia, a Unite senior shop steward at the South Hook Plant in Milford Haven, said, “This is not a race issue.
“We just want British workers to have a fair crack of the whip.”
Yet he went on to say, “They should exhaust all the available British labour first before turning to foreign workers.”
Jon, a steel erector, told Socialist Worker, “The building bosses always make a fuss about costs on projects.
“In reality one thing that raises total costs and lowers pay is to have subcontractors hiring other subcontractors.
“The subcontractors take people on as self-employed, which means they have no period of notice and workers can be laid off at the drop of a hat.
“I have a problem with what is going on though. By picking up on Brown’s rubbish about British jobs, the union has turned a good campaign that let us organise people into one that encourages the worst elements and divides people.”
A good indication of how this can pan out was revealed this week.
Some 200 Romanian workers were removed from the Olympics site in London for being “illegal workers” – they were all allegedly self-employed.
At the same time, the bosses on the Olympics are trying to cut wages. The removal of the Romanian workers has not made fighting that attack any easier.