Alison Brown, Workers' Liberty supporter and Health Service Group Executive (SGE) member for UNISON's Yorkshire and Humberside region, has been banned from attending and voting in the important SGE meeting this Tuesday, which will decide the future of the pensions dispute.
The SGE meeting is the first democratic body of the union to discuss the the government's "Heads of Agreement", the rotten deal that unelected officials accepted before Christmas. The SGE has the power to overturn the decision by the unelected officials, reject the deal and plan for future industrial action.
However, the UNISON bureaucracy has used an imaginative interpretation of the rulebook to ensure that at least one prominent left-winger cannot speak or vote at the meeting. Alison has recently begun a six month secondment as a full-time organiser for the union. According to UNISON rules, union staff cannot sit on the democratic bodies of the union. This is entirely correct and uncontentious. Yet, Alison is not a union employee as she has not started her secondment and is still working for the Yorkshire Ambulance Service!
Alison was informed of this decision just a few days before the meeting, making it difficult to make a serious challenge. The members of Yorkshire and Humberside region should demand that they are properly represented on the SGE and the shady characters who make these decisions should be held to account.
UNISON members who are baffled by the union's decision to accept the government's "PAY MORE, WORK LONGER and GET LESS" pensions deal, need to look no further than this story to understand how it happened. We must ask ourselves - Who controls our union? How are decisions made? How can we reclaim the union to fight for our interests?
Comments
Disgraceful bureaucratic manoeuvring
Yet another indictment of the leadership of Unison. It's quite clear they won't tolerate any dissent at all, never mind actually losing a vote.
Unison elections are coming up and members will need to make sure none of the people who voted for this deal on the various SGE's are returned.
Serious questions must be asked of Alison Brown and the AWL, however.
Why were the rest of the left on the Health SGE not informed that a delegate intending to vote NO was excluded? I know Alison Browns absence came as a complete surprise to the Socialist Party delegates. The left could have tried to have the meeting postponed while a fight was put up to get Alison re-instated into the meeting.
Why did Alison Brown meekly accept the ruling of the Unison bureaucracy? For sure she would have faced bureaucratic sanction if she had defied the leadership (as many SP Unison activists have already suffered). I would have thought after the fiery speeches from AWL members at the PCS Left Unity conference on Saturday calling for brave action that fear of attacks by the bureaucracy would not trouble a stalwart AWL member. At the very least she should have come to the Health SGE meeting and demanded to be allowed in to the meeting.
Was she advised by the AWL not to attend the meeting? Did the AWL argue that she should have attended the meeting but she didn't?
Response
Alison attended the lobby of the SGE meeting this morning, so the implication that she and the AWL were somehow hiding away is wrong.
It would have been better if Alison had done what would essentially have been a piece of theatre outside Unison HQ, loudly demanding her right to get into the meeting. But being good at that sort of theatre, while desirable, is hardly the measure of how principled or dedicated an activist or their organisation is in their fight with bosses or bureaucrats.
Could Alison have been pushier/more outspoken at the lobby? Maybe. But failing to make herself the centrepiece of the lobby is not the same as failing to fight the bureaucracy.
People can judge what the AWL has said and done in the pensions dispute for themselves whether they think any of it indicates an acquiescence to the labour movement bureaucracy.
That just doesn't wash comrades
"People can judge what the AWL has said and done in the pensions dispute for themselves whether they think any of it indicates an acquiescence to the labour movement bureaucracy."
Indeed they can, and what I can see is an organisation that talks tough when it's in a room full of lefts or to naive young people, but when hostile, hard line bureaucracy twitches an eyebrow in displeasure it goes running for cover.
Do you seriously expect people in the labour movement to accept that in one of the most important industrial battles in decades where the fight is at a critical juncture a leading industrial cadre of the AWL:
a)doesn't inform her fellow left SGE members that a bureaucratic manoeuvre against her (and by extension the rest of the left) is under way before a crucial vote on the SGE
b)goes to a lobby by the left but refuses even to tell the Chair what has happened never mind taking the mic herself and explaining what the situation is. The left is thereby denied crucial information before a big battle with the bureaucracy.
c)refuses to challenge the bureaucracy in the lions den, so to speak, by refusing to recognise the blatantly undemocratic manoeuvre by the Unison leadership and confronting the SGE demanding entry into the meeting.
This is not "theatre" comrades (although how telling that you would see it that way!). It's about showing the most minimal back bone against a bureaucracy absolutely determined to crush all dissent in pursuit of selling a rotten deal. What about the democratic mandate bestowed on Alison Brown by the members? It's not just Unison who has behaved disgracefully in excluding her. So has she in refusing to fight to represent that mandate to the very last. Having a sub-terrainian campaign in the region (certainly no one else on the left in the regional sector had heard of it) just doesn't cut it, it was woefully far short.
The AWL, which is never shy of criticising others on the left, has made a serious mistake. What ever decisions Alison Brown may have made it was incumbent on you, the leadership, to let the rest of the left know what was going on. You are just as culpable as her.
A final few words. The AWL claim they have a record of fighting "the bureaucracy". Does this claim stand up to reality?
Certainly in left led unions like the RMT & PCS the AWL will never be found wanting when it comes shrill and incoherent criticism of the leadership. In those left led unions, criticism of the leadership carries little penalty, which is as it should.
However when the price of opposition to the leadership is much higher (often resulting in bullying, slander, exclusion and victimisation by the employer as many SP members in Unison have found) where are the AWL then?
No where to be seen.
Stop name-calling
Do you feel better now, Neil?
"...an organisation that talks tough when it's in a room full of lefts or to naive young people, but when hostile, hard line bureaucracy twitches an eyebrow in displeasure it goes running for cover.
"...when the price of opposition to the leadership is much higher (often resulting in bullying, slander, exclusion and victimisation by the employer as many SP members in Unison have found) where are the AWL then?
"No where to be seen."
Now, all that is a slander! The AWL has always opposed all witch-hunts, management bullying, etc, and often paid the price for it. Why wouldn't we? We're socialists and trade unionists!
It's one thing to be loyal to your organisation, and you are, but it's another to go off inventing scenarios to slander other socialists.
I don't know the ins and outs of this episode, but it looks like you are blowing things up out of proportion. You're pissed off with the AWL - almost certainly not just for this - but the offence, if offence there be, is nothing like on the scale that warrants this sort of name-calling.
Go to bed, come back in the morning - calmer.
Vicki
(And you know me well enough to know that I'm not taking the piss.)
What name calling?
There has been no name calling in my posts. I have simply asked some very pointed questions as to the decisions of Alison Brown and the AWL over their conduct in failing to put up sufficient fight against the diktat of the Unison bureaucracy in excluding her from the SGE. I'd also point out I have done so in a much more restrained manner than that often used by the AWL towards the Socialist Party.
For the purposes of clarity my questions to the AWL are these:
When did the AWL become aware that Alison Brown had been excluded from the SGE?
Did the AWL advise Alison Brown to make the rest of the left on the SGE aware of her exclusion? If not, why not?
Did the AWL advise Alison Brown to mount a high profile, public campaign against the bureaucracy's decision, including refusing to recognise her exclusion from the SGE. Again, if not, why not?
Comrades, these are serious questions which you have so far avoided answering. How do you expect workers or the left to take you seriously when your industrial cadres make blood curdling speeches calling for action but when a crucial test is put before you by the bureaucracy you are completely clueless? Are we supposed to believe you'd do any better against the bosses?
A reply
Neil,
I only became aware of Alison's exclusion the day before the meeting so I can't answer your questions. However, I'm sure someone will soon.
Two other points.
Firstly, note the fact that you are able to post on this website at all. On the Socialist Party website, of course, no comments are allowed. And this is part of a more general culture where the SP won't reply to emails or phone calls, answer requests it might find difficult etc, let alone do public debates.
Secondly, the idea that the AWL is somehow soft on or afraid of the leadership of Unison or other right-wing unions is ludicrous. What is more notable is your/the SP's approach which sees the leadership of Unison as the only or almost the only problem. But of course it is the 'left' leaders of PCS, NUT and UCU who say they reject the government's proposals, but are refusing to take serious moves towards getting action back on. (To be fair PCS has been better than NUT, so far, but the point still stands.) Do we think these leaders need to be challenged? Yes, and we don't apologise for that. The same goes for the leaders of RMT, who the SP sucks up to ludicrously.
Since you're asking questions, answer mine.
Why does the PCS leadership refuse to set dates for further action and/or approach the NUT and UCU about taking further action together?
Why are the leaders of PCS, including some of your SP comrades, on very high wages, when you claim to support the principle of workers' representatives on a workers' wage? Why, having been in control of the union for more than a decade, have you never tried to do anything about this - and in fact opposed and defeated attempts to do so from others?
Sacha Ismail
More bluster and evasions
Sacha, the title of the article under which this thread is taking place is not "Whose website most resembles The Guardian's Comment is Free page?". The context of the article is Alison Brown's exclusion from the Health SGE by the Unison bureaucracy and the subsequent (in)action of Alison and the AWL. As the AWL is part of the left on the Unison SGE and the (in)actions of the AWL have a material impact on what happens on the SGE, it is right and legitimate for the left to question the behaviour and tactics of the AWL.
Just as the AWL rigorously, um... scrutinises the actions of other on the left they should expect similar treatment.
To your credit Sacha you have answered one of my questions, which is that you knew about Alison's exclusion "the day before the meeting". As your a leading member I think it is safe to conclude that the AWL knew about the exclusion at least 24 hours before the Health SGE.
Unfortunately for you and the AWL this means, for what ever reason, you and Alison Burke decided not to inform the rest of the left on the SGE about this bureaucratic manoeuvre against those who wished to stop a sell out on pensions. The AWL and Alison Brown also chose not to mount a high profile public campaign against the exclusion. The AWL and Alison Brown chose not to confront the SGE and demand she be admitted. At best this is a grave tactical error.
Imagine, for a moment, Alison Brown had went to the SGE and demanded a vote on her exclusion. Either it would have been refused or the SGE would have voted 27-5 in favour of excluding her (that was the vote in favour of accepting the deal). In the latter scenario the left would immediately know the lie of the land before the debate even started. Following the vote in subsequent elections for example not only could the 27 be charged with selling out on pensions but also in consenting to undermining union democracy, to witch hunting etc. This would have been an extra weapon for all the left to use in the battle with the right in Unison Health.
AWL members object to my conclusion that the AWL failed to mount a high profile campaign against Alison Browns exclusion out of fear of the Unison bureaucracy. The brutal truth is that is the kindest conclusion I (and others on the left) can draw!
The only other conclusions I can draw from your decision to sit on this exclusion for at least 24 hours (and longer in the case of Alison Brown) is that the AWL and Alison Brown are either utterly incompetent on a tactical, strategic and political level when it comes to fighting the bureaucracy OR you deliberately sat on this in order to undermine the left and facilitate a sell out.
Now I don't for a moment believe that the AWL wanted to see a sell out.
It may be that I am completely wrong that you are incompetent or you are afraid of the unison bureaucracy. If that is the case then it's incumbent on you Sacha and the leadership of the AWL to explain how failing to inform the left on the SGE or failing to mount a high profile campaign was the right decision in fighting the bureaucracy? How did it help in the fightback against a sell out on pensions?
It may be my bureaucratic loving ways I learned in the Socialist Party but for the life of me I can't see why your organisation reached the conclusions that you did and acted the way that you did. I think most people on the left and in the labour movement will be asking themselves the same question.
evasion?
Neil, you headline your post More bluster and evasions but pointedly fail to answer the direct question put to you of why SP members in PCS consistently oppose moves to limit the wages of full-time elected officials to the equivalent of what they would earn if they were still in the civil service, despite your policy being (on paper at least) that workers' representatives should be on workers' wages.
So that's the way it's going to be?
So, dragging up irrelevant side issues (irrelevant in the sense their veracity or otherwise make no material difference to the issue at hand) in order to evade answering the very obvious questions that arise as a result of the behaviour of Alison Brown and the AWL.
Fair enough, that of course is an answer in itself...
No
No, Neil, Alison is going to reply.
Meanwhile, will you answer our questions?
Response from Alison Brown
1. Just before Christmas I successfully applied for a six month secondment from my job working as a local organiser for Unison. Late last Friday I received an email informing me I could not continue to be involved in the lay structures as I was now an employee of the union - though in fact I will be returning to my job, will remain employed throughout by South Yorkshire Ambulance Service and in any case do not start the secondment until the very end of January. Over the weekend I checked the rules and sent an email to the region objecting. All the emails involved from myself and the region were copied to my branch secretary and to Adrian O Malley, SP member and one of the other HSGE reps for my region, so Neil's claims that the SP was not informed are simply wrong.
2. On Monday morning I phoned the Regional Head who then emailed me explaining their position on the rules and stating that I would not be able to participate in the meetings. This was the first time it was completely clear to me that I was being stopped from attending the HSGE.
3. With hindsight I should have reacted more strongly then. But this was less than 24 hours before the meeting and I thought there was little that could be done to reverse the decision. I should have made direct contact with the rest of the SGE left – but as far as I was aware Adrian did know through emails and through the Regional meeting.
4. I told my comrades in the AWL, we published an article and I attended the lobby in London with other AWL members. I didn’t take centre stage. I spent the time there trying to lobby middle ground people I knew from the SGE. I didn’t see any of the HSGE left, who I presume had gone in before I arrived.
5. I didn’t go into the meeting and challenge the decision. I recognise it would have been better if I had. I don’t think, in reality, it would have made any difference to the discussion or the outcome of the meeting. Has my inaction helped in our struggle against the sell out? No, but to be honest I don't think it made a huge negative difference either. You say we would be using the exclusion of me from the meetings as another point to raise now – well we still can. The information is in the public domain (although as far as I am aware the AWL is the only group which has raised it anywhere, apart from you attacking me here).
6. It's a dire situation when only five people on the HSGE voted to continue action on this major issue.
7. The UNISON leadership uses both blatant witch hunting and more subtle stitching up of the union day in day out to create the atmosphere where this happens. We do need to raise union democracy centrally. I’m not at all scared of challenging the leadership or facing their sanctions, but I do think we need to be on a strong ground if we are going to win any support through launching high profile campaigns on these issues. That why issues like union officials on a worker's wage etc are relevant to this discussion. We will all have to continue to work out the best way to do this in the messy reality of the struggle, where issues aren’t black and white. As I said I think we made a mistake in the lack of aggression I showed on this issue on this occasion.
I hope that clears things up, particularly the claim that I didn't let the Socialist Party know what was happening.
Alison Brown
Let's all eat our words
A member of the Socialist Party has used our website to make shrill, out-of-proportion and borderline-slanderous criticisms of the AWL, and then "demand" answers to a specific list of questions (all the while refusing to answers questions of him or his organisation, and then accusing us of "evasion").
He is only able to do any of this because we allow comments on our articles on our website, unlike his organisation. It's interesting that Neil scoffs at this point, saying that the debate is not about "Whose website most resembles The Guardian's Comment is Free page?" So Neil thinks that democratic debate, the right to dissent and criticism, are something that only a bourgeois-liberal newspaper like The Guardian would be bothered with? That tells us a lot.
Although he has repeatedly accused us of "bluster", "evasion" and "being scared", we have in fact responded to him comprehensively, including admitting where we have made mistakes (something the Socialist Party doesn't do very often).
Neil, when we demand a point-by-point response from, say, Chris Baugh on why he or any of your other senior comrades in PCS refuse to take workers' wages, or anything else from a long list I could name, will we receive one? I doubt it. I imagine we'll be met with the usual stuff about how the AWL ("infantile shouty ultraleft sectarians" as you recently referred to us on Twitter) are not "significant" enough for the big, important Socialist Party to be bothered with.
I hope you and your comrades prove me wrong. You started this debate trying to "prove" that we bottled a fight and would refuse to answer your questions, intended to "expose" us. Instead, we have answered you and readily admitted errors of judgement. I think you've been made to eat your words on this. If your organisation proves me wrong and responds in similar fashion to criticisms that other socialists raise, I'd be happy to eat mine.
-
Daniel Randall
I echo Daniel's comments.
I echo Daniel's comments. Outside the Lambeth Unison AGM yesterday, I asked Neil why no comments are allowed on the SP website. He replied "Even if we were the most Stalinist organisation in the world, that wouldn't justify..." Telling, I think. So you admit the SP is a little bit Stalinist?
I hope Neil will inquire why the information Alison sent to Adrian O'Malley was not passed on.
Now that Alison has answered your questions, perhaps you can answer ours about why the PCS is refusing to restart the industrial campaign, and about why PCS bureaucrats including SP members are still on large wages?
Sacha Ismail
Tough words, meek actions
While it's always flattering to have your writings eagerly anticipated you have to wonder if what your saying is just going in one ear and out the other.
I'd like to thank Alison Brown for taking the time to reply to me. I accept it's possible for people and organisations to make mistakes as you and the AWL acknowledge. Now that the matter has been clarified I accept you attempted to contact the Socialist Party regarding your exclusion. I retract my criticism that you failed to inform the rest of the left regarding your exclusion.
Nevertheless I stand by my criticism that the response of Alison Brown and the AWL to this attack was week, inadequate and unserious. I also think it's quite funny that AWL members trumpet the supposed superiority of their politics by pointing to the fact that they have a comment section on their website and then complain when someone uses it. An organisation like the AWL, famed for their vitriolic criticism of others on the left is in no position to complain when others hold them up to scrutiny and take advantage of the facilities they themselves provide.
My fundamental criticism of the AWL is this: In a fight with a hostile bureaucracy the cardinal rule is even though you may be outmatched by them, you never allow the bureaucracy an easy victory.
This is precisely what Alison Brown and the AWL have done. I attribute this to a combination of tactical timidity and political naivety.
First of all your conduct leading up to the SGE.
I find it incredible that in a union where the bureaucracy openly collude with management to victimise members (Younes Baksh) or spread fantastic slanders about prominent activists (Defend the Four et al) that you seemed to think your exclusion was something that could be sorted out with a few emails and a phone call to the Regional Head! The only road is mounting as high profile campaign as possible. This means sending one email to Adrian O'Malley is woefully inadequate when we all know people either don't get or don't read their emails. If your running a defence campaign you don't assume anyone "knows" anything until you've had confirmation from them. Anything else is light minded. I can guarantee you when the Unison bureaucracy were pulling out all the stops to make sure the SGE voted the right way they weren't just relying on one email.
You had two whole days to ring round (with the assistance of your industrial comrades in the AWL) the left in Unison, but most importantly, your own members to let them know what was happening, put it into a political and industrial context and get them to start flooding Regional Office with emails, protests etc in preparation for a confrontation with the Regional Head on Monday.
Then there is your refusal to confront the SGE. You've acknowledged that was a mistake but you underestimate the importance of putting the bureaucracy under the most intense pressure every time it tries to pull a fast one. You seem to think it makes no difference whether you visibly challenged the SGE or not amongst the members. Again this betrays a great deal of naivety. In a situation where the bureaucracy will use the cloak of petty legalisms to disguise their bureaucratic behaviour from the membership every action which tears away this cloak is crucial.
Even if you'd done all the things I outlined above you most likely would still have lost. There's no shame in losing once you've made every effort to overturn things. The point is every second the bureaucracy has to spend dealing with protests, emails, procedural delays, disruption etc is less time they have to engage in other witch-hunting activity or chicanery. The experience of the difficulties in prosecuting one witch hunt will be weighed up by the bureaucracy when it decides whether to embark on another. This is something the SP/Militant knows, as well we should, since our impact on the labour movement has meant we have been the most witch hunted organisation by the bureaucracy in its various guises for the last 30 years. The AWL I fear does not understand this at all being more well versed in grandstanding in the labour movement rather than prosecuting successful political or industrial struggles.
That's why I say all this talk about workers wages is irrelevant as far as the AWL is concerned. You've quite clearly proved that you will never be able to win that struggle in the movement because of your tactical naivety and political weakness.
When the Unison bureaucracy want to exclude the Socialist Party it takes them years of struggle(not to mention the epic battles that went on in the Labour Party or the old CPSA).
When they want to exclude the AWL it takes... 3 days.
Neil, We've admitted we
Neil,
We've admitted we didn't handle this well - something you'll never hear from the SP. But in summary: you're giving the whole episode dramatically more weight than it deserves. Certainly it pales into insignificance compared to PCS's failure to take the initiative in getting more strike action.
However, I guess it does play the useful role of getting you, personally, off the hook of ever having to answer difficult questions from the AWL. You can now just reply with "Ah, but what about Alison Brown?"
As for the idea that we don't know how to put pressure on the union bureaucracy, see here for one example in this dispute where we dragged the SP with us. Rather more significant than failing to shift the Unison HSGE vote from 27-5 to 27-6 (or not, in fact) I'd say.
Lastly, we were also expelled from the Labour Party, and from what I understand our campaign against it was a model compared to Militant's.
Sacha Ismail
Misplaced organisational pride
"I also think it's quite funny that AWL members trumpet the supposed superiority of their politics by pointing to the fact that they have a comment section on their website and then complain when someone uses it." says Neil.
We're not complaining at all, it's good that you come here and make your comments; what we're doing to is replying to them. We need far more debate on the left; far more "you said", "no, you said", even rows, would be good. Instead, we have groups too snooty to talk to others. Snooty from a combination of pride (usually exaggerated) in the achievements of their own group, or anxiety lest acknowledging the existence of another group somehow validates it in the eyes of their own members/contacts... and might lead to losing some of them to it.
Neil, you probably genuinely think we've committed a gross error (I don't - and we've acknowledged a minor one), but take a deep breath and ask yourself whether you're happy with what your group has done on some of the issues aired here, on witch-hunts, for example.
Do you want me to tell you about the time when we were being witch-hunted out of the Labour Party and your organisation at the CPSA broad left conference voted against affiliation to our defence campaign?
Debate
Neil,
Our point is: why doesn't the SP allow debate on its website? And more broadly: why does it not only spurn public debates (preferring to occasionally publish polemics against other organisations with no information about or links to where their original articles or replies can be found), but in fact repeatedly refuse to answer questions about whether it will be debating or not (phone calls not returned, emails not replied to)? And why have many SP local organisations agreed to debate, but then gone cold on it? Could it be that the centre has warned them off?
And another point on the sectarianism of the SP: I think it's telling that, whereas the SWP sent about twenty people to your PCS Left Unity conference, despite it clashing with their internal conference, you sent two people (one a full-timer, I don't know about the other, but I don't think she is a prominent TUist) to the Unite the Resistance conference. Contrast this to the AWL. We had our trade union fractions meeting that day, and are much smaller than the SP, but we still sent four people including two of our most prominent trade unionists. This typifies your arrogant attitude towards the rest of the left.
Sacha