Susan Jackson and Jack Hamilton continue our debate on the unions' political funds, with a reply to John Bloxam and John O'Mahony's contribution in the last issue of Solidarity. We invite further contributions.
"A party? inability to establish correct relations with the working class reveals itself most glaringly in the area of the trade union movement?The fatal excesses of the ?hird period?were due to the desire of the small Communist minority to act as though it had a majority behind it?No better favour could be done for the trade union bureaucracy. Had it been within its power to award the Order of the Garter, it should have so decorated all the leaders of the Comintern and Profintern.
"The revolutionary proletarian Party must be welded together by a clear understanding of its historic tasks. This presupposes a scientifically based programme. At the same time, the revolutionary party must know how to establish correct relations with the class. This presupposes a policy of revolutionary realism."
Leon Trotsky, "The ILP and the New International", 1933
"The decisive changes are not, it must be stressed primarily a matter of the policies of New Labour?It is the changes in structures and in the relationships between the party and the unions, the blocking off of the channels of working class representation and possible effective labour movement opposition to Labour government policy, that are decisive here."
John Bloxam and John O?ahony, "A workers?voice in politics", 2003
"For every revolutionary organisation in England its attitude to the masses and to the class is almost coincident with its attitude toward the Labour Party, which bases itself upon the trade unions. At this time the question whether to function inside the Labour Party or outside it is not a principled question, but a question of actual possibilities. In any case, without a strong faction in the trade unions, and, consequently, in the Labour Party itself, the ILP is doomed to impotence even today?Yet, for a long period, the ILP attached much greater importance to the ?nited front?with the insignificant Communist Party than to work in mass organisations?
"But isn? it a fact that a Marxist faction would not succeed in changing the structure and policy of the Labour Party? With this we are entirely in accord: the bureaucracy will not surrender. But the revolutionists, functioning outside and inside, can and must succeed in winning over tens and hundreds of thousands of workers?
Leon Trotsky, "Once Again the ILP", 1936
Marxism is the theory and practice of working class self-liberation. It involves the extension of the realm of reason over the irrational. Marxist trade union tactics have to start from the reality of the class as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. We ground ourselves in the collective discipline of working class organisation and struggle, and we seek to hammer out a line of march, a set of tasks around which we group militants and fight.
A rational perspective requires a "concrete analysis of a concrete situation". So, let us start with the basic facts. The Labour affiliated trade unions encompass the overwhelming majority of the organised working class in industry, and the bulk of low paid workers in the public sector. At the same time a decisive majority of class-conscious workers continue to vote for and support the Labour Party. Meanwhile the revolutionaries are a tiny minority with extremely tenuous connections to most of the class. The Labour Party has won two landslide election victories and looks certain to win the next. In England and Wales socialist candidates get an average of less than 2% of the vote. No more votes than any left wing challenge over the last 30 years. In Scotland that figure is 7%.
These facts indicate that a general policy of attempting to win official union backing for socialist electoral challenges to Labour has no grip. Such a policy could only be implemented if one of two conditions held true: either that we had no intention of allowing the union members a real say in the decision, or, we were deluded enough to think that if we acted as if the majority of the class supported us, they would.
Trade unions are the bedrock, primal form of elementary working class organisation. We should not treat them as if they are select debating societies, or socialist political organisations. The strength of the unions comes from the fact that they are all-inclusive class organs that unite workers on the basis of occupation or industry. The most important unions organising the key sectors of the working class are now?nd will remain for the foreseeable immediate future?abour Party affiliated organisations. Therefore, we strive to find ways to express our ideas in a form that makes sense given this reality. When addressing the unions we should raise the question of working class political independence in terms of what the union is, or is not doing, to fight for trade union control of the Labour Party and of Labour government policy.
A party controlled by workers
The AWL should not take the initiative in proposing fragmenting the trade union political funds. Not because we are conservatives who desire to control developments, but because we are working class militants who believe in workers?democracy.
When proposing a policy for the unions, as unions, we should do nothing that undermines the fundamental collective purpose and class solidarity of the trade unions and renders them incoherent and ineffectual. If there is to be a meaningful political aspect to the unions, it has to be collective and unitary; anything else is out of kilter with the essential nature of trade unions as the embodiment of the principle of class solidarity.
The problem with proposals to parcel up the trade union political fund with different branches backing different parties or multi-party affiliation in which there would be no precise link between any union organ and any candidate, is that they would politically splinter the union and render accountability and control impossible. For the union to be unable to speak with a unified political voice is to put the union in a subordinate relation to the parliamentarian?r would be parliamentarian. Only if the union has a unitary bond with the parliamentary representatives and their party, is any form of accountability possible. Without the possibility of accountability, of replacing those who act against you, of subordinating them to the basic class organs, then what is proposed is not the Marxist idea of the trade unions creating and controlling a new workers?party, but trade union financial support for various incoherent, social democratic-cum-populist initiatives. This would mean reproducing all the worst characteristics of the Labour Party in miniature while losing sight of the revolutionary democratic working class principle of a party controlled by the workers.
As a result of a serious fight by the trade unions to regain some control over the Labour Party, it is highly likely that the issue of supporting working class candidates against imposed Blairites will arise. This would be the actual counter-position of a significant part of the workers?movement?t a local level?o the Blair machine. Once such a fight develops it is impossible to predict how it will evolve, except to say that it will be uneven and will of necessity defy the ability of any budding master strategists to make it run along neat and tidy lines. That is the beauty of the class struggle; it is explosive, unpredictable, in a word revolutionary.
The revolutionary, however, also needs to be able to distinguish the first weeks of pregnancy from the last, and to be able to spot the difference between a genuine movement of the workers and a populist bandwagon.
What is proposed here is not conservatism. It is a fighting policy to unite and organise a broad trade union resistance on the political front, and to organise this opposition around the principle of workers?democracy. What is conservatism?he dim-witted conservatism of fearing to be out of step with the left?s to pretend to be an independent force, while we tag along on the road of protest candidates behind a motley crew of bombastic trade union leaders, the manipulative sectarians of the SWP, self confessedly "apolitical" trade unionists, opportunists from Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, not to mention George Galloway MP and the MAB.
There are only two serious orientations to mass trade union politics today. Either, we fight for the trade unions to regain some kind of control over the Labour Party and in the process rally and organise the forces of a new proto party within the womb of the old. Or, we can declare that Labour is irreformable and immediately press for the unions to organise a new workers?party.
It is clear that the present writers support the first option. The problem dogging this debate is that the other side in this discussion want to back both options, as well as situating themselves at all points north, south, east and west of the argument.
Marxism or scholasticism
"The question of whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. In practice man must prove the truth, that is the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question."
Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, 1845
For Marxists it is impossible to gauge what the actual and lasting impact of Blair? constitutional reforms have been on the nature of the Labour Party until they are put to the test by a militant trade union struggle against them. Just as in the process of production, where there is no other way for the worker to test the strength of any material except by applying pressure to it to determine the breaking point, also in the class struggle?here is no other way to assess the ruling classes?defences, but to probe, apply pressure, get a struggle going and see what happens. The same goes for the bureaucratic structures of the labour movement. To look at the question any other way is pure scholasticism.
We should apply the activist, interventionist, practical, and working class approach, to the urgent need for a fight by the trade unions to reclaim the Labour Party. We can leave the "We can? do that, the Blairites will stop us" scholasticism to the sectarians.
This is not a question of denying that Blairism is a defeat. All that is being said is that defeats are reversible and that they are normally reversed by the methods of class struggle. The class has hundreds of years?experience of reversing defeats, it is not a new idea.
Defeats there have been, but there has been no decisive irreversible shift in the class character of the Labour Party. It remains a bourgeois workers?party. If any qualifications need to be made to this formula they would be that it has become a neo-liberal, business unionist, bourgeois workers?party.
Labour has never been a workers?party in any meaningful political sense, it has always been a bourgeois political machine sitting on top of the trade union movement. The union/labour link has always functioned in the last analysis as a mechanism tying the bedrock organisations of the class to the capitalist state. The fact, that through this mechanism of ruling class domination the trade unions have also secured piecemeal reforms and concessions, is no more remarkable than the idea that the union leaderships can sometimes achieve concessions through agreements regulating the terms of the labour contract.
The fact that there is so little political life in the Labour Party flows fundamentally from the politics and passivity of the trade union leaders. In point of fact it is doubtful if Blair could possibly have hoped for more support from the trade union leaders than he has received. What is decisive and all-shaping in the Labour Party today is the refusal of the union leaders to fight Blair and their bureaucratic grip on the unions preventing the rank and file doing so. The changes to the Labour Party rulebook introduced with Partnership in Power are the alibi, not the crime. To argue that the rule changes are decisive is to lapse into constitutional fetishism and a morbid variant of "Resolutionary Socialism" which deludes itself about the realities of party democracy in Classic Labourism. After all, the normal practice of Labour governments over the last 80 years is to ignore Party Conference. Nor is Blair the first leader to say that he will govern in the interests of the "nation" not the working class. That fashion started with MacDonald. Remember what Trotsky said: the bureaucracy will not surrender.
There are now limited, but very encouraging signs that with the election of new leaders the support that Blair could take for granted?espite token protests?rom the retiring generation of union leaders is no longer guaranteed. Workers are slowly becoming more assertive and want to know what the union is getting from the Labour Party.
We propose as an immediate central priority of the work of all AWL fractions in the affiliated unions, and of the Marxist socialists active in the Labour Party, that we seek to help organise a united front campaign involving union organisations, existing campaigns and CLPs around the theme of "Reclaim the Labour Party". This campaign should be trade union based and would focus on specific demands to reverse the Blairite constitutional changes, restore the formal powers of Labour conference and promote the idea of de-selections and the selection of trade union candidates.
Facts or spin?
John Bloxam and John O?ahony make some very odd statements in their piece in the last edition of Solidarity. The statements are part of painting a picture which justifies turning away "for now" from starting any fight in the mainstream of the labour movement. For instance, consider the claim that: "Regional and National conferences no longer discuss political issues. With these new structures, the Labour Party ?n the country?cannot counter-pose itself to the government". Not true. The 2002 conference voted to oppose government policy on PFI. Blair did what every other Labour Prime Minister has done and announced he would ignore conference. So, the party in the country can counter-pose itself to the government.
Another strikingly odd proposition?ntelligible only as an excuse for inactivity?s that: "The idea of fighting to reclaim the party or of ?efounding the labour representation committee?as yet has little weight, even with the new layers of trade union leaders." This is a perverse claim, a serious piece of "top spin" driven we fear by a desire to force the facts to fit the perspective. What are the facts? Mick Rix of ASLEF has called for the removal of Blair and for the unions to reclaim the Labour Party. Andy Gilchrist of the FBU has been witch hunted for calling for the "Real Labour Party" to assert itself against Blair. Billy Hayes of the CWU has spoken on platforms with a "Reclaim the Party" theme. Derek Simpson of AMICUS was elected in part because he promised to stand up for the union in the Labour Party, rather than simply rubber stamp Blair. The TGWU? Tony Woodley has said one of his first priorities, if elected, would be to convene a meeting of trade union leaders to plan a campaign to reclaim the party. Even establishment candidates like Curran in the GMB have had to campaign on a platform of asserting union interests against Blair. The right wing Labour machine in the UNISON affiliated fund have shown which way the wind is blowing with the declaration that the Partnership in Power structures aren? working. What more evidence do the comrades want?
The desire of Bloxam and O?ahony to play spin-doctor rather than analyse reality doesn? end with the new union leaders. Here is another oddity: "The political funds that go to New Labour (are) a unified mass of politically directed money". No they are not. The political funds do not belong to the Labour Party they belong to the trade union. It is simply not the case that all the money is directed towards the coffers of the New Labour machine. A portion (roughly 40% on average) must be paid to the Labour Party for affiliation the remaining 60% can be spent as the unions decide. (As the comrades Bloxam and O?ahony support the idea of maintaining Labour Party affiliation, then they are as guilty as anybody else of wanting "a unified mass of politically directed money" to go to New Labour).
The issue is how that 60% remaining in the fund is spent. We think it should go to organising activities by workers organising to control the mass political wing of the labour movement and not to keep the presses of the SWP rolling producing glossy election material. In the CWU, which is affiliated to the Labour Party, the 60% is spent on supporting some constituencies, campaigns and pressure groups and in the case of some London branches even backing candidates against Labour. In other unions it is mainly used to bankroll Blairites. The way the fund is spent reflects the state of union democracy and crucially the level and form of political activity in the union. It could not be otherwise.
Tactical use of the funds
Bloxam and O?ahony tells us that "logically" there are only two possible uses of the fund: "One possibility is to argue for continued exclusive support of the New Labour Party?the second possibility is to argue for the tactical use of existing funds" by which they mean "tactical fragmentation of the funds" to support left wing, or labour movement electoral challenges. This is a prime example of an attempt to fit reality into a pre-conceived schema to suite your argument.
They use this a priori construction in order to portray those who want a serious and active trade union led fight in the Labour Party as "conservative upholders of the status quo". It won? work. We are proposing an aggressive tactical use of the funds to complement and fund activity to fight for working class control of union representatives. All they propose is the working class organisation handing over money to somebody else. What is most worrying is that you can only think that tactical use of the funds equals support for non-Labour candidates, if you have already given up on a struggle within and through the Labour/union link.
We would like to see the political funds above the affiliation fee used to organise a wide range of assertive campaigning and organising initiatives both inside and outside the Labour Party. Unions could insist on only funding MPs who would be prepared to be accountable to them. The union could seek to group together and organise pro-trade union MPs, preferably alongside other unions. Support could be given to a campaign to reclaim the Labour Party. Local campaigns could be organised to deselect Blairite MPs and promote democratically accountable trade union candidates. If solidly based trade union candidates were blocked by the Blair machine that would include using the fund to support that candidate and campaign against the official Labour candidate. The precise way this is done is also a tactical matter.
Take for instance the case of the imposed ex-Tory minister Shaun Woodward in St Helens. FBU militant Neil Thompson, who had been carved out of the Labour selection, stood against him on the Socialist Alliance ticket. Nothing could stop a trade union putting out a leaflet saying that the union did not recognise the ex-Tory minister as a bona fide Labour candidate. Nor could anything stop a union spending money and resources on a campaign in the area on public services and trade union rights and seeking out the views of different candidates. Branches confident of support from their members could also have openly backed Thompson. It is simply wrong to suggest that branches, regions and whole unions couldn? campaign for solidly based labour movement challenges to an imposed Blairite. What is more, this can be done without rule changes that would transform the unions?political arrangements into a de-collectivised anarchist mess.
When militants are considering organising union support against New Labour in elections what is decisive is the strength of the union organisation and the views of the workers, not the formal rules. Comrades will no doubt reply, but wouldn? a rule change make it easier to support non-Labour candidates? The problem is that it would perhaps make it too easy. The formal bar on backing non-Labour candidates means that left activists have to be sure of solid support in the workplace before supporting challenges to Labour. That is why there are so few solidly rooted electoral challenges?he support isn? there in the working class. Without that control provided by the rules it is absolutely certain that the sectarians would siphon off branch money without any proper democratic mandate. If you try to get the union rules to move ahead of the class?s most of the left now wants to do?ou simply reproduce the same danger of elitism and bureaucratic substitutionism as in any other attempt to short cut the necessary work of convincing and mobilising the workers. In line with the principle of workers?democracy we should sharply oppose any attempt to change the political fund rules to indicate support for political parties other than Labour, without first putting the proposed rule changes to a ballot of the membership.
There is another issue. Which concerns the advocacy of trade union candidates against Labour, without the preliminaries of a fight for the Labour ticket. This is an area of great confusion. For instance, we still await a clear answer from John Bloxam and John O?ahony on whether they wanted the AWL to intervene into the current fire fighters dispute by calling on the FBU to stand official union candidates against Labour in the recent local government elections (which we think would have been a disastrous counter-productive diversion), or whether they just thought it would have been nice if it had happened, just as it would have been nice if the TUC had called a general strike! They really should explain what they mean by the sentence: "We support any solidly based moves by trade unions to counterpose themselves electorally to New Labour, for example FBU candidates in local elections".
Workers?control or sectarian charity?
The Socialist Alliance are proposing motions to union conferences calling for the political funds to support non Labour candidates as long as they make a vague commitment to "support the policies and principles" of the union. We believe these proposals should be voted down. It is not just that they are a manipulative back door way of proposing trade union funding for the SA and George Galloway MP, and in reality inseparable from that. Or that they are pitched in such a way as to appeal to people who want to open the door for support for Plaid Cymru, the SNP, Greens and Lib Democrats. Nor is our objection based only on the fact that the proposal deliberately ignores the need for a fight to control what the unions?representatives do in the Labour Party and is usually motivated by people who would rather such a fight didn? happen. Nor are we opposed just because we think that if the people proposing the motions were serious, they would take put forward an actual rule change, which workers could support or not on its merits, rather than a vague gesture.
The most powerful objection to what the Socialist Alliance proposes is that it misses the central concern of Marxists?ot just in relation to the fight for a workers?party, and workers?candidates but in relation to all our work in the class movement?he idea of workers?control and democratic accountability. We want candidates, councillors and MPs who are answerable to the trade unions and accountable to them. One cautious pro-Labour proposal that seeks to impose a measure of control and accountability on union representatives in the Labour Party structures or Parliament, or which seeks to get more workers into parliament to promote union policy, embodies more of our programme than the Socialist Alliance? ill-disguised gambit to get its hands on union money. We should vote accordingly.
Some comrades will no doubt argue that despite everything, we should back the SA motions because they establish the principle that the union will support working class candidates against New Labour. True, but the motions also establish the principle that George Galloway and any other skillful opportunist from say the SNP, PC, the Greens or the Liberal Democrats who says they support the "principles and policy of the union" can have union support too. So the motion "in principle" supports both genuine working class and faking anti-working class candidates. It allows for the independence of the working class and the subordination of the working class to alien class forces. Some principle.
Marxists normally support limited and partial proposals because they embody an aspect of our programme. The SA motions do no such thing. They contain a de-politicised organisational formula in lieu of a political proposal. They fail to embody anything of our central concern here, which is, working class representation through trade union control and accountability of candidates, representatives and parties. In conference debates we should sharply distance ourselves from the sectarians. We should speak against along the following lines: "Blair would not worry for one moment if the union voted to one day, maybe, support the odd protest candidate. What he fears is a fight by the unions to take back control of the Labour Party. To start that fight, the union should take a vote of no confidence in Blair. That is something that really would send ripples through the labour movement."
