Since 2012, Workers’ Liberty members have been involved in supporting outsourced workers at the University of London in their fight for sick pay, holiday entitlement, and pension equality with their directly-employed colleagues.
Their campaign, “3 Cosas” (“3 Things”), began after their hard-fought campaign to win the London Living Wage, which they won in summer 2012. Throughout both fights, the workers have been self-organised, holding regular workers’ and campaign meetings.
They had been members of the Senate House branch of Unison, and repeatedly attempted to seek the support of their branch for their struggles. After finding themselves blocked by a branch bureaucracy threatened by the idea of a self-organised, militant group of (mainly-migrant) workers, the outsourced staff and their allies amongst directly-employed workers launched a struggle to transform their union, culminating in standing a slate in the branch committee elections. The branch leadership, with the support of Unison’s London Region, undermined and sabotaged the election, and ultimately had it annulled.
After the annulment, a workers’ meeting voted to leave Unison en masse and join the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), a small union based mainly amongst cleaners whose members and organisers had consistently supported the University of London outsourced workers’ struggles.
Their decision has caused controversy on the left. Max Watson, a worker at London Metropolitan University, a socialist, and a member of the Unison National Executive, wrote an article denouncing the workers. He claimed they had been “totally misled” by IWGB organisers, and that their decision to leave Unison was tantamount to “desertion”. He admitted that the Unison leadership had “handled [the situation] badly”, but focused his fire on the workers and their decision to leave (or rather, on the IWGB and the claim that they had somehow manipulated the workers into doing so).
Supporters of the campaign have replied. Jason Moyer-Lee, the Secretary of IWGB UoL, replied in July. In a new reply, Daniel Cooper, a Workers’ Liberty member, Vice President of the University of London Union and a member of both Senate House Unison and IWGB University of London, argues that Max’s position fails in a basic duty of solidarity with workers in struggle, putting questions of union structure above questions of fighting the boss.
He explains that he and other AWL members involved in 3 Cosas had argued for a “dual card” approach — joining the IWGB to give the campaign a framework for organising industrial direct action and solidarity, but continuing to fight in Unison.
But, Daniel write, “even though the 3 Cosas workers ultimately decided on a strategy different from the dual card myself and other AWL comrades argued for, my basic solidarity with them as fellow workers in struggle against their bosses is unconditional.”
The debate raises important questions about whether, and how, socialists active in the labour movement can transform our unions, whether building or joining independent unions is ever a useful tactic, and how we as socialists should relate to fellow workers who take a decision on an organisational question that we may not agree with.
Read the arguments, join the debate!
