Most UNITED LEFT Executive members were shocked and angry last week at
an article entitled “BA workers should reject this shoddy deal” which
appeared in the “Socialist Worker” 21 May edition and which was being
sold by three UNITED LEFT Executive Council members who are members of
SWP outside Congress House whilst the UNITE Executive was in session.
The paper first appeared on Wednesday the day after we had debated the
conclusion to our long running UNITE British Airways Cabin Crew dispute.
The article caused offence by implicitly criticising our left General
Secretary Len McCluskey and our UNITE BASSA reps for recommending this
“terrible deal”.
No-one was more upset by this than our two UNITED LEFT Executive
Council members from BASSA who have lived and breathed this dispute for
the past two years, and whom the rest of us had congratulated only the
day before for a remarkably good settlement after one of the most bitter
and ruthless disputes in recent times. The other members of our UNITED
LEFT executive group were also incensed by the article, which was seen
as a public act of treachery by the Socialist Workers Party whose
members participate in UNITED LEFT and sit on the Executive. At the very
least it must be seen as a supreme act of disloyalty towards our
left-run Unionincluding our BASSA reps and our left General Secretary.
The article was a typical piece of ultra-leftism which seeks to turn
members against their own union, twisting and stretching facts about the
negotiated deal to paint the blackest picture possible. We all know
that the BA settlement was not an outright victory and that labour cost
savings were always going to part of any final settlement. However the
recovery of staff travel concessions, a solution to deal with the
disciplines and dismissals of both members and reps, and the recovery of
trade union recognition and representation rights represented a major
climbdown by the Company. For this group of workers to stand up against
the bullying and anti-union tactics of this powerful multinational
(which had the full backing of the establishment and we understand a £2
billion warchest to “smash BASSA”) had always been the most impressive
aspect to this dispute and to conclude it with such credit was widely
welcomed at the Executive Council.
What many UNITED LEFT colleagues are now asking is how can we sit
alongside SWP members whose party newspaper attacks the union in this
way? Who are they to interfere in the details of a collective bargaining
agreement which was endorsed not only by the BASSA reps but widely
applauded at a special meeting attended by 2000 members? Is the SWP
capable of understanding the realities of the industrial relations
situation facing these members, or what the collective aspirations are
of the majority? Finally why would the SWP want to attack UNITED LEFT
BASSA reps – and our left General Secretary - and try to undermine this
latest deal as it goes to the membership for a ballot vote?
The answer to the first question is that our BASSA reps are saying they
do not now wish to attend UNITED LEFT meetings if SWP members are
present. That view is being shared by an increasing number of UNITED
LEFT supporters. Is this now a “step too far?”
The UNITED LEFT National Co-ordinating Committee is meeting on Saturday
11 June prior to the Rules Conference to take a view on the amendments.
We therefore invite comments and views especially from UNITED LEFT
Regions for our consideration at that meeting on what UNITED LEFT should
do with regards to acceptance of SWP members within our organisation.
Martin Mayer Paul Birkett
Chair Secretary
UNITED LEFT UNITED LEFT
The
agreement with British Airways endorsed by the Unite trade union was so
bad that, for days after it was known that the union was recommending
acceptance, it was impossible to find out what it contained.
Even at the mass meeting of cabin crew on May 12, where it was
agreed to ballot on the proposed deal, its contents were not
disclosed—in order to buttress the claims made by Unite and its general
secretary Len McCluskey that an “honourable settlement” had been
reached.
In reality, after a dispute lasting 20 months, Unite did far
worse than to accept all of BA’s demands, with the slashing of jobs and
introduction of a two-tier workforce with new entrants on inferior pay.
It signed up to an open-scabs charter, agreeing to BA’s right to train
and use a special pool of replacement cabin crew in the event of any
future strike. It also pledged that it would not defend its own members
should they take legal action against BA, such as an employment
tribunal, and agreed for workers to be penalised if they take industrial
action.
The first public airing of the details of the agreement
provoked a bitter dispute between the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and
Socialist Party (SP), which work together in the United Left faction of
Unite.
The publication in the Socialist Worker of a May 21 article
detailing what was being proposed and calling for rejection provoked a
witch-hunting response from the United Left.
United Left chair and Unite executive member Martin Meyer and
United Left secretary Paul Birkett circulated a letter declaring, “Most
United Left Executive members were shocked and angry last week at an
article entitled ‘BA workers should reject this shoddy deal’ which
appeared in the Socialist Worker 21 May edition and which was being sold
by three UNITED LEFT Executive Council members who are members of the
SWP outside Congress House whilst the UNITE Executive was in session…
The article caused offence by implicitly criticising our left Secretary,
Len McCluskey and our UNITE BASSA reps for recommending the ‘terrible
deal’.”
Meyer and Birkett went on to denounce the article as “a public
act of treachery”, “a supreme act of disloyalty towards our left-run
Union, including our BASSA reps and our left General Secretary,” and “a
typical piece of ultra-leftism which seeks to turn members against their
own union”.
It closes by suggesting that the SWP should be expelled from the United Left.
“What many UNITED LEFT colleagues are now asking is how can we
sit alongside SWP members whose party newspaper attacks the union in
this way?... Is this now a ‘step too far?’”
The Socialist Party solidarised itself with the scathing attack
on the SWP for the “crime” of breaking ranks with the United Left—even
though it initially wrote in the Socialist that “serious question marks
must hang over the conduct of the national union leadership during the
dispute.”
Keven Parslow, convenor of the Socialist Party’s Unite caucus,
makes clear that such comments are mere political camouflage. No one,
above all “lefts” from McCluskey on down to Meyer, Birkett and “our
BASSA reps”, must be identified as the architects of a betrayal.
Parslow complains that, unlike the Socialist Party, the SWP’s
coverage of the deal is “too one-sided and didn’t draw a true balance
sheet of the dispute”… the Socialist Party recognised that the dispute
had reached an impasse…”
He then makes a pro forma call to oppose the expulsion of the
SWP from the United Left, stating, “It would set a dangerous precedent
that could be used against others who make criticisms of the leadership
of the union, even when made in a constructive fashion” (emphasis
added).
This for-the-record statement only emphasises the Socialist
Party’s absolute loyalty to the union bureaucracy, even when they make a
rare “constructive” criticism.
The present barrage of vitriol, it should be emphasised, is
being levelled against a party that has worked for years as a loyal
component of the bureaucratic apparatus in the United Left of Unite and a
score of other unions. The SWP has responded with an abject apology,
stating that because its May 21 article only “went through the details
of the latest offer” and “did not attempt to go through the whole
context of the dispute… We accept that this has allowed some comrades to
interpret it in ways which we never intended… Far from seeking to
denigrate Unite, we raise questions and criticisms about the offer
because we are so committed to making sure that there continues to be a
strong Unite presence at BA.”
The SWP manage to state that they are “completely committed”,
“absolutely committed” and “want to remain” working with “other left
comrades” and “comrades with a variety of views” within “Our United
Left”.
The SWP’s belated criticism of the shameful deal struck by
Unite was a face-saving exercise, forced upon it by the overt, rotten
betrayal of the cabin crew dispute. The BA dispute was led into an
“impasse” precisely because Unite took it there. Having repeatedly
called off strikes by cabin crew, Unite was busy doing deals with the
company to impose attacks on other sections of BA workers and airport
staff.
In March 2010 the union, along with GMB and BALPA, agreed that
staff would fund the £3.7 billion deficit in the company pensions by
increasing employee contributions by 4.5 percent. In September Unite and
the GMB agreed a deal for customer service staff that involved slashing
500 posts at Heathrow terminals 3 and 5. In August Unite called off a
strike at the British Airports Authority, which owns six airports
including Heathrow, by 8,400 ground handling staff, security and
firefighters to accept a below-the-rate-of-inflation pay deal.
The statement issued by Meyer and Birkett uses the word “left”
18 times—to describe themselves, McCluskey and Unite as a whole. Nothing
better illustrates how the term has come to be divorced from its real
meaning.
By what measure can McCluskey be considered a “left”? The term
is associated with oppositional tendencies against capitalism. It is
being abused in order to provide a free pass to a section of the trade
union bureaucracy to carry out the most craven betrayals. Indeed, the
agreement signed at BA is essentially no different from the type of
single-union, no-strike deals struck in the 1980s by Eric Hammond of the
now defunct electricians’ union, the EETPU.
Today the unions have all travelled the path pioneered by
Hammond. On all fundamental issues, the self-designated “left” in the
unions is indistinguishable from the avowed right wing.
Nor do the language and methods employed by the United Left
have anything to do with anything left or socialist. Far from
representing an oppositional movement, formations such as the United
Left operate as a semi-official franchise, run by and for a section of
the union bureaucracy, which may or may not retain membership in what
should properly be termed the ex-“left” political groups.
An extraordinarily high number of leading figures in the
Socialist Party, SWP and similar groupings have integrated themselves
into the highest echelons of the trade union apparatus. In these
positions, they misuse terms such as “left”, “militant” and “fight” only
in order to better oppose the development of an independent movement of
the working class and the fight for a genuine socialist perspective.
United Left members in fact make up a majority of the Unite
bureaucracy, with 48 of the 80 members of its Executive. The situation
is repeated in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the
University and College Union (UCU), and elsewhere.
The working class should treat the ex-left for what it is: the
representative of a privileged middle class layer of careerists in the
union apparatus and academia, virulently opposed to the necessary break
with unions that are dedicated to the suppression of the class struggle.
Unite activists launch Grass Roots Left
Marcus Halaby, Unite member, reports on the Grass Roots Left conference and the next steps for this important development
The Grass roots Left is a rank and file network in Unite. It was
formed after last year’s General Secretary election campaign, in which
hundreds of rank and file campaigners delivered over 50,000 votes for
Jerry Hicks, a victimised convenor at Bristol Rolls Royce.
Since then,
seven GRL candidates won a combined 23,000 votes in the recent NEC
elections, narrowly missing out on a seat.
Conference
May’s founding conference pulled together Unite shop stewards and
activists from across the country and received greetings from whole
branches, such as Swindon Honda. It openly set out to establish a new
type of left in Unite, one based on the rank and file and independent of
all wings of the bureaucracy.
GRL’s draft constitution calls for “rank and file control over all
negotiations and industrial action, defiance of the anti-union laws,
wherever they are invoked” and strikes and occupations “with the backing
of the officials when possible, without them where necessary”.
This breaks with the Broad Left tradition of electing left officials and
instead challenges the whole bureaucratic set-up. The constitution will
be fully debated and adopted at a conference in the autumn.
Rank and file network
Unite is moving cautiously and hesitantly to the left. General Secretary
Len McCluskey has fought for co-ordinated strikes and is balloting
Unite healthworkers for action on 30 June. He has called on branches to
join anti-cuts committees and affiliated the union to Coalition of
Resistance. The NEC has called on Unite sponsored councillors and MPs to
vote against cuts, encouraged branches to strike against job losses and
urged members to “protest and show solidarity as far as they can” with
other unions on strike.
But talk is cheap. The same United Left bloc that dominates the NEC
and drafted this excellent policy is currently selling out the BA cabin
workers’ dispute. The GRL must support every left move that the United
Left makes, while mercilessly criticising every crime that it commits.
That way, the United Left bloc will split – between those who want to
fight and those who merely want to pass resolutions.
The GRL must build local groups, like in London, that meet regularly,
discuss problems and agree on action. They need to develop websites and
bulletins. They need to intervene in disputes and sign up the best
militants.
This way, we can build a new type of union left, a rank and file
movement, that can inspire and link up with similar organisations in
other unions.
Short URL: http://www.workerspower.co.uk/?p=1160
Grass Roots Left aims to launch a new type of Left in Unite
http://www.grassrootsleft.org/
We are different. We are genuinely on the Left (look at our policies)
unlike some of the right wing groups and General Secretary supporters
clubs who claim to be. We are wanting to restore democracy in Unite and
take back control of our union for the members, to restore power to the
rank and file or 'grass roots' .
Unite is currently run by a small number of highly paid bureaucrats,
fighting each other with their tiny careerist cliques which all purport
to be the 'Broad Left' in the union. We can change that.
Independent
of the Union machine: Free from the control of ‘appointed’ officials:
Grass Roots Left:
Reclaiming the Union for the members.
Find
out more: Get involved: Be part of it.
Last
Saturday’s [May 7th] Supporters Conference became the launch of the ‘Grass Roots Left’.
The
conference was convened to discuss the most recent ‘Unite’ elections those of,
General Secretary, in which Jerry Hicks got 52,527 votes, and that of ‘Unites’
National Executive Committee [NEC] where our 7 candidates got an impressive
combined vote of 23,100. On ‘fighting’ platforms.
Following a
superb debate a proposition was put to the vote: "This meeting is in
favour of setting up a Grass Roots Left
organisation, currently operating in Unite but which can be extended to other
appropriate unions." This was overwhelmingly agreed.
However,
owing to the fact that there were many supporters who had wanted to be at the
conference but were not able to attend, the meeting decided to:
Elect an interim
Chair, Secretary, Treasure and National Committee whilst, deferring the
adoption of a constitution and to hold a recall meeting in 6 months. [If
you wish to be part of the NEC as an observer please email jerryhicks4gs2010@yahoo.co.uk ]
This is an
excellent beginning in the fight for a bottom up, member led, member controlled
opposition currently in Unite, but also across other unions where appropriate.
The need for
this has never been greater and the gap between the Union and it’s members
never wider. With the most shocking example being that a massive 92% of members
did not take part in the vote to elect ‘Unites’ NEC. [Remarkably, little has
been said or written about this horrendous situation].
The disconnected, disengaged
and disaffected millions are precisely those who should be part of the Grass Roots Left to fight for everyone’s future
and against the cuts of this vicious Con-Dem government.
In contrast
to the ‘surrender’ slogan of the TUC, many trade union leaders and the Labour
party leadership of
‘Cut’s, yes but not so fast and not so deep’
We say, "It’s not a crisis of our making
so we why should we be made to pay with our jobs, pay, pensions and
services".
- A Union
cannot be a truly democratic union without the election of all
officials.
- Elected by
the members, not appointed by the General Secretary or a panel.
- Confronting
anti-union and other unjust laws in the UK and EU.
- For a
fighting union, not just a campaigning one.
- Independent
of the union’s machine and free from the involvement of appointed full
time officials.
Contact us: email jerryhicks4gs2010@yahoo.co.uk
or Tel 07817827912
Press Release 10/5/11:
The Grass Roots Left Alliance was formally founded at a meeting of 44 members
and observers on 7 May in London. It was launched by the following motion; “This
meeting is in favour of setting up a grass roots left organisation, currently
operating in Unite but can be extended to other appropriate unions.”
Jerry Hicks told the meeting that he had received 120 apologies and messages of
support including some from activists and reps with a strong industrial base.
The meeting decided to defer the adoption of a constitution to a recall meeting
in 6 months, as some present had not had time to study the draft prepared by the
London GRL. In the meantime interim Officers and an interim National Committee
would operate.
The Officers elected were:
Chair - Jerry Hicks, Secretary, Gerry Downing, Treasurer, Golam Bhuiyan, and
National Committee members; PM, MB, MG, JL, JA, IS, NS, MS, BM, DB, LD, ME, KR,
AP (one job share).
The left in Unite is -in many respects – riding high. The main left group in the union, the United Left (UL)
controls the Exective and its candidate, Len McCluskey, won the recent
General Secretary election by a big majority and will be taking over
from February when Tony Woodley stands down as GS and takes charge of
the union’s Organising Department.
Meanwhile the ‘Workers Uniting’ group that backed Les Bayliss in the
GS election, has disbanded – although it seems that some of its
supporters have formed a new outfit called the ‘Independent Left.’
On Saturday the UL held a meeting in Birmingham attended by about 250
Unite members. The main item on the agenda was the selection of
candidates for the forthcoming Executive elections, resulting in this slate.
‘Unite Now’, by the way, is a new grouping formed by Simon Dubbins
claiming to have no significant political disagreements with the
UL…which raises the rather obvious question of why it exists…
nevertheless, Unite Now seems to have the support of some good activists
and the UL has quite correctly taken the view that in certain sectors
(noteably Construction) and regions (East Midlands), the two groups
should support each other’s candidates.
The other significant decision taken at Saturday’s meeting was to
readmit the SWP to full membership of the UL. members of the SWP had
been suspended from holding office in the UL following the SWP’s
decision to support Jerry Hicks rather than Len McCluskey in the GS
election. Leading members of the SWP’s Unite fraction had accepted their
suspension with good grace and there was clearly an understanding
between them and the UL leadership that the suspension would be lifted
once the election was over. In the end, the following statement was
overwhelmingly endorsed:
The decision to readmit the SWP was clearly correct, if only to
ensure that some good industrial militants stay with the UL and are not
tempted to throw in their lot with the increasingly bizarre
fantasist Jerry Hicks, the preposterous petty bourgeois David Beaumont
and their ill-named ‘Grass Roots Left.’
But there are challenges and difficulties facing the UL: not least
the need to turn it from being a faction that still operates as though
it’s an oppostion group, into a movement for rank and file democracy,
willing to work with allies who may not be part of the UL, but stand for
the interests of the union and the class as a whole. Formal
political positioning is not the major issue in Unite: there is
no “right wing” any more, and the UL’s differences with Bayliss and
Davison (and before them, Aitkin), were not over formal political
positions. This is something that people from other unions find
difficult to understand. It’s well summed up by a long-standing Unite
activist I spoke to recently:
