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Campaign for a New Workers Party
From the Workers Power’s Fifth International Global #275 (see below).
The accounts I have seen of the RMT conference have all sounded very positive indeed - when I have some more time I will dig out some more reports on the conference (from the newly formed SA, from the SP etc etc). Also on the various lists there seems to have been a bit of a sea change in terms of the focus of both the groups (not SWP) and independents with vibrant discussion about the need for a new workers party. All in all a very healthy and positive devolpment. BTW I’m largely in agreement with Workers Power (is that a first?) on this - in particular I think the SP initiative should be supported. More later!
cheers
Dave Parks
Britain: Campaign for a New Workers Party
In London on Saturday 21 January, around 350 trade unionists and socialists crammed into the small hall at Friends House, Euston Road in London, to discuss the crisis of working class representation. The Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) called the conference to discuss the crisis in working class political representation.
With 70,000 members, the RMT has been the most militant and politically conscious British union, in recent years. It was expelled from the Labour Party in 2004 for agreeing to support other parties from its political fund. A resolution calling for such a conference has been passed (twice) by the union’s annual conference.
Nearly a hundred people were unable to get in, due to union’s serious underestimation of the numbers who would be attracted to such a meeting. The conference had hardly been advertised until the last week or two. So the fact that 450 - many more of whom than usual for a left conference were blue collar workers - turned up, was a considerable achievement. Unfortunately there were too many platform speakers and the debate from the floor was squeezed into only one hour, the whole meeting only lasting from 12:00am to 3:00pm.
The omission of a Respect speaker from the platform was also an error, since it clearly represents one important (if false) solution to the question of working class representation. There were, according to Socialist Worker, 70 members of Respect present and an equal number from the Socialist Party. Nevertheless there were many trade unionists, unaffiliated to these currents.
The most serious absence was Matt Wrack, the new left general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). Some rank and file FBU members were present, but Wrack, as a former rank and militant in his union and the Socialist Alliance, and the author of a pamphlet on political representation, would have added weight to the proceedings. Indeed, the FBU, like the RMT, now finds itself excluded from the Labour Party, due to the latter’s demand for political hegemony over the unions..
From the chair, RMT president Tony Donaghey explained his union executive’s stipulation that that the meeting should not take any resolution, and certainly not become a forum to launch a new working class party. This again is a serious weakness.
No one in her or his right mind would have suggested a meeting like this could “found” a new workers party, but it could have, as Workers Power suggested, called for the opening of a discussion process, and for similar conferences and meetings at a local and regional level. It could also have called on the executive of the RMT to reconvene another and bigger conference later in the year, which could debate resolutions.
Nevertheless nearly every speaker from the floor expressed the crying need for such a party and described the forces in the workplaces and localities that could be won to its ranks. Many too, whilst congratulating the RMT, urged them to hold another “recall” conference in the big hall (holding over a thousand), which they said would be full too.
Such comments invariably received enthusiastic applause. In this sense, there was no doubt what the overwhelming will of the meetings was and individuals and trade union branches should get various union bodies, trades councils, campaigns, political and youth organisations to write to the RMT, urging them to do this.
In truth, the RMT executive had been under pressure to hold the meeting from its own rank and file, as well as wider forces on the left. First, for two years running, the union’s AGM (conference) had, on the initiative of a Workers Power member, called for such a conference. Second, the RMT urgently needs a fighting political movement to achieve its wider aims, like the abolition of the draconian anti-union laws.
As a result, RMT general secretary Bob Crow felt obliged to give one of his most left speeches for a while. He roundly denounced Labour for no longer representing trade unionists, carrying on with Tory policies on privatisation, preserving Thatcher’s anti-union laws and mocking the idea that Brown would be any better than Blair.
But instead of drawing the logical conclusion of calling for a socialist and working class alternative to the Labour Party, he stopped short. While he pointed out that the party was irreformable, he warmly praised the group of RMT sponsored Labour MPs, as if this was an alternative strategy.
Crow’s main emphasis, however, was on what should be done in the unions.
“We’ve got no leadership from the TUC whatsoever” he said. The major union leaders all ignored their membership’s wishes. He pointed out that, if a shop steward refuses to fight, the members they could get rid of him or her, but it was not so at the top of most unions.
He claimed that unions now only organised around 18 per cent of the workforce, that the total number of TUC affiliated union members was under half of what it had been at the end of the 1970s. He criticised the TUC for delaying the calling of national demonstration against the anti-union laws. Now they had a last decided to hold one on 1 May, which must be supported.
He pointed out that this bad leadership had to be changed and that, “What we need to come out of such conferences as this is a national shop stewards movement.” This is certainly an important call, which should be taken up by rank and file militants right across the union movement.
What was wrong was the implication that such activity within the unions was pre-requiste to, or a higher priority than a new working class party. In fact they should proceed hand in hand, and would greatly re-enforce one another. Still, for a general secretary to call for rank and file militants to organise across the unions is certainly no everyday event and should be taken up with vigour.
Crow also said that what was needed was a change in the very basis of society, in the system. However he also aid it was not easy for a union to build a political party and things had to start in the workplace, at the point of production. In particular he made fun of the idea of a European Party or World Party. Could we hold meetings in Vienna or in Australia?
Why not, Bob? In the era of globalisation and the internet, of a European dockworkers’ strike, why should we not be able to do what Marx, Engles Lenin and Trotsky did, i.e build a working class International. It is even more necessary today and we have even more resources to do it. Bob Crow is certainly one of the most influential left union leaders, probably the most outspoken, but his political perspective was hesitant in the extreme.
Colin Fox, MSP and national convenor of the Scottish Socialist Party, said he and his party welcomed the meeting. For some years now, the English movement had been “punching below its weight”. He urged people there to continue to work towards a new party that would unite the left and achieve the sort of breakthrough the SSP had achieved. He admitted the last year or so had been a difficult one for his party (an oblique reference to the resignation from the leadership of Tommy Sheridan) but it was now back on track.
John McDonnell MP, from the Labour Representation Committee, paid a fleeting visit. He made no attempt to persuade those present to have patience and hold on to the perspective of reclaiming Labour. Instead, he argued that the present situation was a very positive one, thanks to the existence of mass movements, like that around the G8 and the Stop the War Coalition. His answer? We need a united front of all these campaigns, in which the left MPs could and would do their bit.
Dave Nellist, of the Socialist Party, by contrast clearly called for the formation of a new working class party. He said a new party could win a whole generation of young people to socialism. He explained that was why the Socialist Party had launched the Campaign for a New Workers Party.
Other speakers included Jean Lambert, MEP for the Green Party, Gordon MacLellan, former CPGB general secretary, who plugged the European Left Party and the German Linkspartei as a model to follow, and Hilary Wainwright of Red Pepper, who urged people to build first from the localities and not to go too fast.
Britain: Campaign for a New Workers Party
Paul Holborow (SWP) tried to promote Respect, to some merriment - indeed, whenever the visibly discomfited SWP leaders mentioned Respect there was laughter, due to the present incarceration of its MP in the Big Brother House.
Correctly taking up Bob Crow’s call for a shop stewards movement, Holborow incredibly held up “that magnificent organisation, the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions”, as the model. In fact, though the LCDTU undoubtedly mobilised huge actions and demonstrations (including political strikes), it was far from a democratic, let alone rank and file movement.
It was always under the stranglehold of the Communist Party, who subordinated it to the then left leaders, Hugh Scanlon of the Engineers and Jack Jones of the Transport and General Workers Union, rather than a forum for debate and action independent of them. Indeed, once Labour was back in power in 1974, the LCDTU was put into mothballs.
The SWP (then the International Socialists) participated in, but harshly criticised and fought the LCDTU in the 1970s. So far to the right has the SWP moved that the CPGB policies of the 1970s have become their model for work in the trade unions today!
A sombre looking John Rees, national secretary of Respect, criticised “George’s decision” but could not explain how it came about and was reduced to saying that you could not write off Respect because it had won 250,000 votes:
“It’s hard to agree a platform and candidates for a new radical organisation, but the hardest bit is to get votes. Respect has been more successful than other initiatives that have tried to achieve this goal.” The SWP believes that the more working class and socialist you make a programme the less votes it will attract and that the latter is the most important issue.
Worse, they believe that you can have a first class and a second class party and programme. One, Respect, there to roll in the votes, is barely “socialist”, let alone a revolutionary combat party. The other, the SWP, is verbally revolutionary, but too small and weakly rooted to be the combat party that millions of workers need.
That is why the SWP has built Respect around the “celebrity” George Galloway, with his dodgy record of flattering Saddam Hussein, his reactionary views on women, abortion and open borders. They have defended his freedom from all control by his own party and Rees even said at the Respect conference that, if you want an MP who answers the phone from the office (his demagogic belittling of democratic accountability), “Get another one!”
His words have come back to bite him on the bum. He only got a call from George to say what he was going to do 24 hours before he entered the Big Brother House.
However, the response of the SWP to the RMT conference is interesting and compares sharply with the negative attitude expressed by them and Respect up to a couple of weeks ago., which could be summed up as, “Bob Crow is welcome to join Respect.” This week’s Socialist Worker, by contrast, says:
“There is clearly a thirst for a viable force to the left of Labour and it is very important that the RMT has reacted to its expulsion from Labour by helping to take the debate forward. If significant trade union forces were to assist in the formation of a new party it would be a crucial step.”
A week or two in a long time in politics, especially when Respect’s MP has spent it in the Big Brother House (a grotesque reality TV show for non-UK readers). One speaker, Brian Heron, drew the lesson that obviously George Galloway was not under the control of his party, and what a terrible role this independence of MPs from the membership of their parties had played in the whole history of the Labour Party.
Greg Tucker, of London RMT and a member of Respect, argued that this was a very important gathering and held the potential to build some thing “even bigger and better than Respect”. Greg is a member of the Fourth International’s British section, which has entered Respect. His comments revealed, however, that they are not entirely happy or confident about its current direction.
Britain: Campaign for a New Workers Party
Jeremy Dewar, Workers Power, called for a new party to break from the rotten traditions of the twentieth century, in which MPs and municipal councillors, union leaders and unelected party apparatchiks become the centre and unaccountable leadership of the party. He underlined the fact that any new party would have to become a combat party, based on the struggles of the militant unions and those workers and sections of the poor and the oppressed, who are outside of the unions.
The union bureaucracy, especially the leaders of the “big four” unions, were an enormous obstacle, he said, but one that could be overcome if the campaign for a new working class party held fringe meetings at every union conference and organised regional gatherings. He urged the RMT to call another and bigger conference which could debate and discuss the way forward.
In Workers Power’s leaflet (available from www.workerspower.com) and at the following Socialist Party fringe meeting, we warned that any party, which succeeded in pushing back the bosses’ neoliberal offensive, which encroached on the bourgeoisie’s wealth, privileges and power, and which began to curtail the state’s forces of repression, would meet serious resistance on the scale of Chile 1973 or worse. Basra would come to Britain.
For this reason, Workers Power argued, a new party should be formed on a revolutionary programme - though we stressed that this was not some sort of pre-condition or ultimatum. Rather, we said that, in the necessary debate on its programme, such a new party must discuss the fundamental issues: could capitalism be reformed away, was a revolution necessary? And in this debate revolutionaries had the duty to argue for a revolutionary programme.
All in all the conference was an important one. Firstly, the speakers from the floor were much clearer than most of the platform speakers (the exception being Dave Nellist) that a new party was not only ripe but rotten ripe, It was a big defect that the conference could not issue any sort of call.
Of course such a meeting could not found such a party, but it could have issued a call to campaign for a representative conference, supported by unions like the RMT and FBU, and by the significant minorities in other unions, who support the idea. This would have made a clear and decisive step in the right direction.
Fortunately, under the initiative of the Socialist Party, a Campaign for a New Workers Party has been formed, which Workers Power has joined (www.cnwp.org.uk).
We have clear and major differences with the Socialist Party about the political basis of such a party, as well as their past and present analysis of the Labour Party. But we urge both trade union bodies and socialist organisations, as well as youth and community organisations to join up and campaign around the union conferences this year.
A broad and democratic campaign, with as many trade union bodies affiliating, will help insure that it is democratically run, allows for the expression of differences, but concentrates on unity in action to achieve the goal of a huge and representative conference which could found a new mass working class party.
We urge the RMT and the FBU too to put their weight behind this course of action. If every one of the RMT regions called a similar conference as the South West region has pledged to, this would be a big start. As many individuals and bodies as possible should attend the founding conference of the Campaign for a New Workers Party. Locally trades councils and union branches should call meetings to discuss the RMT conference.
In the union conference season fringe meetings should be held to argue for a new mass workers party, and sign up supporters. Where possible, for this year and next, conference resolutions calling on all Labour affiliated unions to leave the party, and sign up for a new workers party should be put down. Unaffilated unions should take up the issue of political representation with the same objective.
We believe that this will not only help bring about political clarification and begin the building of a real alternative to Blair and Brown, but it can enormously strengthen a movement to democratise the unions and put them on a new and militant course. Bob Crow’s call for a national shop stewards movement should be taken up. It should, however, be more than a support network for unions in struggle.
It should be a forum where policy can be debated and a movement that can implement such policy built. It should not become a fan club for left general secretaries. It must act with the union leaders where possible, without them where necessary. It must be a movement which organises to replace the sell-out merchants and to democratise the unions so that trade union bureaucracy as a whole is dissolved.
Lay delegate executives should replace fulltime officials, under the control of, and paid the same average wage as their members, and recallable at short notice by the members who elected them. But no rank and file movement, no expansion of mass unionisation, such as have marked the history of the labour movement, have ever taken place separate from a political initiative.
Forward to a new mass combat party, won to a revolutionary programme! top |