If unions are to progress they must always reflect and represent their members, not extremist groups or factions. I think that there is a problem in some (not by any means all) trade union branches which needs to be addressed. I haven't got the answer and I'll be interested to hear any suggestions.
I think this example will illustrate what the problem is. There is an inner London trade union branch that I am aware of, who has about 4000 members who all work in a tightly defined geographical area. It is a wealthy branch with hundreds of thousands of pounds of assets and directly employed local administration staff.
However, at the branch committee last week, which is supposed to represent members and run the branch, out of 15 possible committee members the meeting started with just 6 present. Of which 4 were active members of the Socialist Workers Party/Respect, one a lifelong member of the former CPGB and the other a member of the Labour Party. A number of recent meetings had been inquorate
How can anyone in their wildest dreams think that this political make up actually reflects the membership of the branch?
I think this example will illustrate what the problem is. There is an inner London trade union branch that I am aware of, who has about 4000 members who all work in a tightly defined geographical area. It is a wealthy branch with hundreds of thousands of pounds of assets and directly employed local administration staff.
However, at the branch committee last week, which is supposed to represent members and run the branch, out of 15 possible committee members the meeting started with just 6 present. Of which 4 were active members of the Socialist Workers Party/Respect, one a lifelong member of the former CPGB and the other a member of the Labour Party. A number of recent meetings had been inquorate
How can anyone in their wildest dreams think that this political make up actually reflects the membership of the branch?
No wonder that this committee continually passes SWP/Respect motions that hardly any of the branch would support and it also endorses (mostly) SWP/Respect candidates in union regional and national elections.
I understand that in this branch there are only 10 (at most) members who belong to SWP/Respect while there are over a 1000 Labour Party affiliate levy payers.
I know that some people may respond to this situation by saying its the membership's "fault" for not standing for election and not turning up at meetings. However, what if these meetings are so long, boring and irrelevant to main stream trade unionists, that they just cannot see why they should give up their lunch break to be lectured on the evils of the capitalist world.
For instance at this committee meeting there was no less than six motions to be "debated", some good ones but most regurgitated SWP/Respect propaganda (the Labour government are all war criminals etc etc).
I think that the answer to this problem is to empower and democratise the membership. That is the easy thing to say, the hard bit is how?
I think that the answer to this problem is to empower and democratise the membership. That is the easy thing to say, the hard bit is how?
19 comments:
Good post, John.
This is absoultely the biggest issue facing UNISON. It is absurd that these small, unrepresentative groups can get control of our branches and use them to promulgate the policies of their political parties.
If there's any doubt about how they work, just look at what happened on the PCS Executive. Two SWP members of that body voted for a deal on pensions, only to be hauled over the coals by SWP members who reminded them they were expected to toe the party line - not that of the wider membership who put them there. If I recall it rightly one of the members resigned from the SWP and the other apologised and gave a plaedge to follow the party line in future.
And, of course there are SWP and SPEW (Socialist Party of England and Wales - crazy guys, crazy acronym?) members on UNISON's NEC.
I don't have any big solutions to offer but it's brilliant that you've opened the debate publicly in this way. I really hope some more UNISON members get involved in it - especially those who aren't the usual suspects flooding blogworld with their narrow view of how UNISON should lead the revolution.
This isn't such a problem in my own union amicus as everything runs around the general secretary.
Try your best to work and get on with the labour left as they are a million times better than the SWP if a bit difficult at times.
What labour tend to find in NUS is that the SWP have about 100 members and half of those get elected as delegates due to fab organisation.
So I think organise to win for members could be a bit of a motto!
I think we've got to get away from all this us and them stuff with the full-timers. Too many treat them like the enemy. Of course there will be tensions, but it doesn't help people going round shouting 'bureaucrat' at them. I've had run-ins with my FTO, but it's all been done on the basis of disagreement that is handled as differences of opinion on strategy or tactics, and sometimes I don't exactly like what the rules say, but it's not the FTOs who decided them - it's the members! The FTO's are not our 'class enemy' - they are there to work with us to achieve UNISON's priorities.
get soem rotation in the leaderships - they hang on for years and stagnate while the branch falls apart under them. What about a rule change that forces a clear out every now and then to make way for others?
What Is To Be Done?
There’s an awful lot to do.
First we need to establish some common ground: the SWP is a parasite organisation which claims to have revolutionary aims. It builds its membership through preying on disaffected union members and others drawn into campaigning activity in which the SWP is involved. They are disproportionately effective in our union because their nature is that of a cult – demanding utmost loyalty and the devotion of one’s energies to a fanatical degree. At the same time as they preach revolution they climb into bed with organisations that reject not just a woman’s right to choose but also the right of LGBT people to simple human rights. The other Heinz 57 varieties of left parties are virtually identical, based on minor theoretical ‘angels dancing on pin heads’ arguments. All of them use the union and its resources to recruit to their party, and attack our union in doing so.
Then there are the far left activists who have to represent members on an individual basis. What kind of confidence could a member have in being represented by someone who was actively involved in a party which was a coalition of forces that included a significant group whose leader believed that female genital mutilation, wife beating, and the murder of gay men was OK? Or what should an Iraqi member do when she finds out her representative the previous day may have been on a demonstration calling for victory for the terrorist Iraqi ‘resistance’? Or a Jewish member whose representative is near to tears over an Israeli missile strike on Palestinan civilians on the Gaza Strip but refuses to condemn a Hezbollah suicide bomber who detonates their load in a market crowded with Israeli civilians?
I believe this means we have to start from a point where we say that SWP (etc) membership is fundamentally incompatible with trade union membership – and certainly UNISON membership.
We have to let the membership know what these parties stand for and what they do in the name of winning their ‘revolution’.
This needs to start from the top.
The union’s NEC must make a decision to educate the membership about the nature of the SWP, its objectives and its tactics. It can do this through U magazine and In Focus and on the website and be absolutely clear that the union rejects their politics, their participation in UNISON, and their attempts to divert the union from what it does best: winning improved pay and conditions. We need the General Secretary to front up the campaign and be as hard-hitting about the hard left as he has been about New Labour’s failure to deliver on a number of our key demands.
UNISON must have plenty of evidence about how funds have been misused by the SWP and how they have operated against the interests of members at branch level – wheel it out and let’s see what they’ve been doing.
The union must also require all candidates for all posts at whatever level of the union to be required to declare if they are a member of a political party.
This won’t of course mean members will step up just because the SWP get exposed.
Alongside a campaign against the SWPers, we need to be clear its about reclaiming the union. That is, reclaiming it for members who want to work together and collaboratively with union officials to achieve improvements for ordinary members.
Here’s one idea for a start: branch committee and branch meetings only quorate if there is a quorum present AND the proportion of women present is at least equal to the proportion of women members of the branch.
As a parting shot on this issue, I also think we’ve got to start looking after ourselves better as activists. I don’t just mean keeping fit and eating healthily (although that would be a good start having looked around the hall at UNISON conferences to see serried ranks of obese ‘activists’ who seem barely able to get settled in the chairs comfortably, let alone lead their members). I’m talking about solidarity with each other and supporting each other.
I think it’s superb that John’s come out with a blog under his own name and is prepared to stand up to the bullying and vindictiveness he will no doubt face from those on the far left who are actually scared of real people. We need to make sure he is supported and applauded for his action in order to pave the way for more of us to follow his lead.
I don't have the confidence yet, but John's inititiative is a real glimmer of hope. I will try not to let him or myself down. I hope many more will feel the same.
I wish I knew who anonymous was - I'd vote for her! Or him ;)
What a load of rubbish it is obvious which Branch this is, so when are you as the Assistant Secretary of that Branch going to take any responsibility for the low turn. All branches have occasional badly attended BC’s, one swallow does not make a summer, however even if this is not an unusual turn out don’t whinge organise. Get new members steward involved that what we did when my branch committees were often inquorate. That’s why the regional leadership need to take responsibility for failing to organise get quorate Regional Councils.
Thanks Andrew for the first negative comment about my post. I was beginning to worry! I knew I should have relied on you to jump in at some stage! I can't comment on which branch this refers to however, I would point out that the extremely unrepresentative nature of this branch committee (and the more recent regular inquorate meetings) are not "occasional" but a regular feature for the last several years (at least). Yes, the assistant branch officer must take responsibility for being naive and a bit thick, and for hoping that the problem would just go away and for not organising years ago.
I'm not sure that it is fair to blame the regional leadership for inquorate Council meetings (I assume you mean UNISON London Region). Rather, I blames the platform hogging "angry young men" ranters at Council who, by and large, bore delegates to death and put them off from attending (which I suppose includes me - "young" that is, not "angry")
As well as the above posts I have had emails from various people on this subject and hope to make a constructive further contribution on democratic representation in union branches soon.
I am not “blaming” anyone there is just little point in whingeing about it, a branch committee of six whatever the politics of those who attended is not good the political make up is a red hearing. I have been disappointed about turnouts and also elated about turnouts, I take my role seriously my job is to reach out to the membership, I look forward to being challenged for my position and always disappointed when no one does, maybe if you move to Islington you can give it a go? I suspect that whatever the result of the election in the labour link it will be a small minority of branches which consulted any wider then the labour link officer or the Branch secretary and well done to those that did which ever way they voted.
BTW thanks for calling me young its been along time!
Hi John,
Looking forward to your next post on thsi topic. What is Andrew Berry - Ass BS Islington - on about? (For surely it is he as that awful tone cannot be anyone else?)Wasn't the Regional Council AGM quorate?
And I wish he'd give some constructive criticism of the 'anonymous' post here. I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say a quorum has to not just be representative in numbers but also in gender at this stage. I've thought some more about this and I think too many good branches might not be able to function properly if we just went down that road without some preparation. But maybe its worth considering setting a timescale in which branches are expected to have properly-representative branch committees right across the board - gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, etc. etc. (Apologies if I've left anyone out but I'm not at my best first thing in the morning). Maybe a five year target for the union?
And maybe - in respect of motions - a word limit of 300 words? If other bodies can do it, so can we!
You are bang on about the angry young ranters. My partner used to be at Newham branch and there was a strike which went on for some time. She wasn't expecially active in the branch but did support the strike right to the bitter end and attended the branch meetings.
But she used to come home in tears after some of the branch meetings where she and a few others tried to raise questions about any kind of alternative strategy with these thugs booing, shouting people down, and making highly aggressive speeches about people needing to stick by the only strategy permissible.
They were the usual political nutjobs - straight out of the meeting to sell papers to members as they left.
My partner almost resigned from the union three times in that dispute because of the way the crazy left treated any kind of dissent or even questioning. It was only because she believed that union membership was a principle that she didn't do so. If it hadn't been the middle of a dispute she would have certainly made a formal complaint.
As it was she left Newham not long after the dispute and ended up working for another borough where the UNISON branch maybe isn't as 'active' in Trot terms but certainly knows how to encourage participation by members who aren't fucking Trot robots.
Sorry about the language, John, but they are scum.
“Constructive criticism” of “anonymous” I think that if difficult as I don’t think he/she is being very constructive.
I rather suspect “anonymous” is a member Communist Party Britain (Marxist Leninist) very strange and reactionary group particularly on asylum so the comments on Respect/SWP are bit rich.
Another point is she/he is targeting exposing respect instead of the likes of the BNP or the parasites in our party “New Labour” both far more of a concern and a more constructive target, for which our members would like to see UNISON take on, rather then Respect or SWP. Respect wont last, don’t waste you time is that constructive?
Come on, such language is "out of order". We are not going to change things by swearing at them in anonymous blogs. I tried but couldn't delete the swear words. I'm not a prude but I won't publish comments in this post that use such inappropriate language in the future.
Andrew, your use of language is just as bad as AYM, you should be ashamed of describing members of your own Party as "parasites" just because you don't agree with them.
By being personally abusive (and I hope you tell all your members that if they support "New Labour" they are "parasites") you are obviously running out of logical arguments
Please accept my apologies for the language , John. You are right and I was just upset - it brought it all back. I'll try to be more temperate in future.
NSABS
Top man!
Andrew says: "I rather suspect “anonymous” is a member Communist Party Britain (Marxist Leninist) very strange and reactionary group particularly on asylum so the comments on Respect/SWP are bit rich."
Isn't it wierd how the extreme left think that accusing someone of being a member of another extremist group that i) it will have any real meaning to anyone else other than to expose just how fractured and petty the extreme left is; and ii) the accused will give a toss either way.
However, just for the record I - the 'anonymous' of the posting concerned - am not a member of the group mentioned. I haven't even heard of them! I am a Labour Party member, and have been pretty much my whole adult life (a couple of lapses for pretty awful money problems when my subs couldn't be kept up).
For three months in 1984 I was a member of the SWP. I was young, stupid, and thought I looked good smoking Marlboro Lights. When I turned 18 I went back to the party of real people - the Labour Party.
For standing up to the BNP (and its forerunner the NF) I have faced threats to myself and to my family, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, 'andrew'.
Finally, I do think the SWP are a bigger threat to my union than the BNP. The European Court have just ruled trade unions can kick out BNP members - thanks ASLEF for taking that case on - but can we bar SWP members from joining for being members of a party trying to wreck our organisation? No. Can they get in the way of us mobilising against the BNP because they've got to run every campaign or wreck it? Yes.
Good night.
No union should have the right to expell BNP members. The fact that you my veiw there ideas as a kin to NAZISM, dos not mean that they should be condemed for there thoughts alone. The first premise o0f the law is that you dont condeme for thoughts ,you condeme vire actions only. The SWP search dark, UAF, ARE THE TRUE NAZIS.
Hi anon
5 years since last Comment! Amazing to look back.
Anyway, anon I think you are wrong. There is no place for racists in trade unions Full Stop. Trade unions are about collective action, working together for interests of all members regardless of race, colour or creed. If you support a racist political party you are a racist. If you are a racist then there is no place for you in a trade union.
The SWP is mad and bad with some good but misguided members but does not compare to the sheer evil of the BNP/NF and the rest of them.
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