Unions must not repeat the mistakes of the 1980s

From Les4GS Website


Unions must not repeat the mistakes of the 1980s
By Les Bayliss
Progressive Left Candidate For Unite General Secretary

I think to talk of strikes when even public sector workers aren’t ready for them, will be to concede defeat before the battle starts.

People who work for a living face a very tough time under this Tory led coalition. The promised cuts in public services will hammer every working family in the UK. Public sector workers will lose their jobs and the general public will suffer a double whammy of a loss of services and an economic downturn, threatening their jobs and their incomes.

Unions face a similar challenge to the one that confronted us under the first Thatcher government. Millions of jobs were lost due to a recession caused by government spending cuts. Unions lost millions of members because of the unemployment and it weakened us. At the same time the government was determined to attack the welfare state and with it the unions that had fought for its establishment after WW2.

We were provoked into battles against the state we could not win, but still we fought because we were proud fighters and we lead with our chins. Inevitably we were cut down; we were restricted by anti union laws and worse still for us, these laws were supported by working people because we had lost the argument. Tory economic policy was hurting our people, but the popular narrative of the time was all about strikes and the power of the unions. We lost it.

In my view the current Tory government is hell bent on finishing the job Margaret Thatcher started, by critically reducing the role of government in helping everyone of us live safely, securely and in good health and giving us all a fair crack of the whip at education and a good job.

The Tories are using the cover of the credit crunch to make these cuts seem unavoidable. They say we have no choice; we must cut services to back fill the deficit caused by the collapse of the banks. But this isn’t true of course, there is another way. A return to economic growth with higher levels of employment, supported by government spending combined with increased taxation on the wealthiest 10% and the closure of tax loop-holes, would also fill the gap in our expenditure. It’s an argument that is finely balanced, but one I believe will resonate with the voters much more clearly as the cuts start to bite.

Many trade union activists will want to fight the cuts with strikes and demonstrations. It’s understandable, what the Tories intend to do with public services is unfair and cruel and it will hurt working people for generations. But I think to talk of strikes when even public sector workers aren’t ready for them, will be to concede defeat before the battle starts.

Public sector strikes will only deprive the vulnerable of the services they need and the services the Tories want to cut. We’ll be doing the bad guy’s job for him.

Strikes will also change the victims, our members, into the villains of the piece. The story will get changed from government savagery to union militancy. The Tories will hit us with even more restrictive laws and working people will look away in disgust.

We have a perfect example of what I’m saying in my own union. The BA cabin crew had a good case, they were being forced to accept a change in their contracts without agreement by a vicious and greedy employer, and it was unacceptable. But when we announced the twelve-day strike over Christmas the public and many of our members were so horrified they immediately lost sympathy for the victims.

As an aside if I am General Secretary of Unite there will never be any strikes called over the Christmas holidays.

Strikes cost a fortune; I think the unions would be better using these massive resources to win hearts and minds. Unite had considerable success talking to members in marginal constituencies in the run up to the election about the dangerous policies the Tories were planning to introduce. Many of the seats the Tories were targeting remain in Labour hands because of this work.

Transpose this work into every union and back it up with a massive advertising campaign and I believe the argument over public services is ours to win. It’s also ours to lose if we choose to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s.