Many union activists believe that electing left officials can defend workers’ interests. But Kate Ford argues that this strategy is doomed unless control of the unions is wrested from the bureaucrats

The year 2005 began with the prospect of over a million public sector workers uniting to defend pension rights. The Labour government were on the back foot, horrified by the prospect of a massive strike in the run up to the election. A new layer of trade union leaders, dubbed the “awkward squad” by the press, were gearing up to make life very awkward for Blair and co. In the game of Pensions Poker it seemed like we held all the cards.

The year 2005 ends with a “deal” between the government and the union leaders which will divide the workforce with current employees able to retire at 60, whilst new workers will be forced to work until 65. Also left out in the cold are local government workers, among the lowest paid in the public sector.

The Economist estimates that the agreement with the unions has saved the government £13 billion over the next 50 years. The government gets £13 billion, existing workers get nothing and new workers get to pay.

So where did it all go wrong? Who threw away our winning hand?

So we were betrayed, we were misled. If we could just get rid of these incompetents and get some new leaders, would we win? Well, apart from the fact that it is incredibly difficult to get rid of union leaders once elected, the solution isn’t really about individuals. It’s about politics: the politics of the bureaucracy and the politics which dominate the left in unions.

Marxists understand that the nature of the bureaucracy stems from the role they play in class society. Their existence relies on appearing to be honest brokers between the workers and the bosses.

Marx and Engels located the emergence of the bureaucracy in the British trade unions with the development of a “labour aristocracy”. As certain sections of workers became relatively more privileged, with higher wages, they could afford to pay union dues to employ full time officials. Part of their role was to maintain the scarcity of skilled labour in order to secure higher wages and better conditions.

Alongside this development, the workers’ political struggle resulted in the right to vote for skilled male workers with the 1867 Reform Act. The bosses began to use this new layer of labour leaders to neutralise and control the expanding working class electorate. The union leaders obliged by delivering their votes to the Liberal Party.

Marx and Engels also pointed to the failure to break down craft divisions between unions, their failure to reach out to the unorganised, less secure workers, the tendency to ban politics inside the unions, and the very structures of the unions, which left 99 per cent of members passive: all elements, which still exist in today’s unions; all elements that need to be combatted.

Unfortunately the bureaucrats in the leadership were never our only problem. On the contrary, they are the natural consequence of these other ailments in our organisations.

Of course that doesn’t mean that they are insignificant in the struggle, or that we can afford to ignore them. Revolutionaries cannot stand aside from the question of leadership. The mistakes occur when we raise this aspect of the union above all others. When the answer to all our problems is seen as simply getting enough “good” left leaders, rather than a more fundamental political transformation of the union. This is the politics of the “broad lefts”.

What is a broad left? The name derives from the policy of the Communist Party in the 1960s and 1970s to build networks among branch secretaries and officials to get the vote out for new left wing candidates in union elections. The Stalinists were never interested in dissolving the bureaucracy; after all, their whole politics rested on the defence of the Soviet bureaucratic tyrannies. Indeed, the classic Broad Lefts usuall y dissolved themselves once they got their candidate installed.

Today, this policy is kept alive in a number of unions: Unison United Left, PCS Left Unity, Socialist Teachers Alliance, and others. In most of them, organisations to the left of the Stalinists are dominant: Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party, Alliance for Workers Liberty and the Labour left. Most of them add campaigning and solidarity activities to electioneering, but all of them share a strategy that does not go beyond the election of left general secretaries and executives.

This task becomes paramount. As a result, the broad lefts compromise their own politics or hide their political organisation in the hope of attracting more votes. For example, in last year’s general secretary campaign in the National Union of Teachers, Martin Powell-Davies stood. At organising meetings there were discussions about whether to include in campaign material the fact that Martin was a member of the Socialist Party. Despite arguments from Workers Power members and others, it was decided not to.

Broad leftism, because it prioritises the election of lefts, is always subject to this pressure. The election campaigns of many left candidates do not serve to galvanise the struggle, but often result in watering down divisions and smothering dissent in the desperate attempt to win enough votes.

And what happens when the left candidate does get elected? Again the politics of broad leftism leads ultimately, and painfully over and over again, to defeat. Just look at our most recent experience of the awkward squad (see box). However “good” an individual union leader may be, s/he does not exist above society - even with the aid of inflated salaries.

There is a contradiction lodged in the bureaucrats’ position within society. Their whole existence relies on compromises with the bosses, so they will attempt to diffuse and curtail struggle; but we pay their wages, so they are supposed to represent us. The bosses will pressurise them into sell-outs, but we can also pressurise them.

However, so long as our unions remain bureaucratic institutions, our ability to exert pressure on our leaders will be considerably weaker than the slick machine of the government and the bosses. This is where broad leftism fails. So we see the perpetual need to elect just one more left candidate, who will be better than the last one.

Instead, we need to mobilise the rank and file of the unions, and unite them into a social force that can bring pressure to bear on the left leaders from the other side: a rank and file movement, that raises the political awareness of union members, so that they can hold their leaders to account, that democratises and takes control of the union, so that leaders are the servants of the union, not the masters, that breaks down the divisions between workers, blue collar and white collar, skilled and unskilled, so that the unions represent the whole class, not just its privileged upper layer.

The only safe and sure way to achieve all this is to elect revolutionary communists, who will use their positions to dissolve all the powers and privileges of the bureaucracy and put control in the hands of the membership.

But, even more than this, we need to bring revolutionary socialist politics to the unions. The only answer to Mark Serwotka’s excuse that the pensions agreement was “the best deal on offer” is to reply, “We don’t start from what the bosses are prepared to offer. We start from the needs of the working class - then work out a strategy to get it.” Far from hiding our politics, revolutionaries put workers’ control and the overthrow of capitalism at the centre of our programme.



BUILD A RANK AND FILE MOVEMENT

Against the politics of Broad Leftism revolutionaries argue for the building of a rank and file movement. A rank and file movement would aim to fundamentally transform the unions.

The early years of the Minority Movement in Britain in the 1920s show the potential for such a movement. The Minority Movement grew out of the need to revitalise the unions after the defeats that followed the First World War. When the bureaucrats dissolved the Triple Alliance and the miners were defeated on Black Friday in 1920, the bosses went on an offensive against the divided and demobilised workers. By 1921 over six million workers had seen their pay cut by 8 per cent, By 1924, miners’ wages were down 26 per cent.

The call for a rank and file movement was led by the British Communist Party before it had degenerated into Stalinism. The Communists recognised the need for “a new ideology amongst the union membership and a new leadership”. They sought to build a united front with non-revolutionary workers around transitional demands which could resist the bosses’ offensive and build a bridge to a socialist offensive.

At its first conference in Battersea in 1924 the Minority Movement discussed resolutions on fighting for better wages and shorter hours, as well as on organising unemployed, young and women workers, and for international unity.

At its high point in 1926, prior to the General Strike, the Minority Movement held a conference at which 547 organisations were present, representing 957,000 workers.

Despite its success, the Minority Movement fell foul of the political degeneration of Bolshevism and the victory of Stalinism. This led to an over-reliance on the leadership of the TUC General Council in the General Strike, which ultimately ended in defeat. However, the Minority Movement remains a model for rank and file organisation today.

A rank and file movement today would be built around the following key demands:

• Rank and file control of the union. Joint union action committees. Elected strike committees. Mass meetings of the membership to decide on any negotiation or settlement. No secret deals.

• For the right of all black, women, lesbian, gay and disabled worker to caucus.

• Against any discrimination at work.

• Mass unionisation drive. Workplace branches. For industrial unions.

• Democratise the unions. All stewards, reps, branch secretaries and officer of the union to be accountable and recallable. Annual election of all officials.

• All officials to be paidthe samesalary as the average wage of those they represent. Workers control of the bureaucrats’ expenses.

• For strikes and occupations to win better conditions and decent pay for all. If the bosses say they can’t afford it, let them prove it and then nationalise their assets with no compensation.

• Link up the unions with the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements.

• Defy the anti-union laws.

• Demand New Labour repeal the anti-union laws.

• For international solidarity. For cross-European rank and file organisation. Transform the ESF into a coordinator of struggles.

• Democratise the political funds of the unions. Fight for a new, anti-capitalist workers party.