Defend the trade unions

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The release of the dockers jailed under the Industrial Relations Act.

Trade unionism is under attack. The assault is not new and takes many forms.

Wilson's In Place of Strife' and Heath's Industrial Relations Act both tried to emasculate the unions.

Phony 'workers' participation' schemes are being used to undermine the shop stewards' movement.

In 1977, the Grunwick and hotels' strikes were just two examples of vicious reaction by employers. and state to extension of union rights.

Dead end

Despite such resistance and despite repeated betrayals membership continues to grow as workers move to defend wages and conditions.

For this reason the WSL fights at all points to defend the unions.

Without trade unions the British working class would be powerless, If the working class cannot defend the independence of its unions now. it will never be able to build the organisations necessary to establish socialism.

But energetic defence of the unions does not mean that the Trotskyist programme of the WSL is simply 'union militancy' Today, this is a dead-end. Determined strikes are often lost precisely because they are led by militants whose aim is restricted to simply squeezing. concessions from TED the employers.

When the economic crisis makes it impossible for capitalism to grant serious concessions, such a policy hides the truth from workers.

The firemens' strike again highlights the political questions posed by the wages' struggle-including the survival of the government.

Bitter struggle

Under such conditions, the only "realistic' policy is not one which aims solely at concessions, but one which also prepares the working class for the revolutionary overthrow of the bankrupt capitalist system.

Defence of the unions now demands more bitter struggle than that necessary to build them. And, as the TUC's betrayal of the firemen demonstrates, the main enemy of independent trade unionism and free collective bargaining is the enemy within.

In the 'boom' of the 1950s and 1960s capitalism could afford to toss a few crumbs to the workers.

Transform

Then, the cap-in-hand policies of reformist leaders, like Jack Jones, appeared 'realistic' and "common sense.

Now, under the onset of international economic slump this is transformed into its opposite.

The TUC bureaucrats can no longer walk a tight-rope Heath between labour and capitalthey must show their true colours.

They now act openly as agents of the bosses.

This process is inevitable. Periods of crisis push privileged bureaucrats into their role. as policemen of wage control and unemployment, in order to save their elevated positions.

Socialist Press has detailed their use of witch-hunts, kangaroo courts and sharp election practices against opponents of these betrayals.

There is hardly a rule in the book that remains unbroken in the attacks. on militant members.

The outright betrayal of "peaceful coexistence" with the bosses that they will not even fight to build the organisations from which they eke their parasitic existence.

Transformation

This defence of the unions means first and foremost driving out misleaders like Jones, Murray and Scanlon..

Preparation for the battles ahead requires the thorough transformation of the unions. The fight for this is a task of the WSL.

Genuine union democracy -that allows the rapid removal of treacherous leaders and the open fight for a programme to defend jobs and wages-is essential.

All officials should be elected and subject to instant recall. Self seeking careerism should be ended through payment of average workers' wages to union leaders.

Tory media

Manoeuvres like postal ballots must be opposed. They _are aimed at allowing the Tory media to appeal over the heads of active unionists and gather support for the right-wing from the most isolated and ill informed sections. increasing misery for the working class "while the bureaucrats are left to use the unions for their own personal benetit.

Yet the fight in the unions is only one terrain on which the class struggle takes place.

The unions can in no way be a substitute for a revolutionary party which must take up the struggle against capitalism at every level of society.

Wholly Without revolutionary leadership, the unions are like a muscular body that is not directed by a brain.

Thus, in our fight in the unions, the WSL sets out to win the most class-conscious fighters to our understanding ot capitalism, and train them in the Marxist theory vital for a consistent struggle against it.

In 1940, Trotsky warned that unions led by the reformists could never be truly independent and would become 'concentration camps' for the working class.

His words ring true today. But:

lutionary trade unions .. In this sense the programme of Trotsky transitional demands .. is not only the programme of the party but .. the programme for the activity of the trade unions'.

The battle for leadership in the unions must take place in order to transform them into 'revolutionary trade unions' Nor do we believe that this battle can be won through the simple repetition of revolutionary-sounding phrases.

the new leadership in the unions will only be built by those who are willing to give the most detailed attention to the day-to-day questions thatarise in the unions, and to give a practical lead in every movement that arises from the experiences of the workers themselves-even when the demands of the struggle appear partial and limited.

It is through countless such battles that the working class wil develop confidence in its ability to fight capitalism, will . come to understand the role of the union bureaucrats as a barrier to victory, and will recognise the need for a revolutionary party as fought for by the WSL.

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