Bosses' assault on democracy

Workers at First London should have been on strike on Tuesday. They weren't, because the planned walkout was banned by the courts.

Members may be tempted to blame their union when strikes are ruled "illegal" by a judge.

But hang on. What if the law is outrageous and the government, the employers and the courts are all lined against workers going on strike?

No other country in Europe has such punitive anti-union laws. Anywhere else a postal ballot showing 80 per cent or 90 per cent in favour of strike action would never be stopped by the courts.

However here in Britain such overwhelming ballots for strike action can be deemed illegal unless every complicated rule about the balloting procedure is followed to the letter.

And if a strike goes ahead regardless the courts would have the power to award damages against the union of everything the employer lost on that day.

The Labour government has not just refused to repeal the Tories' anti-union laws. It has made them worse via a couple of very serious amendments to the legislation.

Following Labour's victory in 1997 the unions lobbied the government to change at least one aspect of the legislation, which required unions to give an accurate list of names of those to be balloted for strike action.

The government's amendments did do that, but more significantly they changed the whole emphasis of the legislation away from the Tories' original intention - to protect union members from their own union by ensuring strike ballots were independent and democratic.

New Labour's amendments made the whole rigorous balloting requirements and disclosure of information a protection for employers, so that they could adequately prepare for any strike action.

Employers can now claim that any deficiency in the balloting process affects their ability to prepare for a strike. In other words Labour has created a bosses' injunction charter.

An injunction hearing is not a proper court hearing. Unlike any other British legislation, injunctions can be used to stop strikes almost at the whim of a judge. All the employer has to do is present a possible case of a breach of the balloting process enough to satisfy the judge that the employer would have a chance of success in a court hearing.

In the case of First London, Firstgroup has actually tried to use a number of legal reasons to stop the strike, most of which failed because they were totally invalid.

But one succeeded.

Unite balloted its members for strike action and action short of a strike and a majority was returned in favour of both. The union scheduled action short of a strike within the first 28 days and then discontinuous strike action in the second month.

The employer argued that the two questions on the ballot paper constituted two different ballots and the one for strike action was not activated within 28 days. It argued the strike action planned for January 6 was therefore illegal.

The judge accepted that there was a legal argument here and issued the employer an injunction.

Unite and other unions dispute that by asking two questions this represents two separate ballots - they see it as one ballot with two different questions, allowing the union some flexibility in the type of action it takes.

In this case Unite used the mandate to start action within 28 days with an action short of a strike and step up the action in the second month when that failed. Unite has never had any legal advice to say that this is not valid and nor has any other union.

And in the recent BA case the judge granted an injunction on very alarming grounds indeed. BA argued that the strike should be ruled invalid because 800 or 900 members had been balloted for strike action who were then made redundant prior to any strike action being carried out.

BA Cabin Crew mass meeting in December

The judge accepted the employer's argument and banned the strike even though this would have made no difference to the 90 per cent-plus strike mandate affecting over 12,000 members.

Anti-union legislation is actually very clear. A union must ballot all its members in the bargaining unit affected by the dispute. It cannot exclude members who may not be there after the ballot papers are issued. This would provide grounds for a bosses' injunction too.

Unite had also correctly informed the employer of the members whom it was intending to ballot seven days in advance. BA did not raise any objections at the time, yet it would have known that some of the employees were to be made redundant.

However the law also requires a further notice to be provided by the union after the strike ballot has been completed and giving seven days' notice of any strike action.

This letter must declare an updated list of members who will actually be affected by the strike action. In other words the legislation accepts that there may be a difference between the numbers of workers balloted and those taking strike action, because of joiners and leavers.

This appears not to have mattered to the judge in the BA case, even though the union had complied fully with the letter of the law.

All this has taken place in a worsening political landscape.

The Tories are waiting in the wings to take power in the spring with a raft of new anti-union proposals. The employers are super-confident that they will get their way.

Testing the courts now paves the way for further legislation to "clarify" the law later in favour of the string of injunctions we have seen throughout 2009. There will also probably be some attempt to make public-service strikes even more restricted.

And new Labour's response? It has remained totally silent on the issue because it still calculates that it can only win the election by winning over Daily Mail voters. Improving trade union rights is not seen by Brown and Mandelson as an election winner.

The ability to peacefully withdraw our labour remains a fundamental right in any democratic country.

But we are in the grip of an offensive by employers eager to roll back workers' pay and conditions in order to extract maximum profit in this economic crisis.

Major employers are hiring specialist anti-union lawyers to try to find any possible breach of legislation to stop strikes. They want to break unions and hope that members will simply give up in frustration. They also hope that activists will turn on their unions and cause internal strife and division.

We must not give them the satisfaction.

By Martin Mayer, Chair, United Left.

United Left Supporters - National Meeting

The next national supporters meeting of the United left is being held on Saturday, December 5 at 12 noon. The venue is the University of London Union (Room 3E), Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY. The nearesr tube stations are Euston, Euston Square, and Goodge Street - all within a ten minute walk.

The main item on the Agenda is the election for General Secretary of Unite which will be taking place next year. The United Left candidate, Len McCluskey, will talk about his plans for the campaign. The UL will establish its campaigning priorities and set up a campaign team.

The meeting will have reports on current industrial disputes, including the ongoing postal workers fight, and determine how best the UL can support them.

We will also be discussing the campaign to support the People's Charter following its endorsement at the TUC in September.

There will be a General Election next year, and the UL will discuss its position on it.

The meeting is open to all Unite members who are United Left supporters.

Labour Party Conference

By Len McCluskey

We have a fight on our hands.

In fact, we have two. The conference season makes it clear that the left faces twin challenges.

First of all, to ensure that Labour is re-elected at next year’s general election and the Tories sent crashing to a well-merited fourth defeat.

Second, there is a need to push Labour to finally make a complete break with its neo-liberal hangover and got into that election fighting on policies which will really make a difference to working people.

In the light of the opinion polls, there is no doubt that the first task is difficult. And some might look at the experience of the last twelve years and argue that the second task is more like a dream utterly divorced from reality.

But I would argue that both can be achieved. What is for certain is that both must be attempted. Come polling day, it will be a stark choice – a Labour government or a return of the Tories.

Anyone ducking that hard choice is really retreating into a fantasy world. The great mass of our movement is not going to follow them there.

The fact is that we have six months to stop a Tory government which will slash and burn our public services, freeze public sector pay and make us all work longer – just in order to bail out their friends in the City, for whom it would swiftly be back to business-as-usual under Cameron and Osborne.

Of course, that hard fact does not on its own make Labour’s record look any better.

There is no doubt that gains for working people have been many during Labour’s time in office. And there have been many disappointments too.

It’s not so much a matter of “is the glass half full or half empty?” but more of “is the glass filling up or draining away?” I believe that recent months, including Labour conference, have shown a modest move away from neo-liberalism towards a more social democratic and interventionist strategy.

The 50p tax rate for high earners, the action to help the motor industry – limited though it is – the commitment to resume council house building and the resolve to keep spending to protect health and education all point in that direction.

However, most working people still remain to be convinced that the government is on their side . They see unemployment rising and factories closing, with the dreadful prospect of a ‘lost generation’ for young people, just like in the 1980s, hanging over families and communities.

Gordon Brown has said that laissez-faire is dead. He is right - or at least he ought to be right. But there are too many signs of the City going back to its old tricks, with obscene bonuses being handed out and regulation being watered down under pressure from the fat cats.

But the biggest problem is that we are now having the wrong economic debate. Instead of talking about market failure and how to put the excesses of neo-liberalism behind us for good we have let ourselves get dragged into a false debate about public spending.

Does anyone seriously believe that the public sector was the cause of the economic crisis last year? Or that it was nurses and paramedics, dinner ladies and refuse collectors, rather than greedy bankers who pushed the world economy to the brink of collapse

The Tories and their media allies have pulled off a masterstroke in diverting debate away from what they, their class, and their ideology is responsible for and making the issue public sector debt instead.

That in turn has been used as a gateway for the parties to outbid each other in their virility in slashing public spending.

We must say loud and clear that if there is a public debt problem that can’t be coped with through economic growth – and that is very much open to argument - then the blame lies with the bankers and the cost to the taxpayer of bailing them out.

It is not just economically wrong, it is politically immoral that we should be talking of public spending cuts because of the burden of solving capitalism’s excesses.

If we let this argument go unchecked, we will see the obscenity of teachers and doctors being sacked to pay for the crisis made in the City while the villains go back to paying themselves mega-bonuses.

We should say “no cuts to jobs; no pay freezes; no cuts to pensions and no cuts to services.”

If we want to cut debt, then there is another way to do it. Dump the Identity Card Scheme completely, tax the spivs and speculators and the rich elite, close the loopholes that cost £35 billion per year in tax avoidance and stop the wars of intervention and get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The economic debate should now be returned to two themes: How we save jobs in the here and now; and how we develop an economic plan to make sure the crisis of last year is never repeated.

On the first point, I have a few concrete suggestions:

n Use Government Procurement - £175 billion annually – to boost British industry and in particular guarantee apprenticeships as a condition of public sector contracts.

n Work out a real strategy backed by cash – as the French and German governments are doing – to protect skilled jobs in key industries like motors and construction.

n Place a windfall tax on the energy companies, which are ripping off the consumers.

n Turn the house-building plan into action now. Let people see the new homes going up around them before polling day.

The movement also needs a narrative for the future. If laissez faire is indeed dead, what is Labour putting in its place?

I think we need to be proud of our values once more - of the State intervening through control and where necessary ownership to ensure a balanced economy, of action to curb the inequality which is the inevitable result of the free market, of putting peoples interests before those of the City, of saying that making the goods and services we need is more important than making money for a few.

Those policies and values are the policies and values which can still produce a Labour victory.

Let’s use every day of the next six months to get that message first to the Government and then to working people that there is nothing inevitable about a Tory victory, if our Party can find the courage to change.

Len McCluskey is Assistant General Secretary of Unite and the candidate adopted by the left in the union as candidate for General Secretary of the union in next year’s election for the post.

Len McCluskey is United Left candidate for General Secretary

Yesterday 5th September at a well-attended hustings meeting of United Left supporters in Manchester, Len McCluskey was overwhelmingly elected as the United Left candidate for General Secretary of UNITE, Britain and Ireland's largest trade union.

Len McCluskey is undoubtedly now in pole position to win the race to become the first single General Secretary of UNITE when Joint General Secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley step down in December 2010, and January 2012 respectively. An election to elect General Secretary designate will take place in the latter half of 2010, with the successful candidate taking up position when Derek Simpson retires and working alongside Tony Woodley for one year before becoming single General Secretary when Tony Woodley himself retires.

Len McCluskey is currently Assistant General Secretary of UNITE from the former T&G Section, with a strong reputation for his progressive left politics and decisive and proactive support for workers in struggle. He has a long and deep association with the T&G Broad Left and now UNITED LEFT, the recently merged progressive left movement in UNITE which brought together AMICUS' left organisation Unity Gazette and T&G Broad Left.

United Left is rapidly becoming a formidable force within UNITE and within 6 months has already expanded its supporter base well beyond the sum of its two predecessor organsisations. Supporters range from national and regional officers of UNITE, the majority of UNITE Executive Council, through to the grassroots membership where a United Left shop stewards network of left union activists is being put in place.

Len McCluskey, a powerful candidate in his own right, will clearly have a very strong organisational base of support and very long headstart over any other candidates when the election campaign formerly opens next year.

Yesterday's meeting was attended by nearly 300 United Left supporters. Len McCluskey was loudly applauded at the end of the meeting following the declaration of his overwhelming vote of support. The Chair called for unity across the left for Len who had proved himself an excellent candidate for General Secretary, and appealed to all those present to work hard in his support in the forthcoming election campaign.

General Secretary Election

Unite will elect its first sole General Secretary during 2010 who will replace the existing Joint General Secretaries by the end of 2011.

The election will set the tone for the next few years for the union - will we be a union that accommodates to the employers or will we be a fighting back union.

The United Left are holding hustings to determine which candidate we will be supporting in the election.

The hustings meeting will be open to all United Left supporters who will be able to listen to and question the candidates, and then vote to determine the United Left's choice.

The meeting will take place on Saturday, 5th September 2009 from Noon - 3:00 pm.

The venue is:

Friends Meeting House

6 Mount Street

MANCHESTER M2 5NS

(map)

The venue is approximate 3/4 mile from Manchester Piccadilly Station.

United Left supporters who wish to be considered as potential candidates for the post of General Secretary Designate should write to the National Secretary at 33 Woodstock Road, BIRMINGHAM B13 9BD, giving notice of their interest, in good time to arrive by Tuesday, 1st September.

Potential candidates will be asked to give an undertaking not to run in the election against the United Left candidate if they fail to win the United Left selection contest. The same principle will also apply to individual supporters, i.e. they will be asked not to campaign or vote for any candidate other than the official United Left candidate.

For further information you can email the National Secretary.

Honduras coup

United Left totally opposes the military coup against elected President Miguel d’Esocto and sends it support to the peoiple of Hondras at this difficult time. There can be no doubt that the forces of reaction moved to remove President Miguel d'Escoto because of his increasing support and involvement with the progressive association of Latin American countries which have formed ALBA (Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Brazil and almost all South American countries with the exception of Colombia). The military coup took place after the President called on the Honduras representative to the United Nations to speak in favor of the OUTCOME DOCUMENT, whose goal was the minimization if not elimination of neo-liberal power, the IMF and World Bank and its regional banks. This sent a strong message that Honduras was in support of a new powerful alliance of Latin American countries who would no longer be under the thumb of neo-imperialism.

The military coup is a dark reminder of the right wing forces still at force in the region, acting no doubt on the orders of global capital. It is only a few years ago that Venezuela's democratically elected Hugo Chavas was deposed in a US backed right win coup, but was swiflty restored to power within days on the back of a popular uprising. All progressive forces must join in condemning this unacceptable use of military force to quell the democratic mandate. United Left calls for President Miguel d'Escoto's reinstatement to power immediatley and for the criminals behind the couip to bebrought to justice.

National Express

United Left welcomes the decision to take the GNER rail franchise back into public ownership following National Express defaulting on the contract. United Left supports the rail unions (RMT, ASLEF and TSSA, backed by TUC) campaign to bring rail back under public ownership where it belongs and reverse 15 years of expensive privatisation failure.

When Britsh Rail was privatised in 1994, the national state subsidy was £1B compared to around £5B today. In a desperate attempt to reduce the spiralling cost of a privatised rail system, the Labour Government took the cap off fares and encouraged the private train operators to outbid each other for the rail franchises on very generous terms, recouping huge profits in the good times of the backs of passengers, but able to walk away when it suits. On a string of other contracts the Government is having to subsidise train operators instead of receive payback under clauses designed to offload the risk onto the Government. Already the Government is preparing to scale back much needed capital investment due to the crisis.

This is not the first time a rail franchise ended up in public hands. When failed privateer Connex was stripped of its franchise for South East Trains, the publicly owned operation improved reliability and generated passenger growth due to improved service quality. Regrettably the Labour Government insisted on refranchising South East Trains, becuase of its neo-liberal commitment to the mantra "if it's private it must be better".

United Left calls for the GNER operation to remain in public hands, and for the other rail franchises to transfer back to the public sector as their contract terms expire. This would be a cost-free renationalisation, which end the massive leachin goff revenues out of the industry into the profits of the privatised companies, and give us the investment to rebuild a safe publicly owned railway fit for the challenges of the 21st century.

Note 1; French SNCF rail network is widely regarded as the most advanced in Europe. It is nationally owned.
Note 2; New Zealand renationlised its railways following its own expensive experiment with privatisation http://www.itfglobal.org/railways/unionreports-issue8.cfm