Posted by Andy Newman

Community need to face the consequences

communityThe criterion for success for any trade union campaign is whether or not it leaves organisation weaker or stronger.

A hundred years ago, the German socialist, Rosa Luxemburg, observed that trade union organisation was a “labour of Sisyphus”, comparing it to the mythological figure who was doomed to an eternity of pushing a rock up hill, only for it to roll back to the bottom each time.

It is certainly true that the nature of capitalist competition between companies means that the commercial context that businesses operate in is always changing, and that in the final analysis there is a conflict of interest between employers who wish to get more work for less money, and employees who wish to be treated with dignity and respect, and to be paid a fair wage. In that respect no negotiated deal is ever final, and the process of industrial relations is never ending. Continue reading →

How we adapt to the new Trade Union Act

Public-sector-workers-and-members-of-the-GMB-unionThe Trade Union Act 2016 comes into effect for all industrial disputes where the ballot is to commence after 1st March 2017. Due to a well coordinated campaign by trade unions and the Labour Party, much of it lobbying behind the scenes, many of the more draconian aspects that had originally been proposed by the Conservative Government in the original bill had been dropped prior to Royal Assent, however there are still significant changes that will be challenging for unions.

While it may be counter-productive to pick over the entrails, much of the motivation for the Act’s changes to the law relating to industrial disputes possibly relates to a few instances of action by some public sector trade unions, and also due to the use of imaginative alternatives to traditional industrial action by GMB and Unite. The government therefore made the unwise decision to enact broad legal changes to cover all industrial disputes where their specific objectives could have been better achieved by a more proportionate response, or indeed by stepping back from government involvement in industrial disputes altogether. Continue reading →

The left must encourage people into unions – not work against their leaderships

gmb-trade-union-living-wage-campaignThere is an unfortunate tendency for articles nowadays to have sensationalist “click-bait” headlines, but by any standards the aggressive spin put on Michael Chessum’s latest piece in the New Statesman is highly unfortunate.

The headline screams “It’s time for Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters to take on the trade union leadership”. Nothing could be more counterproductive than seeking to mobilize supporters of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party to intervene in internal union politics. Continue reading →

Jackie Walker’s position is untenable, she should go.

jackie-walkerThe fact that there has been a rise in anti-Semitic incidents across Europe and elsewhere is simply not a fact which can credibly be disputed. To take just two egregious examples.

In January 2015, an Islamist terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly shot dead four Jewish men at a kosher supermarket in Paris before security forces stormed the building, killing him and freeing the remaining hostages. These men were murdered solely for being Jewish.

In March 2016, six ISIS terrorists were detained in Turkey, associated with a threat to target Jewish schools, nurseries and youth clubs in Europe.

It is entirely reasonable therefore for Jews to be apprehensive of their safety, and in particular for Jewish parents to be concerned about security of the schools where their children are educated.

This is the context by which we should judge recent comments by Jackie Walker, Vice chair of Momentum, and a Labour Party member. Continue reading →

How Corbyn has changed Labour

CorbynRally
It is surely a remarkable illustration of how political parties change over time that the current Presidential candidate for the political party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant is Donald Trump. Whereas, during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, white supremacist terrorists hunted down and killed members of the Republican Party across the Southern states, nowadays leading members of the Ku Klux Klan endorse the Republican candidate.

The reconfiguration of the Republican Party has been a long drawn out contest, and has been a process of evolution. While a consideration of the internal arguments in the party can partially explain such turns as Nixon’s Southern strategy, for example, that orientation can only itself be understood by the enormous changes in the Southern states, the process of industrialization and urbanization, and the crisis in the Democratic Party over racial issues.

Today, the totally unnecessary leadership challenge that is currently limping to its conclusion in the Labour Party can arguably be understood as institutional stakeholders of pre-Corbyn Labour seeking to prevent what they see as their party from changing. Continue reading →