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BA workers, Injunction & UNITE elections

Marie Lynam
24th December 2009 at 17:41
0 comments

22.12.09

Well done the comrade who circulated a good balance by Jerry Hicks regarding the significance of the Injunction against the BA Cabin Crew workers.

One salient point is the anger of the BA Unite membership, their 90% unanimity, and their determination. What the bosses and the courts did, as Jerry says, was to be expected. What the Union leaderships do (or rather don’t), from the TUC downwards, is not surprising either. From now on, we must take these things as starting points. No good asking water that water be dry.

A second point is made correctly by Jerry, about there being no ‘apathy’ amongst the workers or the Labour voters. There is no such apathy indeed! There is great indignation and anger instead! Those who talk of apathy show they have no feeling for what happens to the ordinary people. Or they want to put their heads in the sand, have a good Xmas - and possibly wait till the Tories win: On the basis of the What Can You Do?

People are not apathetic at all. They repudiate those in power. They want to make them see reason, or remove them from power. But what makes people even more indignant, is the realisation that the so-called democratic institutions do not allow the general public to have a say, to make criticism, to reply to Blair, to show what they would do. The institutions do not give a voice to the population. EVen when Labour is less bad than now, the opinion of the people is so distantly refracted that only very distant modifications can be done to power.

And if you go outside the so-called democratic institutions, demonstrate for instance, or protest in any effective way, you receive corporal punishment - in public. Corporal punishment is accepted as a rule of nature. How Long Before This Is Understood as the Prehistory of Humanity?

Some years ago, there was a tremendous campaign throughout Labour and the Trade Union bureaucracies for ‘Free Trade Unions in Poland’, and ‘free political parties’. Ah yeah. Let’s have this here! The Trade Unions in Britain (and the capitalist world) are dependent on leaders who are dependent on New Labour who are dependent on capitalism - which is a cannibal.

Let’s have the slogan: ‘Free Trade Unions in Britain!

As for the Labour Party, we can laugh at the Communist parties of Eastern Europe: At least these were building houses, providing jobs, free education, low rents, no bankers, economic planning, support to Vietnam, Cuba and Angola, no unemployment. I would not mind having such an un-independent Party to vote for now! No need to say that these are my comments, and not Hick’s - Just in case Confusion should decide to muddy the waters.

To go back to Hick’s article, there is another salient point: The Political levy. This needs more discussion. The Unions wish to remain centralised in Labour. It is their centre. Hence, it seems to me, the problem is not the political levy. The problem is that the Unions bureaucracies use the workers’ loyalty to keep them (workers) under the control of those who take the levy but do what they like with it.

In some countries, the ruling class uses guns. In the Western capitalist countries, this happens less often, although it does, because there is another, much better device to keep the workers down: The Trade Union bureaucracy.
Hicks’ reminder of Lindsey and Visteon is another of the salient points. These were struggles against the Union leaderships, the bureaucrats who had to come along afterwards and declare the strikes/occupations official. And the workers won.

When the Trade Union bureaucracy has to run behind the workers, it shows a balance of forces favourable to the advance of the struggle. It is then the task of the leaders, to elevate the fight. The fight against the antiTradeUnion laws being the most pressing.

The BA fight reiterates the pressing need to fight against those laws. Are we simply going to wait until workers smash their heads against the truncheons? Are we going to use the workers as battle machines? Good only for labouring and doing the fighting, with us turning up as always AFTERWARDS?

Is it not our role to prepare actively beforehand the organisms, the demonstrations, the articles, the reviews, the newspapers, the articles, to unify different unions, different sectors, different struggles, allowing our means to create for them the means to generalise the struggles enough to defeat the antiTradeUnion laws?

Jerry mentions that if the BA workers had already found a terrain of serious antiTradeUnion struggle, they would not be where they are now. Indeed, this is key to everything. To prepare, prepare and prepare. For this, we in the LRC need to discuss, discuss and discuss. Have a newspaper, publications and a proper locale.

The right to strike, and the right to Unions are at stake.
It is not true that the general elections are in the Tories’s bag. Not quite, not yet. And the day this happens, they will have no solution except the truncheon. You can intimidate people and keep them down, but this does not build a society. The truncheon, prison, injunctions, actual and social wage cuts, etc., are all unsustainable. If only for the reason that British capitalism itself needs a healthy, educated and affluent population to outsmart its competitors. What the Tories have in store, like New Labour (if it has anything left there), is unsustainable.

Hence, there is no reason for us to wait until Labour is defeated, or Tories are proved wrong, to start making out the case for workers organisation.
It is therefore quite important to prepare for the elections Jerry has mentioned: in Unite, and in the General Elections.
In the case of the UNITE campaign, if the LRC comrades came up with more ideas, we could make a very good leaflet addressed to the workers who are going to vote in Unite.

· Support Hicks

· Solidarity with those who struggle against the betrayal of their leaders, in any Union. This solidarity to be expressed internally, through TUC public meetings.

· A capitalist system rotting on its feet, eating up the planet and the working class. Balance of BA, continued monitoring of the situation there.

· The need for the workers to have their hands free. National campaign against the antiTU laws. Creation of the conditions to protect the BA staff and others from the law.

· Unconditional right to strike

· Public meeting of all the Trade Union leaders to elect the TUC leadership

· Mass meetings in all the regions important to Unite, to elect all the Regional Secretaries

· Formation of Peoples Charter Committees for the Defence of Democracy in Unite in every possible place of work organised by Unite.

· Call on the BA workers to form a Peoples Charter Committee to link the BA workers with every other work place in struggle. Immediate links with those who have remained active in Lindsey, Visteon etc. Immediate links with rank and file pilots, bagage handlers, cleaners, catering workers, etc. Immediate links with RMT, bus workers, etc. [no, not the leaders, the workers at the base, from their branches and workplaces].

· UNITE Public Meetings with speakers from BA cabin workers, pilot reps (from their own Union), and delegates from bagage handlers whatever their Unions, Gate Gourmey survivors and similar others, airport cleaners etc, etc.

· No sackings, less hours, no loss of pay

· Demands about the pensions

· All Union reps elected at mass meetings

· Peoples Charter’s Committees in every work place organised by Unite, to campaign for Hicks.

· Peoples Charter/Unite Public meetings,speakers from all the workers political parties that agree with the Charter.

· Scotland, Ireland, Wales, particularly addressed.

· Free and Independent Unions from New Labour, without making new Unions.

· Political levy to be paid according to Performance. Mass meetings to discuss. No decision to be taken here without mass consultation.

Suggestions for the general elections:

Any Labour MP at all, wherever the LRC deems relevant, to be asked by Unite/People Charters what their position is regarding the Peoples Charter Programme.

Unite/People Charters to discuss with the LRC leadership, over a period of weeks and months, who to support against crap Labour MPs and how not to let the Tories in. Immediate links with the workers parties of the Left to discuss the tactics. Mass meetings to discuss the tactics. LRC leadership to call regional and borough consultation and orientation meetings of all LRC, People Charter, Trade Unions, Labour and Unite Members who care to turn up. Preparatory campaigns for this to start without delay.

Everyone to chip in so that we create an inspiring LRC document for the Unite elections.
Season greetings - Marie Lynam