Organising strategy - mobilise or organise?

On 8th November I attended four fascinating meetings at the Historical Materialism conference with people from the USA and Canada discussing the plight of the labour movement and ideas for turning it round.

I found the debates really useful and there were a lot of ideas the British labour movement should engage with.  I've written up some of the key points as a series of three articles.  The first ("Mobilise or Organise?") is mainly about Jane McAlevey's ideas on organising strategy and has been published here.  The other two should be published over the next few days and will cover "Migration, the labour market and social reproduction" and "Reversing the decline".

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21 days till the money runs out

UNITE's new film about pay day lenders and promoting the 20th October demo.

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Building for the 20th October demonstration from Greater Manchester

Update note:  The meeting on 24th July advertised below is cancelled.
Update 2:  Greater Manchester Association of TUCs have organised a replacement meeting which is 6pm on Tuesday 31st July at Methodist Central Hall, Oldham Street, Manchester M1 1JQ.  Facebook event here.

The TUC demonstration on 20th October is crucial for all of us.  After the magnificent build-up of opposition last year, from the half-million strong demo on 26th March to the strike on 30th June and the huge strikes and protests on 30th November, the opposition to the government's disastrous austerity policies really seemed to be building up.  But the leaders of the trade union movement wasted that momentum with delays, dithering, and shoddy deals.

The "A Future That Works" demo on 20th October is part of a push to get the momentum back.  Some unions are already planning strikes around that date, and students are planning their own demonstration in the autumn too.

We need to make sure the demo on 20th October is bigger and stronger than the 26th March and that it gives people confidence to fight back.  This is quite possible.  The 26th March was the first trade union mobilisation on that scale for a decade.  While it was magnificent there were many lessons learned - and if we learn them it should not be hard to make 20th October far far bigger.  Amongst those lessons were the need to organise and book transport earlier and the need for better coordination between different organisations involved in building the demo.

Unite's "Manchester Area Activists Committee", which covers Greater Manchester, decided to initiate an meeting to help build for the demonstration and is sending a letter out to other unions, trades councils and community campaigners to invite them to take part.  Below is the text of the letter (I've removed the contact details to avoid spam - please contact me if you have any questions).

To: all trade unionists and community campaigners across Greater Manchester

The TUC has called a national demonstration in London on 20th October to send the message that

AUSTERITY ISN'T WORKING

·         spending cuts threaten a lost decade

·         invest for jobs and growth

·         defend quality public services

The aim is to make this demonstration even bigger than the one on 26th March 2011, and to achieve this we need to organise - now.

Unite's Manchester Area Activists Committee, which covers the whole of Greater Manchester, decided to initiate an open organising meeting to build the maximum turnout for 20 October from Greater Manchester and to approach other unions, trades councils and campaign groups to take part.

This open organising meeting will take place:

6:30pm, Tuesday 24th July

Unite the Union, Merchants Quay, Salford Quays, Salford, M50 3SG

Free car parking is available and the Unite office is a few minutes' walk from Salford Quays Metrolink stop

We hope you will be able to attend the meeting and to publicise it through your own networks.

TUC materials to help build for the demonstration are available from www.afuturethatworks.org.

If you have any questions about the meeting please contact me, Jimmy Carter --- or Ian Allinson ---.

We look forward to seeing you there and working with you to make 20 October a resounding success.

In solidarity

Jimmy Carter

Secretary, Unite Manchester Area Activists Committee

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We're NOT all in it together

I've come across two sets of information recently which have rammed home the point that we're not "all in it together".

The Sunday Times has published its annual "Rich List".  Even their own headline makes the point "The Sunday Times Rich List reveals that Britain’s wealthiest people are richer than ever despite the worst recession since the 1930s".  Even The Telegraph, that well-known friend of the poor, highlights the discrepancy between the rest of us and the top 1000 people: "Their total fortune has risen by just under five per cent since 2011, to £414 billion, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List.  That exceeds the previous record of £412.8 billion set in 2008, which came just a few months before the financial crash from which the wider British economy has yet to recover".

The second set of information has received a lot less publicity.  I found it via the blog of the economist Michael Roberts.  In this article on the weak US recovery, he highlights how as profit rates recovered, corporations hoarded profits, rather than reinvesting them, undermining the recovery of the wider economy.  The figures are staggering - he explains:

"US corporate profits have recovered dramatically since the trough at the end of 2008.  They surpassed their previous peak in 2006 by early 2010.  This was achieved by a massive reduction in costs (including labour costs) and a strike in investment.  But most of the recovery in profits since the end of 2008 has been hoarded and not spent on new investment.  According to these latest figures, undistributed profits have accumulated to $744bn from just $19bn at the end of 2008!   Profits are up around $1trn since then, but the cash accumulation is up over $700bn, so only 30% of the increase in profits has been spent on new investment.  This explains why the economic recovery has been so weak, with the US economy growing only barely at 2% a year (1.6% yoy according to the latest Q4’11 GDP data)."

So next time some millionaire cabinet minister (and most of them are) tells us that there's no money for decent jobs or for the services we all rely on, let's remember that there are individuals and corporations sitting on vast wealth which could be far better used by those who produced it.

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UNITE Executive Council statement following November 30th

This Unite Executive Council congratulates the two million trade unionists, including thousands of UNITE members, who struck on November 30th in defence of their pensions and our public services. The EC also welcomes and extends a huge thank you to the general public that supported in their millions and made the day a tremendous success, proving not only that we have public support but that government attempts to divide our communities will fail.

This EC also recognises that this government is stepping up its fight against all working people with its threat to further attack trade union democracy, introduce more anti-trade union legislation and remove and/or further weaken employment protections for all.

This EC believes that the union, working in cooperation with other public sector trade unions needs to now work up a strategic plan to escalate the action to win decent pensions for all. Action that will not only protect the pensions of our public service membership but workers across the private sector facing similar attacks on their pension schemes.

This Executive Council

• calls for a review of actions taken on the 30 November involving meetings in the regions as well as nationally, to see how we move forward together, share best practice and analyse strengths and weaknesses from the day. Further, we must grasp this opportunity to recruit new members and develop new stewards as part of a revitalised activist’s organisation across the union.
• supports a plan to further nationally coordinated strike action with other public sector trade unions. The key to winning is to quickly and significantly escalate the action as early as possible in the New Year and coordinating this with private sector actions being planned as employers opportunistically attempt to undermine and/or close pension schemes across our economy.
• supports a national march in defence of our NHS in the New Year.
• congratulates the TUC on its coordination of action across our nations in support of each other and calls on all unions to stand together in opposition to government attempts to divide unions and offer terms of settlement to some while continuing the attack on others.
• condemns the government and their media mogul friends who have tried to divide public and private sector workers with the claim that public sector workers have pensions far better than those enjoyed by their colleagues in the private sector. It’s time to level up not down!
• notes that private sector workers have seen attacks on their schemes in recent years. There have been a number of strikes and threat of strikes with unions fighting back and winning concessions, despite the law being stacked against them and little legal protection for private sector schemes.

It is clear that 2011 has seen the beginnings of a fight back against government and employer attacks on pensions, wages, jobs and services. Unite must now mobilise its members into mass action. We have demonstrated the appetite of our membership for action on March 26th and November 30th; we must build on this by nurturing our activists, mobilise the millions of workers currently under attack and put the necessary resources into doing so.

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UNITE announces free transport to 2 October March for the Alternative

Yesterday UNITE announced it is paying for transport to the TUC's March for the Alternative at the Tory party conference in Manchester on 2nd October. Details are here.

Recent economic news bears out UNITE's arguments that far from helping the economy, the governments cuts and austerity are jeopardising the recovery.

A big demo on Sunday 2 October will help strengthen every campaign, including the ballots planned across the public sector and beyond for action on 30th November. Every member should do their best to attend and bring their workmates, family and friends.

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Post, Privatisation, Wages, Beans and the Welfare State

There's a national "Keep Our Post Public" rally today against the government's plans to privatise Royal Mail, with Len McCluskey as one of the speakers.

Privatisation is a key plank of the government's strategy to increase profits at our expense, by opening up our public services as new markets for comercial activity.

Plank 2 is cutting real wages (in the public and private sector) by using mass unemployment to depress wages while letting inflation drift up. The latest inflation figures this week show CPI inflation up to 3.3%, while RPI inflation, which is a more realistic estimate of the rate of increase in the cost of living, is up to 4.7%. No wonder some members are being driven to take strike action to defend their standard of living - UNITE members at Heinz in Wigan start their strike over pay tonight.

Plank 3 is the assault on public services and the welfare state, by a combination of pushing costs onto individuals (as with education) and direct cuts in provision.

If we want to successfully defend our own jobs, standard of living and services, we need to support all those resisting any element of this strategy to make us pay for an economic crisis we did not create. Amongst other things, that means backing campaigns against privatisation such as at Royal Mail, campaigns to defend pay and pensions such as those at Heinz or the BBC, and campaigns against cuts in public service and the welfare state, such as the magnificent and inspiring campaign being waged by school, FE and University students.

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Support the postal workers

It is clear that the dispute in Royal Mail is a crucial one for all of us.

We have had some important successes in a number of disputes including Visteon, Linamar, Lindsey/construction and Tower Hamlets College. These have started to raise the confidence of workers to resist efforts to make us pay for the consequences of a recession triggered by the greed and irresponsibility of the rich and powerful.

What's happening at Royal Mail is qualitatively different. It's not just that the scale is so much bigger. The media onslaught against the CWU is full of class hatred, almost reminiscent of the 1980s. Whereas in a number of other disputes management seem to have been caught on the hop, in this case there has been a massive level of preparation by the employer and a systematic management organised scabbing operation on a scale not seen for years.

None of this means the CWU can't win. The postal workers are a powerful group, and well organised. But the movement can ill afford to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s by allowing employers to pick us off one at a time to demoralise the rest. Imagine trying to argue for action in your workplace if the CWU had been smashed and the Tories elected. Or imagine the boost in confidence your workmates could have if we all helped the posties beat off these attacks from their overpaid bosses.

The CWU have produced a collection sheet. Every trade unionist should be taking it round their friends and workmates and visiting picket lines to show solidarity. We should be helping to set up solidarity groups should be springing up in every town and city. Building solidarity won't just help the posties win - it will make us all stronger.

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Another watershed in the decline of manufacturing

The news of the end of manufacturing at Toshiba's Plymouth plant, with the loss of 270 jobs, means the end of mass TV manufacturing in the UK.

The government's failure to intervene to protect jobs and working people is an absolute scandal, especially set against their blank cheques for war and to bail out the banks.

After the economic disaster unleashed by the "free market" lunacy that has dominated the world in recent decades, you might have thought that all parties would be distancing themselves from such policies as quickly as they could. But you would be wrong. Instead, the prescription is basically more of the same.

I hope there's a good UNITE presence on the "Jobs, Education, Peace & Justice" demonstration on 27th September at the Labour Party conference, which has been called by PCS, UCU, NUT, NUJ and a variety of campaigning organisations.

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Green jobs, nationalisation, education and steel

Given all the government green-wash about climate change, you'd have thought "Green Jobs" ought to be on the increase, not under threat.

It's an absolute scandal that over 600 jobs at the Vestas wind-turbine factory in the Isle of Wight are under threat. If the government can step in to bale out the bankers, why not to save jobs like these?

When we do see government intervention, it always seems to be to nationalise debts and privatise profits. With the recent decision to take the East Coast Mainline back into public ownership, the government made clear it wants to re-privatise it as soon as possible. The way the retreat over Post Office privatisation was announced makes it clear that this is a retreat under pressure, not a change of heart. If we want government action (or inaction) we have to fight for it, not just stuff New Labour's pockets with members' subs.

You can send a message of support to the campaign to save Vestas at savevestas@gmail.com.

In similar vein, you'd have thought that FE education would be expanding in times of recession, but actually cuts are the order of the day. Near me, the UCU union is fighting job cuts at Manchester College and a few of us from work went down to support them when they were on strike on 1st July.



These job cuts have a particular importance for trade unionists, because the college is targeting the UCU branch secretary for compulsory redundancy. There's history here too - Manchester College was formed by the merger of MANCAT and City College and the college Principal, Peter Tavernor came from MANCAT. Under his "leadership" a few years ago, MANCAT decided to close the trade union education department to get rid of several key UCU officers, including the branch secretary. It is a disgrace that he is still in office and pursuing his anti-union agenda despite losing tribunal cases over the previous victimisations.

In manufacturing the job losses continue relentlessly. It's good to see a campaign starting to get underway over the threat to jobs at Corus. There's a demo on Saturday 18th July, assembling at 12:00 at Majuba Road car park in Redcar, with a march setting off at 2pm.

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Nortel into administration, ICL, STC and Nortel pensions impact

Disgracefully, most of the coverage of Nortel (UK) going into administration focuses more on the impact on the 2012 Olympics (for which Nortel is a sponsor) than on the 2000 UK employees, many of whom are UNITE members. This BBC report is typical.

Concern about what has happened to Nortel will be even wider than its current employees, their families, friends and supporters.

As Electronics Weekly comments "Nortel is the first major vendor in the ICT industry to have gone into administration as a direct result of the credit crunch". Will it be the last?

There is also likely to be an impact on the pension fund for 43,000 people, as Nortel has asked the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) to rescue it.

The figure of 43,000 pension fund members seems extraordinarily large. At least part of the reason is that Nortel used to be Northern Telecom, a firm which took over STC in the 1990s. STC owned ICL (now Fujitsu Services) until 1991. When STC sold ICL to the Fujitsu group, STC kept most of the pension fund, along with all the current and deferred pensioners. In those days of pension fund surpluses, this must have seemed an attractive proposition - it certainly caused a lot of concern to those of us in ICL at the time.

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Right to work flexibly - race to the bottom

What a disgrace that the government is talking about delaying the extension of the right to work flexibly.

This must be a new entry for the ongoing competition for the most blatant example of the government bailing out the rich while piling the costs on the most vulnerable. Previous "top of the pops" had to be the news of the massive rise in house repossessions by the government (aka Northern Rock), which is repossessing far more homes than most lenders.

What the latest announcement means is a signal to businesses that when times are hard, they should ditch those with caring responsibilities first.

I fear that over the coming months there may be many occasions to use this excellent cartoon about the race to the bottom.

How about putting people before profit for a change? It's not as if the doctrine of "competitiveness at any price" has worked, is it.

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Economic Crisis - what does it mean for us?

It's hard to keep pace with the development of the current economic crisis, and the numbers are so large they are mind-boggling. There's a real danger of the labour movement not responding adequately to the scale of the changes that are taking place. This is not the time to be stuck in a rut.

Economics
The old saying that "there's no crisis so bad that the bosses can't get out of - if we're prepared to pay" should stand as a stark warning to us all.

We're already seeing recession in many countries, jobs being lost, house repossessions on the rise etc. How will governments raise the billions being pumped in to prop up the casinos? Will they get away with forcing through tax rises and service cuts?

Will employers get away with increasing their share of wealth by holding pay rises below inflation?

Can we press the government to reduce dependence on increasingly vulnerable pension funds (many of which held shares in the banks) which gamble on the stock market by a boost to the state pension on a similar scale to the support for banks?

Ideology and Resistance
For some decades the ideology of the free market (neo-liberalism) has been used as a barrier to workers fighting to improve or defend their standard of living. The arguments came in a variety of forms:

• The money isn't there
• Governments are helpless in the face of the markets
• Any interference in the market would only make things worse

All these arguments now stand threadbare. The money is there - on a scale that we in the labour movement never dared ask for. Governments can and have intervened in the market.

The stark truth is that governments chose not to intervene when jobs, livelihoods, homes and whole industries were under threat. Because many in the labour movement accepted the neoliberal arguments to a greater or lesser extent, we were disarmed. We didn't believe we could fight and win the things we needed. It's high time this changed.

Politics
There is no escaping the political dimension to the current crisis.

With the government now owning most banking activities in the UK, will they press on with repossessions? How can it be right to make someone homeless for failing to service their mortgage, while bailing out the billionaires? As other industries suffer from the recession, how can the government justify non-intervention? We're not just talking about a few small companies on the ropes here - for example GM, Ford and Chrysler are reportedly talking about mergers and wholesale job cuts.

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Manufacturing recession

What makes the current talk of a recession in manufacturing all the more alarming is that employment in the sector has continued to decline even in the supposedly good years.

Only a departure from the slavish support for Thatcherite free-market policies offers any prospect of a real revival in manufacturing jobs in the UK. I can't imagine a Johnson-Cruddas led Labour Party meaning any significant shift away from the neo-liberal agenda - if this is the answer, we must be asking the wrong question!

There is plenty that needs doing - just two examples: The government should not allow a downturn in construction when we desperately need more council housing and a massive programme of insulation and renovation of the existing housing stock. If there is a downturn in manufacturing, why not use those skills to rapidly expand public transport rather than let them go to waste?

It's interesting that the old argument "the money isn't there" doesn't cut much ice with people these days. You can toss a coin as to what answer you'll get - "Iraq" or "Northern Rock".

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