“Don’t open this can of worms”: report of 14 January Unite the Resistance conference

Submitted by AWL on 15 January, 2012 - 2:54

In a number of respects, the Unite the Resistance conference held, in effect, by the Socialist Workers’ Party on 14 January was better than the previous weekend’s PCS Left Unity/Socialist Party conference.

Whereas the 7 January event acted as a rally in justification of the PCS leadership’s refusal to propose further strike action in defence of pensions now, the UTR event was clearly intended to bring pressure to bear for unions to “name the date” for more strikes. It was inspiring and informative to hear stories from a wide spread of workplaces and union branches suggesting that many workers are still eager to fight. And in contrast to the SP’s self-important dismissal of others on the left, the SWP made an effort to seem broad and inclusive, with not only independents but members of other socialist groups invited as speakers (the conference was co-chaired by Workers’ Liberty member Ruth Cashman!) Lastly, amendments to the official statement were allowed – though, as we will explain, the process for debating them left something to be desired.

However, the SWP (which probably made up sixty percent of the 200-250 people at the conference) showed that it wants to go so far, but not too far, in bringing pressure to bear on the "left" trade union leaders.

The conference's opening speakers included two of these leaders, Mark Serwotka of PCS and Kevin Courtney of NUT. Both sounded militant, but reading between the lines, what they told the audience was: “Maybe we’ll have more strikes, but don’t count on it, certainly not any time soon”. Serwotka talked about rolling and selective action, which is good, but for him it was clearly counterposed to the need to move fast and perhaps to the united, all out action which is also necessary if the campaign is to regain and build momentum. Similarly, he made perceptive comments about the state of rank-and-file organisation in many unions - but as if this is not also a problem in PCS, and as if PCS taking decisive action would not aid the rank and file in, for instance, Unison.

Both Serwotka and Courtney said their unions would be meeting soon, but refused to commit on what they would propose at such a meeting. Courtney said that the NUT would be “surveying” its membership.

Most SWP speakers, including Sean Vernell of the UCU executive, politely urged these left leaders to move more quickly, but refrained from sharper, more basic, more honest criticism. Had AWL members not raised it, for instance, it seems that nothing would have been said about the fact that a good half of the left on the NUT executive joined with the right to vote down proposals for urgent action, despite the fact the SWP voted with us on the committee and that some of those who voted the wrong way were in the audience (eg Alex Kenny, who sadly left before we got a chance to criticise him to his face). SWPers also went out of their way to lavish praise on Serwotka, with one comparing him to Arthur Scargill (if only).

Yes, the conference took amendments. But six top table speakers, each of them speaking at length, meant that there was hardly any time to debate them – one short speech for, one against and that was it. In typical fashion, Workers Power members moved a radical-sounding but not very to the point resolution about uniting public and private sector workers in rank-and-file strike committees. They motivated it with the usual nonsense about a general strike, but since the text itself contained nothing particularly controversial it passed almost unanimously.

The AWL's “less radical” amendment (see below) actually contained some concrete proposals about how the struggle should be prosecuted – and it was motivated by our comrade Tom Unterrainer, of Nottingham NUT, with criticism of the temporising “left” leaderships in PCS and NUT. At this point, someone (we don’t know if he was an SWPer or not) got up and insisted our text was too “prescriptive”; he said that putting pressure for such demands, and criticising the left leaderships, would “open a can of worms”.

Whether motivated by pre-received instructions, instinctive fear of being too radical or just dislike of the AWL, the SWP-majority of the conference voted our amendment down (though some SWPers, including Nick Grant of the NUT executive, voted with us).

This was all a bit odd: the “debate”, such as it was, had gone on not much more than five minutes, with no right to reply and no real possibility for anyone to get a sense of the arguments or persuade each other. With hindsight we should have made a fuss and tried to get longer for discussion.

There were some decent speeches from the floor, some by SWPers. Gill George of Unite health (SWP) and Dan Jeffery of Lambeth Unison (non-SWP) both took Serwotka to task, pointing out that PCS, NUT and UCU moving quickly to get action back on would help activists in other unions too. In Unite it would allow the left to pressure their bureaucracy to turn formal rejection into action; in Unison it would aid the fight to overturn acceptance of the government’s terms, for instance in the campaign for special conferences.

It would be wrong to act as if the pensions dispute is finally dead. There is still a fight to be had to rally the “rejectionist” unions into a coalition actually willing to take further action against the government. But, given the wavering of the “left” leaders, we face major obstacles - and we will not overcome them by pretending there are no divisions on the "left", or that everything is almost set to go, without a sharp struggle which may fail. The Unite the Resistance conference will have brought more pressure to bear on the likes of Serwotka than the PCS Left Unity event, but not nearly as much as it could have. Opening up a few cans of worms is exactly what the serious left in the trade unions needs to do!

***

Defeated amendment from Ruth Cashman (Lambeth Local Government Unison) and Tom Unterrainer (Nottingham City NUT):

Add new text after para beginning "Concretely", after sentence ending "through further strike action":

"We welcome the talk of a meeting of 'rejectionist' unions; in everyone one of those unions we will support activists pushing for that union to take the initiative in that meeting for coordinated further action.

"We believe further action must include rolling and selective action, sustained by strike levies, as well as one-day or longer all-outs; must develop a continuous and rapid campaign; must be linked to a general public political campaign around the call for 'fair pensions for all' financed by taxing the rich; and must be planned and organised with democratic and rank-and-file control."

Comments

Submitted by AWL on Sun, 15/01/2012 - 14:55

In typical ultra-sectarian fashion, the Socialist Party sent only two people to Unite the Resistance – at least one of them a full-timer. Contrast this to the SWP, who sent about twenty people to the 7 January event, despite it clashing with their internal conference. Or the AWL, which sent four people including two of our leading trade unionists to Unite the Resistance, despite the clash with our long-set trade union fractions meeting (and despite being much smaller than the SP). The SP full-timer at UTR, Neil Cafferky used his speech for a sectarian dig at the SWP for organising an event smaller than the Left Unity one and to defend the PCS leadership against left-wing criticism.

Submitted by AWL on Sun, 15/01/2012 - 18:44

The SWP's report (very inaccurate in terms of numbers but more to the point very bland) is here.

Apparently the person who spoke in opposition to our amendment was the organiser of the SWP's PCS fraction.

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