Unions & politics

The November National Executive of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) carried a motion on the “Impact of the Economic Crisis”. The motion was written and submitted by two left-wing Executive members, Ian Murch of the Campaign for a Democratic and Fighting Union (CDFU) and Kevin Courtney of the Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA). The central idea behind the motion is a positive one — a call for the development of demands to be debated in each trades union and then decided on at a recalled TUC Conference and this to form a labour movement response to the economic crisis. It’s an attempt to...

Matt Wrack is general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). He spoke to Martin Thomas at the Labour Representation Committee conference on 15 November. The main policies need to be based around defence of the working class - rejection of privatisation, defence of jobs and wages. We need to put on the agenda a genuine nationalisation of the banks and financial institutions. These demands require government action. But we face a New Labour government which is plainly not going to do anything like that, and a Labour Party conference where the unions can't even put down motions... I don't...

Martin Mayer is chair of the TGWU Broad Left. He spoke to Martin Thomas at the Labour Representation Committee conference on 15 November. I supported a lot of what was said in the conference today. The financial crisis has suddenly made the policy of social control over the banks and financial system a viable policy to put forward for the left. It has not been seriously on our agenda before, but I think it should be now. Then I think we need to prioritise where a socialist perspective lies. We should be looking at the reversal of the privatisation of the health service and education. There's a...

The "workers' plan for the crisis" published in our last issue concludes by calling on "activists to build - through the trade unions, Trades Councils, and other working-class organisations - a movement for independent working-class representation in politics, as the basis for a new workers' party. "Its aim should be a workers' government , based on mass working-class mobilisation and accountable to the labour movement - a government which serves our class as the Tories and New Labour in power have served the rich, and reshapes society in the interests of people, not profit". What does the...

The rail union RMT has called a workers' representation conference for 10 January 2009 at Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1. It is not clear as yet whether this conference will allow motions. AWL members will however be promoting the motion in union branches at the same time as we argue for those branches to send delegates to the 10 January conference. Below are a "short text" and a "long text". Short text This branch believes that the working class needs our own independent political representation. We resolve to send delegates to the conference on working-class political representation...

The motion below has been submitted to the 15 November conference of the Labour Representation Committee by the AWL, and is also being proposed in other organisations affiliated to the LRC. The LRC notes the following decision by the 2008 AGM of the rail union RMT, affiliate of the LRC: "This union notes the disastrous results for the Labour Party in the May 1st elections. We believe that working class voters have deserted the Labour Party because it has abandoned working-class people through its policies of cuts, privatisation, war and lining the pockets of the rich at the expense of the poor...

The rail union RMT has called a cross-union conference on working-class political representation for 10 January 2009. Details The conference has been called in line with a motion passed at the RMT's Annual General Meeting this year. The motion came from Stratford no.1 branch and was moved by Janine Booth, a London Transport region delegate to the AGM and an AWL member. This union notes the disastrous results for the Labour Party in the May 1st elections. We believe that working class voters have deserted the Labour Party because it has abandoned working-class people through its policies of...

Questions and Answers On The Crisis The Capitalist Mystique Shatters Privatizing Gains and Socializing Losses? Socialize The Gains! What do we mean when we talk about socialism? A Workers' Answer To The Food Crisis A Workers' Response To The Crisis: Fight For A Workers' Government! A Workers' Plan For The Crisis For A Workers' Government! Why We Need A Workers' Government! Tories and Labour Converge: Fight For A Workers' Government! Why Won't The Unions Fight For A Workers' Party? Why You Should Be A Socialist What Is The Alliance For Workers' Liberty? AWL: Who We Are, What We Do, Why We Do it...

Next month we will have the first chance in 18 years to extend abortion rights when the House of Commons debates pro-choice amendments to the Human Embryology Bill. Every day recently I have removed anti-choice leaflets from the entrance sign to the hospital where I work at and numerous friends have told me about receiving pro-life propaganda through their door, urging them to contact their MP and ask them to vote against all of the pro-choice amendments. The anti-choicers are getting their arguments out and once again the focus of the main pro-choice group Abortion Rights will be a public...

"If they [the power companies] still don't get the message, this government should consider taking these essential industries - gas, electricity, water - back under public ownership", declared Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley at the Labour Party conference (22 September). "If it's good enough for the banks, it's good enough for our utilities". A sign that the union leaders are being jolted by the economic crisis into a more assertive stand? We can hope so, but so far the evidence compels scepticism. At the conference the union leaders have also rallied to Gordon Brown, shelving the...