The newly merged union Unite is leading a
lobby of the Labour Party conference on Sunday 23 September. A whole
list of grievances will be presented to the Labour leadership in defence
of the rights of working people. But millions of trade union members
will rightly be asking 'How can the big unions still remain handcuffed
to New Labour in the face of its pro-business agenda?
The last week has seen these union general
secretaries correctly denouncing Brown for his 'meet and greet' session
with Thatcher. This disgusted generations of workers, from ex-miners and
steelworkers to postal workers and civil servants. Totally aware of
this, union leaders have rushed out statements attacking Brown. Yet the
very same leaders refuse to carry those sentiments through to their
logical conclusion - stop giving millions of our union subs to New
Labour and launch a new mass workers' party!
Brown meeting Thatcher is the logical
conclusion of the New Labour project, transforming it into an openly
big-business party. Brown, and Blair before him, are the heirs to her
legacy, making Britain a place where the rich and powerful can prosper
at the expense of millions of working-class people suffering from the
effects of privatisation and the rest of the neo-liberal agenda.
Thatcher called the miners 'the enemy
within' and now Brown views the whole trade union movement with the same
distain. Brown wants to abolish the right of Labour Party conference to
vote against the government on policy. He plans to end the opportunity
for unions and constituency delegates to vote on so-called contemporary
motions, shuffling off controversial issues to private sessions of the
machine-dominated national policy forum. New Labour democracy has been
an oxymoron for years now and this latest move is just another nail in
the coffin of Labour as a party that workers can have any influence
over. We need to break the link and build a new party that can fight in
our interests and which we can have a real say over the policies and
campaigns of.
Of course, New Labour prime minister, like
Thatcher herself, are war leaders as well. Millions live in poverty but
billions are spent in the illegal war and occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of miners and
steelworkers were sacked by Thatcher just as Brown announced over
100,000 civil servants losing their jobs live on TV when he was
chancellor. Yet the union leaders have been doing their best to try and
persuade us that Brown is different to Blair. In reality, he is part and
parcel of the New Labour regime. Why do we need to waste more time and
money? We need to cut the link with Labour now!
On 17 October, the unions will be lobbying
Parliament to put pressure on to get the Trade Union Freedom Bill
passed. These are the same laws that were used to defeat the miners and
the printers at Wapping. Yet 27 years later, the anti-trade union laws
remain, even after 10 years of a Labour Government. Surely, if Labour
MPs don't deliver yet again, the penny must drop! Let's cut the links
and launch a new party that can bring together the millions that have
opposed this government, from trade unionists to anti-war protestors to
anti-NHS cuts campaigners, and give working class people the political
voice the deserve.
