The following report from Fred Leplat on the solidarity given to Ukraine at the recent STUC conference was first posted by anti-capitalist resistance.
SCOTTISH TUC STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE
The STUC conference held in Dundee 17-19 April adopted overwhelmingly a motion drafted by its general council in solidarity with Ukraine. The STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer said in moving the motion that Ukraine had been invaded and occupied, that we must stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and support their acts of self-defence.
The motion agreed extending solidarity with trade unions in Ukraine resisting the invasion, including militarily, and supporting the anti-war activists in Russia. The resolution recognises that without military equipment, the people of Ukraine would be unable to resist the invasion and would be under permanent occupation. It goes on to back peace talks but notes that such talks would be not effective if support for Ukraine is withdrawn. Finally, the resolution commits the STUC to oppose direct NATO involvement and to call for support for refugees from Ukraine as well as for others fleeing wars.
The first to oppose the motions backed by the Morning Star and the Stop the War Coalition was John Dennis, a Dumfries TUC delegate, and also a supporter of UCS (Scotland) and a member of the Radical Independence Campaign. John, whose Jewish father was evacuated from the Sudetenland, had members of his family sent to Auschwitz. John made the comparison between those proposing a Munich-style agreement today and what it meant back then. He also pointed out the consequences of failing to provide arms to support the Spanish Republic. He was followed by Jim Baxter, a delegate speaking on behalf of ASLEF, told the conference that “When a sovereign, democratic state is invaded by an autocratic and authoritarian bully like Putin, we must always stand in solidarity with the oppressed and always in opposition to the aggressor. … you can be opposed to any expansion of NATO, without saying that this is to blame for Russia’s invasion. You can oppose this Tory government’s failings to deal with the cost of living crisis, without believing it is wrong to support Ukraine’s defence against invasion.” *
The decision by the STUC is welcome. Solidarity with Ukraine is a trade union issue, and a simple matter of working class internationalism let alone humanitarian compassion. The left and the labour movement in Britain should therefore be in solidarity with trade-unionists and socialists in Ukraine that are participating in the armed resistance against the invasion, occupation and destruction of their country.
Trade-unions in Ukraine, just like in Britain, are also organising against the neoliberal attacks on labour rights by their government and against employers. For several months, in Kyiv, Lviv, and other cities, hospital workers, especially nurses, have been mobilising to defend their rights. The main issues are unpaid salaries, working conditions, and hospital closures. Independent grassroots unions have emerged.
The invasion of Ukraine is another imperialist invasion that should be defeated and opposed by the left internationally. In 2003, Blair and Bush illegally invaded Iraq in 2003, without a UN or NATO mandate, on a similar excuse that Putin used to invade Ukraine which was the existence of weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat. Back then, the left and the trade unions opposed massively that imperialist invasion, and Blair and Bush were considered war criminals. While calling for Russian troops out of Ukraine, we must also support the resistance to the barbaric invasion, which should get the military equipment necessary. In doing so, we need to denounce the West sudden and hypocritical embrace of the fight for democracy and international law that it uses to expand NATO and massively increase military budgets. These arguments for solidarity with Ukraine are gaining ground amongst the left and the trade-unions, and will be heard at the forthcoming UCU and PCS conferences.
*This article was amended on 28 April 2023 with additional reporting.
See Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Scotland
https://www.facebook.com/USCScotland/
Ukraine Solidarity Campaign
https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/
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STUC resolution passed at conference in Dundee
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I would just like to add a comment to Fred’s article. Perhaps readers will be surprised at this setback for Morning Star supporters at the STUC. The old CPGB, and later the Communist Party (of the not so Great) Britain and their Left Labour allies, once dominated the STUC to a much greater extent than the TUC. However, they have lost a lot of credibility for their role in arguing support for the Union during IndyRef1. At that time, the STUC was neutral, whilst today it supports the Scottish people’s right to decide in a future referendum.
And just as we have an autonomous Scottish TUC, so we have an autonomous UCS – Scotland. The USC-S does not demand that either the UCS or UCS-S supporters back Scottish independence, but we do expect the general principle of the right of self-determination to be upheld . We hope that comrades in England recognise the different political situations in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, where the political line-up is very different, and where the right of self-determination is to the forefront of politics. This is the broader principle which underpins our support for Ukraine. And our support for the exercise of this principle in Ukraine follows its particularly brutal suppression by Russian imperialism.
Russian imperialism is being promoted today under the banner of ‘Russia One and Indivisible. In the old USSR it was promoted under the guise of Unionism – Soviet Unionism. The USSR like the UK was another unionist state. The 1936 USSR constitution, introduced at the height of Stalinist terror, included the right to national self-determination. But under the CPSU’s one party dictatorship, anyone raising this issue was purged from the party, internally exiled, imprisoned or shot.
Therefore, any attempt to ignore the existence of a Scottish nation or fail to support the right of Scotland’s self-determination plays into imperialist hands, be they Russian or British.