It was generally agreed by participants that the third Global Commune event, jointly hosted by the Republican Communist Network (RCN<\/acronym>) and the commune, on Saturday, January 29th<\/sup>, was a very worthwhile day. Once again, the event was held in the \u2018Out of the Blue\u2019 Centre in Leith (Edinburgh) and involved, as well as the organising groups, members of the Independent Workers Union (IWU<\/acronym>) in Ireland, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW<\/acronym>), Permanent Revolution, the Autonomous Centre in Edinburgh (ACE<\/acronym>), current and ex-members of the SSP<\/acronym>, and the Anarchist Federation.<\/p>\n The theme for the day was, \u2018Trade Unions – Are They Fit for Purpose?\u2019 There was a shared agreement that the traditional Broad Left strategy for working in trade unions had been shown to be wanting. By and large, Broad Lefts accept the existing union structures and concentrate on replacing Right wing leaderships. However, we now have the situation where new Broad Lefts have to contest old Broad Lefts, which have become as conservative as the leaderships they replaced. This highlights the flawed thinking behind their \u2018capture the machinery\u2019 approach.<\/p>\n Mary MacGregor of the RCN<\/acronym> chaired the initial and plenary sessions. The opening platform of speakers consisted of Allan Armstrong of the RCN<\/acronym> and the commune, Stuart King of Permanent Revolution, Tommy McKearney of the IWU<\/acronym>, Alberto Durango of the Latin American Workers Association (LAWA<\/acronym>) and the IWW<\/acronym>, and Mike Vallance of ACE<\/acronym>. They each put forward different approaches, including organising within or outside existing trade unions, in TUC<\/acronym>\/ITUC<\/acronym>-recognised or independent unions, and the possibility of a strategy involving a mixture of these methods.<\/p>\n Apologies for being unable to attend were given by Brian Higgins of the rank and file Building Workers Group, who is currently involved in the anti-blacklist campaign; and by Jerry Hicks, who has just campaigned on a rank and file platform for the post of General Secretary in UNITE. Therefore, Allan Armstrong, the former Scottish Teachers\u2019 Rank & File convenor provided a rank and file perspective.<\/p>\n Allan used his experience in the Lothian and the Scottish Rank & File Teacher groups. He drew a distinction between a rank and file movement and a rank and file caucus. In 1974\/5, the Rank & File Teacher group had been to the forefront of a three month long independent (unofficial or wildcat) rank and file movement of Scottish teachers organised through Action Committees. The central demand was for a \u00a315 a week flat rate pay increase. The Action Committees organised weekly three-day strike action, street activities, large demonstrations, and an occupation of the EIS<\/acronym> (the main Scottish teachers\u2019 union) HQ. Negotiations were conducted directly between delegates from the Action Committees and representatives from the Scottish Office at New St. Andrews House in Edinburgh. The teacher delegates were backed by a demonstration outside of striking teachers, whilst the Scottish Office had the backing of the Special Branch (or some other state agency) cameramen on the roof!<\/p>\n The Action Committees held weekly open meetings of striking teachers, and sent flying pickets to other schools to draw them into action. They also worked within the EIS<\/acronym>. Many activists were EIS<\/acronym> school reps. Eventually there was a palace coup at EIS<\/acronym> HQ. This enabled a rejigged union leadership to sanction its own official action. Negotiations were confined once more to union officials and the Scottish Office, much to their mutual relief. Nevertheless, the strength of the independent strike action was enough to force the government to concede the financial equivalent of nearly the whole rank and file movement\u2019s \u00a315 pay demand. However, with negotiations now conducted by EIS<\/acronym> officials, the distribution of the money gained was massively skewed in favour of school managements.<\/p>\n The self-confidence gained by teachers meant that further action over the next two years, mostly official, but sometimes involving independent action, was able to win substantial improvements in teachers\u2019 conditions. A new contract clearly defined maximum working hours and class sizes. In the process of these struggles, Scottish education and teacher trade unionism was turned upside down. The employers and union officials were unable to fully reassert their control until the McCrone Deal was implemented in 2001.<\/p>\n After the ending of the initial rank and file movement, around the action over pay in 1975, Scottish Rank & File Teachers continued as a caucus. They campaigned around a very wide range of issues, e.g. pay (for a single salary scale, for flat rate increases), improved conditions (smaller class sizes), for women\u2019s and gay rights, against the use of the belt (the form of corporal punishment in Scottish schools), for the right of school students to organise, for egalitarian educational provision, secular education and support for Gaelic language teaching. They also campaigned to democratise the union – demanding The Scottish Teachers Rank & File caucus was sabotaged by the SWP<\/acronym> in 1982, leaving only the Lothian Rank & File group. Later, a Scottish Federation of Socialist Teachers (SFST<\/acronym>) brought together the Left once more. However, the SFST<\/acronym> became a hybrid Broad Left\/Rank & File caucus. Furthermore, the employers had encouraged division amongst teachers by creating a plethora of promoted posts. They also curtailed a vibrant culture of alternative educational thinking amongst classroom teachers, through the top-down promotion of tightly policed \u2018educational\u2019 counter-reforms. The Tories\u2019 anti-trade union laws undermined independent strike action, massively aided by trade union officials. However, there was still limited independent action until as recently as the 2003, in protest against the war in Iraq.<\/p>\n Allan summed up by saying that he thought the rank and file approach was still valid in various unions. However, there had been a rapid decline of union membership in many sectors of employment, as well as new areas of work without any union organisation. Union leaderships were often more interested in suppressing any attempts to resist the employers, acting in effect as a free personnel management service for the bosses. Such leaders wanted little more than sweetheart agreements with the employers to ensure a tick-off system of subs collections, primarily for their own benefit. Therefore, socialists should think tactically, and consider when an independent union, or possibly dual official\/independent union approach, may be more appropriate than a rank and file caucus approach.<\/p>\n Stuart King of Permanent Revolution then drew on the experience of the early Minority Movement in the trade unions in the early 1920\u2019s. The CPGB<\/acronym>\u2019s work in the Minority Movement formed part of the wider work of the Third International, which had organised the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU<\/acronym>) in 1920 to conduct united front work within the international trade union movement. Although mostly associated with the official Communist Parties, RILU<\/acronym> drew together wider forces within the unions, especially those from a Syndicalist tradition.<\/p>\n Stuart argued that there were some similarities in the early 1920\u2019s to the situation we face today. In April 1921, the two leaderships of the NTWU<\/acronym> (later the TGWU<\/acronym>) and the NUR<\/acronym>, failed to support the miners of the MFGB<\/acronym> (later the NUM<\/acronym>), in the face of employer imposed wage cuts, despite being part of the Triple Alliance.\u00a0This \u2018Black Friday\u2019 climb-down led to a growing feeling of demoralisation amongst workers. Many left their unions. The Minority Movement launched a \u2018Back to the Unions\u2019 campaign, with the intention of getting workers organised to resist the growing employers\u2019 offensive, and to bring the union leaders under the effective control of the rank and file.<\/p>\n Stuart said that we also face a period of retreat today, as existing union leaderships had joined social partnerships with the state and employers. There was also declining union membership. The \u2018Awkward Squad\u2019 had also turned out to be not that awkward when it came to effectively challenging the employers and the state. Nevertheless, workers still look to their official unions when it comes to taking defensive action – as recent strikes of civil servants, airline cabin staff and others have demonstrated. This means communists must be active within the existing unions and struggle to bring them under effective rank and file control.<\/p>\n Stuart\u2019s contribution provided a counterpoint to others who emphasised the fundamental differences in the situation we face today, compared to the past. In particular, Tommy McKearney of the Independent Workers Union of Ireland highlighted the major challenges workers now face.<\/p>\n Tommy argued that thirty years of neo-liberal economics have finally done fundamental damage to the system it was meant to promote. Facilitated by globalisation, the enormous transfer of wealth from workers to capitalists has created a situation where consumers in the west no longer have the purchasing power to buy the produce of their own industry and the developing countries have not yet reached a level where they can take up the slack. The contradiction is explicable only by Marxist economists.<\/p>\n What has also happened, almost unnoticed by many commentators, is the collapse of social democracy in the face of the neo-liberal assault and the most recent crisis in capitalism. For a few years the social democratic movements of Europe disguised their collapse by stealing the clothes of the neo-liberals. Tony Blair, Schroder, Mitterand were in reality as far to the right as any Tory or Christian Democrat. In the face of economic collapse post 2008, they could only offer right-wing solutions.<\/p>\n Moreover, the trade union movement that had give birth to and thereafter sustained these parties for almost a century was as ideologically and organisationally bankrupt. There is no longer a viable middle way between socialism and capitalism.<\/p>\n The IWU<\/acronym> recognises this fact and has decided to seek out new and more appropriate methods of organisation in order to meet the new challenge. Among other strategic options, the IWU<\/acronym> is actively developing a policy of building community and\/or social justice unionism. This concept is not new or devised by the IWU<\/acronym> but it recognises the need to emphasise the struggle between classes and the need to promote the unity and solidarity of the working people.<\/p>\n Tommy summed up by saying that we are in a new era. There has been a fundamental change in social relationships in the west, and we must recognise this in our ideological analysis, in our policy decisions and in our organisations structures. The IWU<\/acronym> may be small but we are confident in our analysis and in our strategy.<\/p>\n Then Alberto Durango gave a thorough and humorous account of his experience as a migrant worker from Colombia now living in London. Migrant workers often had more than one job to make ends meet. This sometimes meant that they could be in more than one union.<\/p>\n Alberto had started as a cleaner in a non-unionised office. First of all, his boss had resorted to Alberto for help, asking him to inform workers who did not speak English that they would have their hours cut and changed. Alberto brought the workers together and told them in Spanish\u00a0– \u201cThis fucking manager wants to\u2026 !\u201d They began to organise, turning first to the T&G. The T&G (now UNITE) organised an official Justice for Cleaners campaign. There were some initial successes against large City of London and Canary Wharf companies. LAWA<\/acronym>, which Alberto was very much involved in, was to the forefront of campaigning, and was provided with office space and money by UNITE.<\/p>\n However, there was a limit to how far the UNITE leadership was prepared to push. After organising some demonstrations, it contented itself with signing \u2018no further action\u2019 deals in return for minimum pay awards. The employers then started changing workers\u2019 hours and conditions and pressured them over their immigration status. Alberto was sacked, arrested and had his home raided by the police.<\/p>\n UNITE\u2019s leadership wasn\u2019t prepared to challenge this. Therefore, workers had to organise their own independent Cleaners Defence Committee. This had led to an international campaign {including solidarity action in Edinburgh, following Alberto addressing the first Global Commune event}. The UNITE leadership, supported by the local Broad Left, then turned on the workers involved, smearing activists, refusing to back those without papers, and taking away LAWA<\/acronym>\u2019s facilities.<\/p>\n In order to organise, LAWA<\/acronym> then turned to the IWW<\/acronym>. A wider organisation was required to unite migrant workers from many countries. They needed an independent forum for organising, without being directly sabotaged by UNITE officials and the Broad Left. The new IWW<\/acronym> cleaners\u2019 branch provided this. However, some cleaners still worked within UNITE too, and had participated in the rank and file campaign to elect Jerry Hicks.<\/p>\n The last of the morning speakers was Mike Vallance. He explained how ACE<\/acronym>, with its own premises, had been set up in the aftermath of the successful Anti-Poll Tax campaign. ACE<\/acronym> became very much involved in claimants\u2019 campaigns, providing a venue for meeting and socialising, organising support demonstrations and providing advocates to support people in their dealings with various state agencies. ACE<\/acronym> also operated as a venue for a wider range of campaigns and various organisations, including the Anarchist Federation. It was also involved in the production and distribution of a number of bulletins and other publications, including the commune<\/em>.<\/p>\n Currently ACE<\/acronym> was involved in the Edinburgh refuse workers\u2019 campaign which was challenging the City Council\u2019s massive cut in pay and worsening of conditions. The Council\u2019s attack was being made under the guise of bringing about \u2018parity\u2019 across their workforce. It had begun under the last administration led by the Labour Party, and was continuing under the present Lib Dem\/SNP administration. The refuse cleaners\u2019 union, UNITE, was in cahoots with the Council, and they had organised no effective backing, despite the campaign being official. Their main concern was to bring the current official work-to-rule to an end.<\/p>\n ACE<\/acronym> had been involved in providing bulletins, posting support stickers, but most of all, in attempts through sit-down actions to blockade scab drivers employed by the Council to break the refuse workers\u2019 work-to-rule. Workers fear that it is the Council\u2019s intention to privatise the refuse collection service, and replace them with non-union workers on lower pay and worsened conditions. Yet, despite the almost total lack of official support, the workers had so far rejected any of the union-backed \u2018offers\u2019. In the light of this determination, ACE<\/acronym> was hoping to draw others into its solidarity campaign.<\/p>\n This was followed by a short plenary session. Contributions ranged from one participant who said that social democracy had revealed its bankruptcy as far back as the First World War. Matthew Jones of the commune particularly welcomed Tommy\u2019s appreciation that a new political trade unionism was needed after the now evident failure of social democracy and Stalinism. In order to maximise participation, the meeting soon broke up into two workshops, with RCN<\/acronym> and commune members acting as facilitators and recorders.<\/p>\n After lunch, Paul Stewart and Patricia Campbell of the IWU<\/acronym> presented the case for a community or social justice unionism approach. Paul showed a DVD drawing on the experiences of the Kanagawa City Union in Japan. This union organised migrant workers, especially from Latin America. It addresses not only workplace issues, but the wider problems workers face in the community such as racially motivated and domestic violence, sexual harassment, health, welfare and visa problems. It also calls on members to participate regularly in protests outside offending companies. Paul was going to make this DVD more widely available.<\/p>\n Patricia followed this up with a power point presentation (until the technology failed!) of the current work of the IWU<\/acronym> in attempting to broaden out union organisation into the communities. The IWU<\/acronym> had conducted a participatory survey into the issues that local communities wanted to address. It also sought to address the problems faced by migrant workers. The IWU<\/acronym> had already challenged the strong-arm tactics of the PSNI (the revamped RUC) in Armagh City. It had also campaigned on the streets, with red banners, against the DUP\/Sinn Fein government\u2019s proposals to limit marches. These would prevent workers from organising their own demonstrations. The IWU<\/acronym> had helped to force the authorities to retreat.<\/p>\n The two follow up workshops discussed the possibilities of wider community organising. They also returned to the issue addressed in the morning of whether unions were fit for purpose.<\/p>\n There was a final report-back plenary session with further discussion. The initial platform speakers were provided with an opportunity to say what they thought had been learned and gained from the day. The majority of those in attendance over the day were activists. However, the need for wider forums for strategic debate and discussion, which did not necessarily lead to immediate calls for activity, was nonetheless appreciated.<\/p>\n There was a wide consensus that there was no single approach to organising workers in the complex and changing situation we faced. The long period of working class retreat probably disguised some of the new methods of resistance that were emerging in the face of the current capitalist offensive. It was also acknowledged that learning from wider international experience, especially that of the IWU<\/acronym>, had been very useful. There had been differences over whether the situation we now face is altogether different from earlier experiences, and over the longstanding issue of whether \u2018to party or not to party\u2019. However, these differences were all aired in a very comradely manner.<\/p>\n A good day was followed by the now traditional Global Commune social session in Wetherspoon\u2019s\u00a0\u2018Foot of the Walk\u2019, where members from all the organisations present through the day continued their discussions till much later!<\/p>\n Allan Armstrong. 10.2.11<\/p>\n Allan Armstrong was invited to speak for the SSP International Committee.<\/p>\n I would like to thank the IWU organisers very much for giving me the opportunity to speak for the Scottish Socialist Party\u2019s International Committee.<\/p>\n The origins of the SSP lie in the Anti-Poll Tax Movement, which rocked British politics between 1989 and 1991. However, it was to take a number of years before the various political groups involved had broken sufficiently with earlier practices and gained the confidence to create a new political organisation. In 1996 the Scottish Socialist Alliance was formed. And right from the start, political organisation was linked with working class struggles. SSA members threw themselves into the campaigns against water privatisation, the Glacier works occupation and Save Our Schools. By 1998, the SSA had become the Scottish Socialist Party, and Tommy Sheridan was elected to Holyrood the Scottish parliament. Keith Baldassara and Jim Bollan were elected SSP councillors in Glasgow Pollock and West Dunbartonshire. In 2006, the SSP gained 6 MSPs at the expense of both the SNP and Labour Party and formed part of a wider rainbow opposition.<\/p>\n And then of course came the Tommygate \u2018car crash\u2019. Tommy McKearney has pointed the finger at the underlying problem, in Fourthwrite<\/em>. The attempt to build a party around a celebrity figure has a bad record in Britain, whether it be Derek Hatton in Liverpool in the 1980s, Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party in the 1990s\u00a0and George Galloway\u2019s Respect most recently. In the 2007 Holyrood election, the SSP experienced wipe out, although all the Left faced setbacks internationally after the failure to stop the Iraq War in 2003. The only SSP figure still in a publicly elected position is councillor Jim Bollan.<\/p>\n However, the SSP is pulling itself up again. We remain profoundly Scottish internationalist. At our 2007 conference, we gave support to \u2018No One Is Illegal\u2019 so we can campaign to defend migrant rights. We reject \u2018British Jobs for British Workers\u2019. The struggle of the Turkish GAMA workers in Ireland, the Latin American Workers\u2019 Association leading the London cleaners and that of the Asian workers at Heathrow provide an inspiring example for us all. Showing our commitment to internationalism, the SSP is putting forward a candidate to the forthcoming 2009 Euro-election as part of the European Anti-Capitalist Left. We hope to bring over a French worker to speak to meetings as part of that campaign.<\/p>\n With regard to trade unions, there is spectrum of opinion within the SSP. On one hand there are those who advocate a Broad Left approach which seeks to replace existing Right-wing leaders with Left wing leaders. I, however, belong to those advocating a Rank & File approach, which is, in effect, industrial republicanism. This sees sovereignty lying not with general secretaries in union AGMs, hiding behind AGMs, which they circumvent just as the inner cabinet ignores the House of Commons in the UK. And if the union officials don\u2019t actually swear an oath of loyalty to the general secretary, their appointment and privileges ensures where their loyalty lies.<\/p>\n An industrial republican approach sees sovereignty lying with members in their workplaces. Any action we decide to take is not unofficial but independent action. Members can spread this action through both picketing and organising area, regional and national meetings. All union officers should be elected, recallable and on the average pay of the members they represent.<\/p>\n To some of us in the SSP, the IWU\u2019s commitment to developing community unionism represents a twenty-first century update of the industrial unionism, which produced the great Wobblies in the USA and had such a profound effect on Larkin and Connolly\u2019s and Irish Transport & General Worker Union. The wave of the future could well be social or community unionism which links workplaces with communities.<\/p>\n At a deeper political level, the SSP seeks the break-up of the UK state and its alliance with US imperialism. We want an end to the anti-democratic Crown Powers, which have seen death squads, juryless Diplock courts and detention in her majesty\u2019s prisons in recent Irish history. They have also been used to prevent the people of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean returning to their homes, despite a high court ruling in their favour. And back in 1975, The Australian Labour prime minister, Gough Whitlam was dismissed by the UK appointed governor general. And these Crown Powers have also been used to bring troops into industrial disputes.<\/p>\n The UK state is organised across the three-and-a-bit nations on these islands, and still exerts a great deal of economic and political pressure on the 26 counties too. This is not something that is being countered by the British TUC, Scottish TUC, Welsh TUC, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, or its Northern Ireland Committee. Indeed, the post-1997 \u2018Devolution-all-round\u2019 and Good Friday Agreement, which together cover all these islands, have not only reinforced social partnerships between union leaders, employers and the state, but have turned these leaders into significant backers of this political set-up, particularly in Northern Ireland. This represents a further political projection of union officials\u2019 role in supporting social partnerships. These already reduce union officials to a cheap personnel service for the employers and government.<\/p>\n Socialists need to be able to challenge this on an all-islands \u2018internationalism from below\u2019 basis. Tommy (McKearney) came across and spoke to the SSP\u2019s Republican Socialist Convention in Edinburgh on. The SSP also took its message to the well-attended Convention of the Left in Manchester in September 2008. I would like to thank the IWU again for inviting me to your conference today. I have learned a lot from the other speakers both form Ireland and further afield here today. The great Scottish internationalist, Hamish Henderson had a saying which I would like to finish on – \u2018Freedom Come All Ye!\u2019<\/p>\nhead teachers out<\/q> and directly elected and accountable union office bearers on the average pay of the members. Most importantly though, they championed the sovereignty of the membership in their workplaces, and defended, and when possible initiated, independent action.<\/p>\n
2. TALK GIVEN TO THE INDEPENDENT WORKERS UNION CONFERENCE IN DUBLIN ON 4.4.09<\/h2>\n