Editorial of the Socialist issue 1280
This year’s National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) conference, which brings together rank-and-file trade unionists from across the movement, comes just 12 days before an election which is highly likely to see the defeat of the Tories and the coming to power of a Starmer-led Labour government.
Millions of workers will be desperate to see the back of a Tory government which has brought public services to the brink of collapse, ruled over a falling of living standards and wages, and tightened the most restrictive anti-trade union laws in Europe.
Workers’ action has no doubt helped to speed up the demise of the Tories. The strike wave, which saw the development of the biggest level of sustained strikes in three decades, as workers across the country fought for inflation-proof pay rises, helped to accelerate the political splits and crisis at the top of the Tory government.
But while many will be desperately hoping that booting out the Tories will mean a break from relentless attacks on working-class people’s lives over the last 14 years, workers and young people will also be thinking about how the struggle for workers’ rights can be advanced under a Starmer-led government.
The NSSN conference also comes a week before the junior doctors take five days of strike action for an above-inflation pay rise – with Labour Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting begging them not to take action, calling their demands unaffordable!
The Nuffield Trust think tank has warned that Labour pledges would leave the NHS with a lower annual funding increase than during the era of Tory austerity – of just 1.1%!
Labour and big business
It couldn’t be clearer that the incoming Labour government will be in the pocket of big business. Labour’s recently released election manifesto mentions the trade unions 12 times, “nationalisation” zero times, while “business” is mentioned 60 times. Rachel Reeves told business leaders that the manifesto “has their fingerprints all over it” – and echo of when Starmer told 200 business leaders in October last year: “If we do come into government, you will be coming into government with us”.
But it would be wrong, however, to draw the conclusion that workers can’t make any gains under Labour. On the basis of mass working-class action, a pro-big business Labour government can be forced to make concessions to the working class – just like how the Tories were forced to deliver improved pay offers for workers as a result of the strike wave.
This year’s NSSN conference, like every year, will provide a platform for rank-and-file reps and activists leading trade union action from across the movement to help try and build the maximum possible coordination between our disputes. As we head into a Starmer-led government against the backdrop of a historic crisis of British capitalism, the ‘strike weapon’ will be much more quickly picked up by workers looking to fight back against a Labour government’s attacks carried through on behalf of the bosses.
But more than that, NSSN conference will also be a chance to discuss and debate what policies the trade union movement ought to fight for – a workers’ manifesto – during the first 100 days of an incoming Labour government, and beyond.
Labour’s cut-down ‘plan to make work pay’ is featured in the manifesto. It says measures introduced to parliament in the first 100 days would include “banning exploitative zero hours contracts; ending fire and rehire; and introducing basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal” as well as “making sure the minimum wage is a genuine living wage.”
But the fuller ‘Labour plan to make work pay’ released in May calls for an end to fire and rehire, but with the qualifier that “it is important that businesses can restructure to remain viable, preserve their workforce and the company when there is genuinely no alternative”. So giving the go ahead to businesses to use it if they say they really need to!
But the working class can’t trust the bosses to act in our best interests, under any circumstances. That’s why the workers’ manifesto the NSSN conference will be discussing calls for the complete scrapping of fire and rehire and zero-hour contracts, as well as real inflation-proof pay rises for workers, that protect our living standards.
Unite the Union has refused to endorse the Labour Party manifesto. But this raises the need for Unite and the trade union movement more widely to discuss steps towards building a party in which the trade union movement and the working class has control and oversight of its policies and programme – a political wing of the trade union movement itself.
Britain has some of the most draconian anti-trade union legislation in the world. Starmer has previously said he’ll repeal the Tories’ Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act and the 2016 Trade Union Act if elected. But what about the rest of the anti-trade union legislation dating back to Thatcher’s era, left in place by the last Labour government, which Jeremy Corbyn spoke about repealing during his time as Labour leader?
Starmer has spoken about taking the railways back into public ownership, just as Blair did pre-1997 before he ditched that pledge in government. But Starmer’s pledge is for only after rail franchises expire – why can’t he renationalise rail in the first 100 days of the next government, alongside other key industries like Royal Mail, BT, buses, the energy and utility companies, steel.
The NSSN has written to various different political parties to invite them to address the NSSN conference and to talk about what they would fight for in the first 100 days of government. This includes the Labour Party, the Greens, Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign in Islington North, the Workers’ Party, and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (of which the Socialist Party is part).
Just as trade unionists don’t accept the crumbs that big business says it can afford for pay rises, why should we accept only the crumbs of what a Labour government is prepared to offer? And if any political party claiming to be an alternative to the Tories wants our backing as trade unionists and workers, then they can come and speak to a conference of reps and shop stewards about the policies and programme they’re prepared to fight for politically in Parliament.
Strategy for struggle
But a strategy to keep this struggle up after the general election is crucial as well. The NSSN will be organising a lobby of the TUC in Brighton on Sunday 8 September – two thirds of the way through the first 100 days of the next government, and around the time of Labour’s planned first fiscal event – to raise the fighting strategy which will be needed by the trade union movement’s leadership to win a genuine workers’ manifesto.
But more than that, Socialist Party members will be continuing the campaign after the election is over for a new mass working-class party, accountable to the trade union movement, including pushing for a trade union-organised conference to discuss how a working class political alternative to a pro-capitalist Starmer-led government can be built.
