Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday gave a fitting reply to all those trade union bureaucrats who were saying that he could be forced to ditch his Thatcherite policies now that the Labour party is financially bankrupt.
Brown simply told the union leaders that ‘there will be no return to the 1970s’ and, that he stood four square behind all of the Thatcher and Labour anti-union laws.
The argument of the bureaucrats is that with the Labour Party in £8 million debt, and with all of its big business friends unwilling to shell out yet again for New Labour, the trade unions have the PM over a barrel.
The trade unions have the money that the PM and the Labour party wants, so Brown will have to make concessions – this is the theme that is currently being played non-stop at a thousand union meetings from NECs to local branches, to counter the demands of workers that this is the time to smash Brown by cutting off his cash supply.
However the trade union leaders, who are not too confident in their own propaganda, have decided not to pitch their demands above the level of the absolutely minimal, when they meet Brown on July 25th, to make a Warwick 2 deal between the unions and the government, that will see the unions resolve Labour’s financial crisis.
The trade union bureaucrats are prepared to hand over £8 million plus of workers money to Brown for measures that include free school meals for all primary school pupils, a ‘modernising’ of voting in industrial action ballots to prevent employers mounting legal challenges to ballot results, reform of the National Insurance system, a better regulation of energy prices, and for family friendly workplace reforms such as extended rights for parents to take days off.
These are minimal demands. But Brown will not even give the nod to these unless he gets the clearance of the bankers, and the bosses, who will see free primary school meals, and family friendly days off from work as dire threats to profitability, flexibility and financial stability.
Brown made this clear on Monday night when he told the media: ‘There’ll be no return to the 1970s.’
He added that he would not allow the re-introduction of secondary picketing rights, and told journalists: ‘Successful governments are those whose eyes are fixed on the future not harking back to the past. So there will be no return to the 1970s, 1980s or even the 1990s when it comes to union rights, no retreat from continued modernisation and there can be no question of any reintroduction of secondary picketing rights.’
He added: ‘The countries that prosper in the future will be those that combine fairness with flexibility to achieve full employment. . . While we will push ahead with our family friendly agenda, we will do nothing that puts employment and future prosperity at risk.’
In fact what workers require in a period of a massive inflation of food, fares, gas and electricity prices is an end to Brown’s three year wage cutting pay deals, the abolition of the anti-union laws so that the trade unions are free to defend their members from price rises and job losses, a proper regulation of gas and oil prices through the nationalisation of the gas and oil industries, and the illegalising of house repossessions by banks, when families can no longer afford to pay their mortgages because of the capitalist crisis.
The union leaders will not demand such policies because this would mean a conflict with the government that they are working all out to preserve.
Instead they urge a few cosmetic changes, saying that anything more than this will see the government fall and the Tories back.
The trade union bureaucrats’ policy is to hand millions to Brown so that he can carry on governing for the bankers.
It is this policy of propping up the Brown government that is making the Tories stronger with every day that passes.
This policy must be dumped and the trade union leaders with it. The working class must take action to bring the Brown government down, and to bring in a workers government that will carry out socialist policies to keep the Tories out. This is the only way to defend the interests of the working class.
