THIS year the Trade Union Congress meets in Bournemouth from the 8th to 11th September under conditions where, if the Tory-led coalition government have their way, it will be the last legal TUC meeting before the next general election in 2015.
If the proposed anti-lobbying bill – up before parliament the same week – gets passed then its provisions outlaw any criticism of government policy in the 12 months before an election, on the grounds that it could influence the way people vote.
This is how serious the crisis facing the trade union movement is today, this unelected coalition is seriously putting forward legislation designed to close down not just the TUC but any union from having meetings or demonstrations against government policy.
The response of the TUC was to seek a meeting with the government to protest about this ‘anti-democratic’ bill.
This feeble response to what amounts to a declaration of intent to smash trade unionism has been the hallmark of the leadership of the TUC to every savage attack on the working class by the government.
At last year’s TUC conference delegates unanimously passed a resolution to ‘consider the practicalities of organising a general strike’ to halt the complete destruction the welfare state.
When the TUC General Council met on April 24, the Unite union announced that it would be pushing for this resolution to be acted upon. Despite all the militant rhetoric from the Unite leader, Len McCluskey, absolutely nothing came out of this meeting.
The question of a general strike has been shelved by the bureaucracy, this is clear from the preliminary agenda for this year’s congress.
The lead resolution from Unite instructs the General Council to ‘organise in the course of 2014 a nationwide march against poverty, focusing on the bedroom tax, food banks and other effects of government policy’.
The resolution goes on to reaffirm ‘that mass industrial action to oppose the cuts and the wrecking of the welfare state is as legitimate an option in Britain as it has been in Greece, France, Spain and other countries in Europe, and that it will continue to work to create the conditions, including membership support and public sympathy, which makes discussion of this option a realistic possibility.’
While the coalition government is organising the state for an all-out war against the working class and its unions, in order to completely smash every single gain that workers have made, the only response the leadership of the TUC can come up with is another year of protest marches.
At the same time, they have the audacity to try and blame the working class for their own paralysis in the face of these attacks by claiming that the working class is not ready yet for a general strike.
The reverse is the truth – the working class is more than eager for a real fight against this hated government, this was demonstrated at a mass demonstration called by the TUC last October which ended in a rally where McCluskey was so moved by the massive demonstration that he put it to the vote at the Hyde Park mass meeting whether the vast crowd was in favour of an unlimited general strike, and was rewarded by a forest of hands in a unanimous ‘yes’ vote.
It is the TUC leadership that are running a mile from the fight to stop the government in its tracks by calling an indefinite general strike to bring down the government.
On the opening day of the TUC congress, Sunday September 8th, the Young Socialists and WRP will be lobbying the TUC demanding that these leaders either get up off their knees and call a general strike now or that they be forced out and replaced by a new leadership prepared to lead such a fight.
Only the WRP is building this leadership, come to the lobby and join the WRP today.
