THE TUC yesterday published a statement that amounts to nothing less than an abject surrender to the Tory government and a grovelling offer to Boris Johnson of partnership with the TUC leaders in a pact against the working class.
This statement of class betrayal was dressed up as the findings of a post-election poll carried out by the TUC of 2,975 adult workers who voted in the election.
According to the TUC, this poll demonstrated that ‘the vast majority of voters – including those who voted Conservative – want workers’ rights protected and enhanced’ it showed ‘widespread support for higher investment in public services and higher taxes for top earners’ and that ‘voters who switched from Labour to Conservative most likely to want stronger rights and higher pay.’
For the TUC, this poll means that ‘Boris Johnson is under pressure from voters to protect and enhance workers’ rights’. Not a word about Brexit – the reason why workers deserted the Labour Party.
Not surprising, given that the TUC leaders were a major force in pushing the betrayal of the Brexit vote, by championing the right-wing demand to ditch the Party’s commitment to upholding the result of the 2016 referendum in favour of a second referendum and remaining in the EU.
They shrug off their responsibility for this betrayal and are now trying to impose on the working class the position that workers’ rights are now dependent on the goodwill of Boris Johnson.
Commenting on the poll, TUC general secretary Francis O’Grady said: ‘The prime minister has no more excuses. Voters expect him to protect and strengthen rights at work. And they want him to get on with investing in our public services and boosting wages.’
TUC Vice President Peter McLeod said: ‘We know people had doubts about Boris Johnson’s integrity, and if the Conservatives fail to keep their promises a lot of those gains will be at risk.’
Not a word about the TUC leading a fight to defend workers’ rights and public services, instead all workers can do is wait five years until the next election to hold the Tories ‘to account’.
No mention from the TUC that in last week’s Queen’s Speech the Tories announced they would make strikes on public services, starting with rail, illegal.
The TUC completely ignores this, just as it has remained shamefully silent on the court ruling that a 97% vote in favour of strike action by postal workers was ‘illegal’.
Now that a second referendum has been destroyed, and with it the prospects of remaining forever in the EU with its ‘social chapter’ that held out the promise to trade union bureaucrats of ‘seats’ on the boards and relieving them of the responsibility for waging any fight for workers’ rights, the TUC is sucking up to Johnson.
Instead of making even a show of defiance and a pledge that the TUC will fight this Tory government at every stage, O’Grady and the rest are reduced to talking about voters holding them to account.
It will be the working class that holds not just Johnson but the TUC leaders to account and it won’t wait until the next election to do it.
A mass movement has developed rapidly amongst workers and youth as demonstrated by the strikes amongst railworkers, postal and hospital workers.
The TUC leaders are terrified of this strike wave that will increase dramatically as the working class confronts a Johnson government determined to destroy its rights and living standards in order to bail-out a bankrupt capitalist system.
These TUC leaders have shown that they are prepared to try and reach a compromise with the Tories in a vain attempt to head off the class confrontation ahead. In this war between the two classes there is no room for compromise.
These leaders must be removed and replaced by a new leadership that will immediately recall the TUC to organise the full strength of the working class in a general strike to kick out the Tories and advance to a workers government and socialism. This is the way forward.
Only the WRP is building this revolutionary leadership – join today.
