FOR the whole period that Labour Left MP John McDonnell was seeking to get the backing of the 40 plus MPs that would have allowed him to stand for the Labour Party leadership, UNISON with its allegedly ‘left’ leadership kept completely silent.
It certainly did not press UNISON sponsored MPs to nominate McDonnell, who stands opposed to privatisation, stands for the defence of the NHS and state education and is opposed to mass wage cutting.
McDonnell has a parliamentary record to be proud of. As is well known, he voted against the war in Iraq, surely a matter of the most important principle, when Brown was in charge of financing the war.
He has also publicly condemned the venture capitalists and publicly supported the 800 sacked Gate Gourmet workers who were locked out by the Texas Pacific group.
Not only did UNISON refuse to support his campaign for nomination, it never uttered a word of protest when he was not allowed to address the May Day rally in London, in case his presence offended Gordon Brown and the TUC big-wigs. He spoke where he was given a rousing welcome, in Liverpool.
As is well known there is major discontent in the working class, and amongst Labour Party members at the appalling record of the Blair-Brown governments of the last 10 years.
If McDonnell had won nomination he would at least have gotten a big vote, that would have put intense fear into the hearts of the rabble that are now poised to lead the Labour government.
UNISON and other major unions such as the TGWU and Amicus made sure that this did not happen.
None of them had the principle to openly oppose McDonnell or openly support Brown, they simply helped to freeze McDonnell out of the contest, in the most cowardly way.
Now, no doubt, that UNISON has come out, other union leaderships such as the TGWU, Amicus and the GMB will pluck up the courage to make their announcements of full support for the right wing team of Brown and Johnson, with both leaders dedicated to carrying forward Blair’s anti-working class policies.
In giving its support for a Brown-Johnson Blairite government, UNISON’s leadership is voting to put at least 100,000 civil servants out of work. Despite all of its public protestations of 100 per cent opposition to Brown’s two per cent wage rises (in fact huge wage cuts) for the public sector, the UNISON leaders are placing their confidence in the men that are pledged to carry out this policy.
Likewise while publicly supporting an end to NHS privatisation and the mass sackings of NHS junior doctors and nurses in the course of the reconfiguration of District General Hospitals, UNISON is now publicly supporting the leaders who are publicly pledged to carry that policy forward.
Hundreds of thousands of UNISON members will be disgusted at the decision of their leaders to support the continuation of the bosses’ governments that we saw under Blair and Brown for the last 10 years.
This decision to support Brown-Johnson proves once and for all that although the UNISON conference last year voted for a whole range of socialist policies, this present leadership will never carry them out.
This is why, on the eve of decisive struggles over the future of the NHS and state education, it is crystal clear that UNISON needs a new leadership, one that is prepared to fight for the policies adopted by the union.
Only the Workers Revolutionary Party is building the new leadership in the trade unions prepared to bring down a Brown government to go forward to a workers government and socialism.