Vote to accept anti-union laws TUC runs up the white flag
Socialist Outlook1990sScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
ANY HINT of militancy will give votes to the Tories. That was the message from TUC leaders throughout last week's TUC Congress. It is a disgraceful argument.
Even if it were true, it would be wrong to subordinate the rights of millions of workers to defend their interests to the electoral needs of Labour - even with the importance of defeating the Tories.
It is in defending the interests of the working class that support for Labour is consolidated.
It is not even true that militancy benefits the Tories. Normally Labour's support actually goes up, not down during periods of industrial militancy.
Miners' strike
For example, during the miners' strike Labour was regularly 10-12 per cent ahead in the polls. Higher levels of class struggle under a Tory government strengthen the movement at every level - including support for Labour.
Norman Willis and the TUC General Council, however, are not interested in such facts. This year's Congress was not just a pre-election rally, it was new realism' in action.
TUCleaders talked about the need for a 'social partnership at work' and for cooperation with 'efficient management. You would hardly have known that there was a vicious employers' offensive in progress. Or that workers were facing mass redundancies, victimisations, de-recognition, de-unionisation, single union deals, individual contracts, speed-up, team leaders, quality circles and all the other techniques currently mushrooming throughout industry to increase the exploitation of those represented by the TUC.
Last year the TUC, in a major step backwards, voted to toethe Labour leadership line and accept that most of the Tory anti-union laws would be retained by an incoming Labour government.
This year the debate was re run under the shadow of the 1991 Act, which is in many ways the worst yet. It shows that they intend to continue with their full scale attack on the unions.
'Cooling off'
The new Act requires a seven days 'cooling off' period before strikes; gives individuals the right to sue unions over strike action; brings the possibility of legally binding agreements; and introduces an attack on the deduction of union dues at source, which would seriously damage unions' finances.
These realities were reflected on the floor of the Congress and produced the best debate of a desultory conference. LAPER