The Trade Unions Truants from the Class Struggle

Under newly-passed legislation, unions calling strikes can be obliged to give employers the names of all union members involved.

This anti-strike law was recently invoked by Birmingham & the Fylde College, in the face of a national strike called for March 1st by the college lecturers’ union, NATFHE. The employers’ national body proposed new contracts, which demanded seven hours added on to the basic working week, no limit to weekly teaching hours, and a halving of the holiday entitlement. Unlike two smaller college unions, NATFHE rejected the contracts. However, this was not a sign of adamantine resistance: NATFHE was asking the bosses to haggle, not challenging them to struggle. The union was prepared to serve its members up to the employers on the following conditions: lecturers would work an extra two to four hours a week on marking and preparation, be more flexible over teaching hours, and put in 5-8 additional working days per year.

The college bosses treated these offers with disdain. NATFHE responded by calling a one-day strike – only to call it off when the Blackpool college successfully brought an injunction against them. If the strike went ahead without the members’ names being provided, the union’ s funds could be sequestered.

Now, faced with a choice between keeping their self-respect and keeping their funds, our present unions always take the second option. A century ago, Engels welcomed the birth of unions with quite a different attitude: “[The Gas Workers & General Labourers Union]… is wholly and solely a fighting body, Our Union is not to degenerate into a mere burial and benefit society…” (Hutchins & Thorne, The Gas Workers Strike, Time, January 1890). Today, one of the trade unions’ favourite areas of activity is… financial services.

Yet workers today do occasionally treat this “fund-manager” union mentality with the contempt it deserves. On March 1st lecturers at several colleges walked out, without the approval of their union. Even though there was no real alternative but to fight, NATFHE told the rebels they were on their own. The union preferred to launch a campaign to lobby the TUC and civil liberties organisations against the legislation. But this is only the latest in a series of such laws passed by both Labour and Tory governments. These industrial laws have not been resisted successfully for one reason: only workers’ organisations which are unafraid of carrying economic struggles to the point of class war can overturn legislation, by demonstrating its effectiveness in practice. At this time, such combative organisations do not exist in Britain.

Our party doesn’t advise the present union leaders on their course of action: these people are beyond redemption. Whenever the workers fight in determined fashion against the attacks of the bourgeoisie they will also confront these union functionaries. Workers may end up leaving the existing unions, or they may turn the existing structures inside out. Either way, real workers’ economic organisations will emerge, and the communist party will be there to bring its message: strikes over wages and conditions are stepping stones to a higher goal.

ABOLITION OF THE WAGES SYSTEM ALTOGETHER