It is not surprising that the best debate at Congress took place at the Morning Star fringe at lunchtime today. Entitled the The Con Dem Cuts: The Trade Union Response – DEFEND OUR PUBLIC SERVICES , a packed hall heard speeches from trade union leaders across the movement.
Keith Sonnet from UNISON asked how anyone can expect a union, when it sees 26,000 members in Birmingham City Council issued with redundancy notices, to not respond. Detailing how the current economic crisis is the legacy of the support given by all politicians, for over forty years to neo liberalism. He called for sustained political opposition to the neo liberal doctrine as well as determination from the trade unions to protect jobs and members terms and conditions. “We need to be strong, we need to be strident, we need to be united to defend all our families and our communities” he said.
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1978
Mary Davis reminded us of the watchwords of the movement ‘ Agitate, Educate and Organise’ stressing again the need to expose this as a capitalist crisis to which there is an alternative. “ We must protect our own just as much as they look after their own”
Steve Gillan from the Prison Officers Association called for every union to use and support the Morning Star as part of that fight. Praising the alliance between PCS and UNISON he said “We need an alliance not just between two unions but all unions. We are all in this together”
Derek Simpson from Unite warned that it is easy to criticise and slam the Labour party and the leadership candidates “but it will change nothing” “ We are not going to do anything by talking about it” he said before calling for every member to get in involved in the Labour Party and win the party back. “ Now they are out – it hasn’t done us no good” he said.
Mark Serwotka from PCS disagreed. “Critics of Labour are not the reason we have a Tory government” he said. The Labour Party planned £44 billion pounds worth of cuts so we would still have faced a huge struggle. “And if all we can say now is join the Labour party then thousands of our members will not do that” Accepting the need for a left consensus as a credible opposition to neo liberalism he called for us to build the ‘left’ by building campaigns of opposition to any cuts in public services.
"The debt in this country immediately post war was twice the size of GDP, we invested and grew ourselves out of it so we need to build an understanding today of the alternatives to cuts. Proud to stand by his call for “not a single job cut and not a single penny of public services” he derided labour leadership responses that say we need to look at “every case on its merits”. Every job is important, every family is important and that must be part of our alternative economic strategy in defence of public services he said.
The Labour Party question is not the issue he said. “If we wait for them in 2015 it will be too late”. If we also wait for the TUC to do it all, we will also be waiting till 2015 he said to laughter.
“If we don’t do this now, the assault we face is so big, so historically unprecedented, unless we stand together and fight we will regret it for generations” he said to sustained applause.
Bob Crow weighed in with a typically robust contribution. Like Mark he saw no rescue from a Labour Party that for many members “is like a friend who you give money too and who then mugs you as well”. “Since being expelled as a union from the Labour Party, we now have more in our parliamentary group than we did before and another eight will join next week”.
Bob said not only will we need unity and determination but he also called for civil disobedience. “Many of our rights were gained by such action and it may well have broken laws but eventually ensured that justice prevailed.”
Carolyn Jones from the Institute of Employment Rights, who chaired the meeting stressed the need for the Peoples Charter in framing our alternative economic strategy and the need for unity and solidarity amongst the movement in the struggles ahead.
John Haylett on behalf of the Morning Star stressed the role the paper can play in helping frame the debates and getting our messages across. The ‘daily paper of the left’ will continue to need the support of trade unions but there has also never been a better time for the paper to support the work of the unions in the fight ahead.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php
