Unions hold the key to transforming politics‏

Hilary Wainwright writing on the Guardian website urges Labour leader Ed Miliband to engage with trade unions in order to succeed in his mission to transform British politics: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/03/ed-miliband-trade-unions

“In the past, the often limited horizons of trade unions have been reinforced by the nature of their relationship with the Labour party, which has tended to treat them as a passive source of money and votes. What if, as part of his political clean-up, the new Labour leader swept away this limited culture and instead looked to the thousands of workplace organisers as the basis for a very different kind of relationship with the unions from the one that is currently being evoked in a Thatcherite anti-union scare against him?

"A relationship based on valuing the knowledge and experience of millions of public servants, which can be gathered and expressed through our public service unions, and bringing out the public service ethic of these worker citizens?”