The question of the future of the Labour Party and of the role of Labour in office is a major issue for all unions. Obviously, unions which are affiliated to the party are centrally involved in these questions, as are all public sector unions. But the impact of seventeen years of Conservative government on the unions has been such that this question will affect the movement as a whole. The fact that the Labour Party is still perceived as the party of the working class, whatever the desires of its leadership, makes it a central question for all trades unionists. There are two closely linked aspects to this, organisational and political. The Labour Party has always been distinctive, as compared to social democratic parties in continental Europe, say, because of the nature of the involvement of trade unions in party structures. Union votes at conference, in the selection of the leader and deputy leader and at constituency level, and union representation on the National Exccutive Committee, have linked the trade unions and the party in a much more organic way than is the case elsewhere with other social democratic parties in Europe. This has by no means always favoured the left. Indeed, most of the lime the union block vote has been used to shore up the position of a right-wing party leadership. However, it does mean that trade union struggles can be reflected directly in debates and discussion within the Labour Party and that there are opportunities for those engaged in such struggles to influence party policy which do not exist in the same form elsewhere. This is particularly significant at the present time, when workers' have suffered for so long under Conservative rule and are looking for a decisive change, which the Labour leadership is unwilling to offer.
Because they recognise that their policies will inevitably provoke conflict with workers, the current leadership has embarked on a systematic strategy of weakening the links between the unions and the party, through eliminating union influence on the selection of delegates and candidates at constituency level and reducing the weight of union votes at conference. Now the leadership is intent on going far beyond this to sever the Labour Party -trade union link altogether. An important task in the trade unions in the coming period is to fight
this process and restore the role of the unions in the decision-making process of the party. The techniques that are being used by the Labour leadership, minimising the role of conference in favour of referenda of members, refusing to implement agreed policies, and so on - are exactly mirrored in the actions of the union leaders with regard to the left in the unions. Indeed, most union leaders, despite their verbal defence of the link, are not prepared to challenge Blair's agenda. Maintenance of the link between the unions and the party will be crucial to ensuring that any struggles which occur after the election of a Labour government do not remain isolated At the same time the question of the political programme of the Labour Party is crucial. The issues of defence of the welfare state and of full employment have been discussed earlier, as has the need to repeal the Conservative anti-union laws. However, the impact of Labour policies on trade unions goes much further. Two particularly central issues are privatised utilities and the minimum wage. On both of these the Labour leadership has refused to make any clear commitments. It is important that the trade union movement takes up the question of renationalisation of the utilities, both from the point of view of the interests of workers in those industries, and also because of the ever clearer economic and environmental impact of fragmented energy and transport policies pursued for private gain. Such renationalisation, however, should not be based on the old model of the public corporation, which differed little in many important regards from private employers, but on a structure giving effective control over the industries to workers within them and the communities which they serve. On the minimum wage the Labour leadership must be pressed to name a figure based on a clearly-set-out formula, and to choose that figure and formula with reference to the needs of low-paid workers, not the desires of employers. More fundamentally, the linkage between the Blair leadership's plans for a minimum wage and their strategy for the welfare state need to be looked at more closely by the unions. In the USA the Clinton administration has made as the centrepiece of its 'anti-poverty policy' the concept of a tax credit, whereby low-paid workers receive a credit from the state. In this framework a low minimum wage is simply used by the government as a way of limiting the amount they pay out in tax credits. There are increasing indications that this is the way that the Labour leadership views the minimum wage. We need, within the unions, to reassert the concept of minimum wages as necessary to safeguard the living standards of workers, not as a means of cutting state expenditure on welfare. Organisational and political questions with regard to the Labour Party cannot really be separated for the unions. Campaigning in both areas will be crucial in the run-up to an election, and following an election, especially if a Labour government is elected The relationship between unions and the Labour Party, however, cannot be
reduced simply to the question of influence over national party policy. Trade unions are also faced throughout the country with local Labour councils as employers. Such councils have often been pioneers in the application of new management techniques, in conjunction with redundancies and worsening pay and conditions as services are cut. They have also acted in many cases to reduce drastically the facility time allotted to union representatives. This issue has importance for three reasons.
First, the introduction of such techniques in local government has a significant demonstrative effect for the rest of the public sector, for example in the health service of further and higher education. Likewise, struggles against NMTs in local government can encourage action elsewhere. Second, the introduction of NMTs in local government plays an important political role within the Labour Party. Those councillors promoting such an approach are precisely those supporting the most right-wing moves of the Blair leadership, and for the same reasons. The campaign against managerialism in local government is a key component of the political struggles needed in the Labour Party nationally. Third, the role of unions in fighting against cuts and the NMTs at the local level breaks down many of the artificial barriers that are wrongly held to limit the potential of union struggles. Demands around such issues inevitably link pressure within the Labour Party with support from users of council services and draw both of these together with union activity. In this way they provide an example for the drawing together of different spheres of activity which is also applicable elsewhere.
The actions of Labour councils also provide a foretaste of the attacks that will come from any future Labour national government. They underline the fact that, given continued economic decline, and in particular the structural weakness of the public sector after years of tax cuts and marketisation, any new Labour administration will be far harsher for workers than the governments of the 1960s and 1970s. In this way the experience of Labour in power al a local level provides an important marker for struggles which will occur in the future. The Labour leadership is aiming to oust the Tories as the party which the bosses look to. Their programme for government is a combination of attacks on the welfare state (partly through support for the Maastricht convergence criteria for a single European currency) and public sector pay and conditions, and a continued disciplining of the working class by keeping the Tories' anti-union laws and possibly adding some more of their own. Scrapping the union link is aimed at weakening the working class's ability to resist this programme. Socialist Outlook recognises that success for the Labour Leadership in this would be a major setback for the independent political representation of the working class. The task of beating back this project will only be accomplished by a combination of industrial action and a fight within the unions and the
Labour Party. That fight is part of the overall fight for the renovation of the unions.