Guy. Tho 8892I( Public sector workers link with community in struggle i Brat THE SOCIALIST TEACHERS Alliance's trade union left federation obvious. initiative continues to move forward.
The three meetings held so far have been attended by representatives of left formations including the Campaign for a Fighting and Democratic UNISON, Socialist Teachers' Alliance (NUT), Communications Broad Left (CWU), PTC Broad Left, MSF Campaign for a Democratic Union (CDU), MSF Unity Left, RMT CFDU, NUJ Left, NATHE Rank and File, Equity Left Alliance, CPSA Left Unity and active members of the TGWU.
This constitutes the big majority of known left trade union formations, although of course they represent varying degrees of influence and organised membership.
The most recent meeting agreed to organise a fringe meeting at the TUC, and a national conference to be held in London on 1st February 1997. It is hoped that the conference will be able to draw activists from different unions together to discuss their experiences and agree to a policy statement and plan of co-ordinated action.
This could begin to challenge the rapid rightward shift of most trade union leaderships at the level of the trade union movement as a whole. Left trade Tenders •s11cn Bickerstaffe have totally failed to mount any serious opposition to that rightward drift.
Individual trade union formations, however militant and well organised, cannot defeat the TUC/Blair agenda alone.
How often have we heard our leaders argue against, for example, getting rid of the Tory anti-union laws on the basis that it would put our union out on a limb without the TUC? The need for co-ordination at the simple level of TUC resolutions is cryingly How many disputes have gone down to defeat in recent years because of our trade union leaderships refusal to generalise them for fear of the anti-union laws?
A Left which functioned as a co-ordinated solidarity network, which goes beyond asking us to dip into our pockets at union conferences could give greater confidence to those in struggle to demand more of our movement in terms of solidarity action.
A coordinated Left would also increase the attraction of its individual component Lefts to activists within each union because it could provide a coherent and practical perspective for responding emplover and government attacks which they cannot provide alone.
Previous attempts to coordinate across the unions have all failed in much more tavouraole circumstances than the present -Committee for Trades Unions (LCDTU), the All Trades Union Alliance, the Rank and File Coordinating Committee and the Broad Lefts Organising Committee in the 1980s.
The central problem was the domination of such formations by one political grouping or other and the tendency of these currents to treat them as their private fiefdoms.
This alienated many ordinary non-aligned activists who, whether they agreed with the positions and actions of these bodies or not, had no control or say over them.
Their leaderships tended to turn them on and off according to the policies and alliances of the dominant group.
The Communist Party effectively destroyed the LCDTU through refusing to mobilise against the Labour Government's Social Contract because it was supported by their allies in the left bureaucracy, led by Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon.
The new federation, while starting from a qualitatively weaker position, has the potential to break with the mistakes of the past by being directly under the control of its component lefts who come from various political currents.
Certainly the tone and conduct of the meetings so far have been friendly and constructive and there is general agreement to proceed by consensus wherever possible.
The depth of the problems facing trades cannot be underestimated.
While there is something of a revival in strikes at present, such as in Royal Mail, London Underground and the threatened action by British Airways pilots, levels of action are still at an historical low.
Employers continue to downsize, outsource, lay off, break national bargaining, withdraw recognition etc. And we can expect no relet under a Blair government.
We need a new Minority Movement, like the 1920s, within the existing trades unions, to renew them from bottom to top, independent politically and organisationally of the official apparatus, while avoiding the mistakes of that movement.
The new federation could just be the small beginnings of such a movement. Future issues of Socialist Outlook will discuss the minimum necessary policies and steps which can develop this initiative while maintaining the maximum potential left unity.