GROWING political divisions in the top echelons of the labour movement offer new possibilities for struggles and campaigns at rank and file level. There is a real opportunity for left activists to build a serious challenge to the defeatist political positions of the trade union bureaucracy.
Ever since Neil Kinnock was manoeuvred into the leadership of the Labour Party by a union-orchestrated coup, the rightward and backward progress of the Party has revolved around an alliance of union and Labour bureaucrats.
Under the banner of 'new realism', unions abandoned any pretence of serious resistance to the Tory onslaught, seeking to curb any action by their members, who were told to pin their hopes of solving problems on the return of a Labour government.
For their part, Labour's leaders noisily jettisoned any residual commitment to class politics, socialist policies, and any hint of social radicalism or internal democracy, in a pathetic effort to placate the wrath of the Tory press.
Attrition The result has been repeated, ignominious electoral defeats for Labour, and a terrible attrition against the unions, which have lost five million members, with whole industries and their workforces decimated.
The union leaders have been marginalised by the government, derecognised by the most brutal employers, and increasingly pushed aside and regarded as an embarrassment by their own political co-thinkers in the Labour Party.
With John Major's scandal-worn and unpopular government appearing weaker than before, and the prospect of a new Labour government appearing ever less convincing as a solution to the immediate problems of workers under the hammer of aggressive employers, a new spirit of resistance is beginning to make itself felt in the unions.
Teachers have defied and beaten Education Secretary John Patten on the imKEYNOTE SPEAKERS include Tony Benn MP, Ronnie McDonald (OILC) and Jaide De Barrieros (Teachers Union and PT South Para, Brazil), John Hendy QC, Patrick Sikorski (RMT), Christine Hulme (CPSA).
SATURDAY EVENING RALLY and SOCIAL at 7pm with speakers from Cuba, Bosnia, Sinn Fein, Kurdish solidarity and Jaide De Barrieros from Brazil. "If Trade Unions For Labour without the GMB was hard to imagine two years ago, the TGWU's decision to slash £600,000 from its contribution to Labour is equally significant." position of schools testing. A left candidate has won the vice-presidency of the 'new realist'-led NUT.
Central line tube workers in the RMT managed to loosen the shackles of the latest anti-union laws sufficiently to take strike action and defend victimised militant Pat Sikorski. Civil Service unions showed their potential strength to fight privatisation with a powerful day of action early in November.
There have been long and powerful strikes at Timex and Burnsalls despite the right wing leaderships of the AEEU and GMB. A handful of health workers at London's University College Hospital raised the banner of strike action against NHS cuts and closures for vital weeks last summer. Postal workers and BT engineers have been balloting for strike acnon.
This new stirring of traditional forms of struggle at rank and file level has helped spur union leaders into an assessment of where new realism has got them: the balance sheet is universally negative, and its future prospects are worse.
As a result there has been a fracturing of the block that has paralysed both the unions and the Labour Party. Right wing union leaders frustrated at the low profile and weak performance of Labour's front bench, and angered at their refusal to co-operate with the unions, are seeking new ways to make their influence felt.
The new realist alliance was always going to be self-defeating as far as the unions were concerned. Kinnock's team sought a Labour Party modelled on European social democratic parties or even Clinton's Democrats. They were therefore driven towards eventual severing of ¡Build the Fightback - Unshackle Unlikely challenger of Labour's front bench wimps: GMB leader Edmonds the link with those irredeemably class-based organisations that had founded the Party itself - the unions.
It was obvious from the start that once he had cynically used union block votes to ram through wholesale right wing changes to Labour's policy and consitution, Kinnock would seek to pull up the ladder by scrapping the block vote itself.
In the event it was John Smith who underlined the commitment of Labour's right wing to distancing the party from the unions. Despite pleas from two prominent union chiefs - Bill Morris of the TGWU and John Edmonds of the GMB - he forced a vote on a minor constitutional change on selection procedures at last year's conference.
Smith won by a whisker - ironically on the strength of a switched block vote from white collar union MSF: but he is paying a heavy price for his brief moment as the darling of the Tory press.
n Already the unthinkable has happened. The GMB, for years synonymous with the right wing Labour establishment, and then under Edmonds the pillar of new realism, has withdrawn its €500,000 a year support from Trade Unions For Labour.
If TUFL without the GMB was hard to imagine two years ago, the TGWU's decision to slash £600,000 from its contribution to Labour is equally significant.
These unions are not only hitting back through their cheque books, they are increasingly sponsoring events which undermine the continued rightward drift of Labour policy under Smith and his team of 'modernisers'.
Break consensus
The GMB has thrown official support and funding behind Bryan Gould's Full Employment Forum, which is lobbying for a Keynesian 'back to basics', but crucially calls for an end to Labour's damaging economic consensus with the Tories. Three other unions have also backed the FEF, as have dozens of MPs and constituency parties.
Public sector union UNISON, politically dominated by NUPE's arch new realist Tom Sawyer, joined the TGWU and GMB in sponsoring a conference on defence of the welfare state late last year, chaired by Ken Livingstone MP. Again a central theme was the need for Labour to break from its consensus with the Tories.
Other issues, too, have brought a difference of approach. While Labour remained shamefully silent, Bill Morris took the lead over Christmas in challenging the racist deportations of the planeload of Jamaicans and the establishment of the Campsfield detention
"The possibilities for action to combat and SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 56, February 5 1994, Page 7