In May 1994 Labour leader John Smith died. Before his body was cold, the capitalist media launched a concerted drive to select Tony Blair, a man the bourgeois could “do business with”, as leader of the Labour Party. With the full backing of the Establishment and the right-wing trade union leaders, Blair captured the Labour leadership, with John Prescott as his willing deputy.
This was the commencement of the Blairite “counter-revolution” within the Labour Party, which would trample underfoot every one of the fundamental principles upon which the Party had stood for the past century. Overnight Labour became “New Labour”, and the image of the Party was systematically transformed on the lines of the US Democratic Party, with which the Blairites had close links. As a first step, those traitors who had split away to form the SDP and whose actions kept the Tories in power for 18 years were welcomed back with open arms. These renegades helped staff the Blair machine and joined the bandwagon to purge the Party of all those who refused to endorse the openly pro-capitalist line of New Labour.
The New Labour apparatchiks were used to root out all those public representatives not totally loyal to the Blairite “revolution” (in reality, counter-revolution). It was really a kind of bourgeois “entrism”, whereby the capitalist class attempted to hijack the Labour Party and empty it of its class content utilising the services of an army of middle class careerists and carpetbaggers who infiltrated the Party in considerable numbers, elbowing the workers to one side and occupying all the key positions.
An absolutely fundamental plank in this conspiracy was to break the working class basis of the Party, the link between the Labour Party and the trade unions. Without this, the strategy of turning the Labour Party into a British version of the American Democrats could never succeed. Therefore from the very beginning Blair deliberately distanced himself from the trade unions, stating that the rank and file could expect “no favours” from a Labour government. Many union leaders, including even some right-wingers like John Monks, were clearly upset by their marginalisation by Blair. This is not what they understood by “partnership”. They had hoped for a return to the good old days of tripartite agreements and cosy deals done in smoke-filled rooms. Instead, the Blairites, following in the footsteps of Thatcher, treated the trade unions with absolute contempt and planned to dump them at the earliest possible opportunity.
The first person to openly blurt out this objective was the Blairite high-flyer Stephen Byers over lunch with journalists at the TUC. It created a stir throughout the movement. Nevertheless, while grumbling under their breath, the union leaders put up no serious opposition to the Blairites, who were allowed to ride roughshod over both the Labour Party and the unions. This was the logical result of decades of “New Realism” (read: class collaborationist policies) and the failure to fight for the interests of the working class. In the moment of truth, the New Realists stood exposed as the least realistic people of all: they understood nothing, foresaw nothing and did nothing.
In the autumn of 1994, a dispute on the railways involving low paid RMT signalworkers was, according to The Financial Times, quickly “turning into one of the most serious industrial conflicts for a long time.”[1] In fact, it represented one of the longest industrial disputes since the miners’ strike ten years earlier. True to form, New Labour’s front bench categorically refused to pledge its support to the strikers. It was a sign of the new Blairite times, and a harbinger of what workers were to expect under a New Labour government. Nevertheless, given the total absence of leadership, the mood within the labour movement remained generally subdued. “Despite the rail workers’ dispute, the mood of anger and frustration on the shop floor was totally absent from this year’s TUC Congress”, wrote Pat Kenny, the AEEU delegate to the 1994 TUC Congress.
Even compared to last year, when Congress took place during a rash of small strikes, the mood was flat. There were no card votes, which was indicative of this. The votes of union delegations were sown up even before the Congress began; those who set the tone were union general secretaries.[2]
As an indication of how low the leadership had sunk, in July, David Hunt, the then Tory Employment minister, and Howard Davies, Director General of the CBI, were invited to address a TUC conference on full employment held at Congress House. The class enemy was invited in for a cosy chat – and of all things about employment! This little detail showed just how obsessed the trade union leaders were with class collaborationism and how completely out of touch from the real problems of ordinary working people.
As if in answer to the leaders’ hobnobbing with the bosses, throughout 1994 a rash of unofficial and illegal strikes were sweeping the post office. Swindon, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Reading, Northampton and Mount Pleasant and other areas took action as postal bosses attempted to bring in new management methods of “flexibility”, especially the despised “team working”. The increasing workload on the shoulders of postal workers resulted in a whole series of walkouts amongst sections that were not known previously for their militancy.
“In the last few weeks, after a meeting which called for industrial action, branch officers have been visiting offices throughout the branch area; all of whom have said no more backing down”, wrote Charlie Balch, Royal Mail Letters Section Secretary.[3]
Despite decisions to the contrary taken at UCW conference, the right-wing union leadership chased after “productivity” deals as some kind of panacea. Unofficial action throughout the Nineties, including a fight against privatisation, eventually resulted in a sharp shift to a left within the union. Right-wing postal leader Alan Johnson left the union to become a minister in the Blair government, and today frequently launches into vitriolic tirades against the left-moving unions. However, the tide was already beginning to move to the left in the unions. With the retirement of Derek Hodgson as UCW general secretary, came the stunning victory of the left candidate Billy Hayes. He managed to defeat John Keggie, the right-wing candidate, who was considered the official favourite to win. Clearly the mood of discontent from below was now reflecting itself with changes at the top of the union. It was a pointer of what was to come in all unions.
“Downsizing has become a euphemistic term of the 1990s”, noted Noeleen Doherty of the Cranfield School of Management. It was a nice term for sackings. One of the bitterest disputes of the Nineties broke out on the Mersey docks, when the Merseyside Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC) sacked nearly 500 dockers. The dispute originally arose from the actions of the Torside Company on Merseyside, which had sacked 80 dockers after a row over over-time payments. When other dockers refused to cross the Torside picket lines, MDHC issued notices dismissing over 400 workers for “breach of contract”. Then the bosses used the issue to do away with previous terms and conditions. Those at MDHC sent 200 of the sacked men new contracts, denying union recognition, and expecting dockers to work alongside casual and temporary labour. The men correctly regarded this provocation as the thin end of the wedge. Consequently, only 18 of them signed the new contracts, the rest refusing to do so point blank. Picketing of the docks was consequently stepped up.
The port employers then tried another ploy. A new deal was offered to about 150 workers, giving them re-employment on worse pay and conditions by another agency Drake Distribution International, which incidentally was used to scab on the 1989 dock strike. The rest of the men were urged to form a “co-operative”, which the company would approach for labour as and when required – in return, they would receive a golden handshake of £10,000, an insult after a lifetime of work on the docks. The “offer” was rejected unanimously and the dispute continued. As with the miners, the dockers were supported whole-heartedly by their wives through the organisation Women on the Waterfront. This support group engaged in all kinds of solidarity work, picketing, addressing meetings, raising money and spreading the message from one end of the country to the other.
“If somebody had said to me two years ago that I would be shutting down dock gates in half a foot of snow, I would have said NEVER!” said Francis Jones of Women on the Waterfront. “The dispute has changed my life. I have become much more politically aware. I realise that the same problems are affecting a whole lot of other people all over the world. After the defeat of the 1989 strike, things got very bad on the docks. New contracts were issued about two years ago. The conditions not only affected the dockers, but the women and families too.”[4]
The brutal attacks of the port owners were now being used to root out any lasting remnants of collective organisation on the docks. They wanted to neuter the union organisation, the Transport and General Workers Union. The question of casualisation of dock labour was once again on the order of the day. Lined up against the dockers were the bosses, the Tory government and the Liverpool Echo. However, the dockers received tremendous solidarity from fellow dockers all over the world, from Holland, Israel, the East Coast of the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In January 1997, the West Coast ports from Seattle to Los Angeles/Long Beach were shut down as thousands of dockers took strike action as part of a week of international protest and solidarity. In all some 105 ports were affected worldwide.
The leaders of the Transport and General Workers Union promised them support:
“But we need to understand that the Rubicon has been crossed, there is no turning back, this is a straightforward one single road to victory, there can be turning back and no backsliding until victory is won, and you know what the agenda is, it’s your jobs”, stated Bill Morris to the Liverpool dockers on 14 March 1996. “And I tell you why we’re gonna win this dispute (from the audience: ‘God’s on our side’), because we have got something, God’s on our side, (‘God’s on our side’), we have got something that they don’t understand, they can’t cope with, they can’t deal with, because it’s the qualities and the values that makes our movement what it is. I tell you what it is in a word, it’s called solidarity (cheer, applause).”
But words are cheap. When it came to the crunch, the strikers were denied official recognition for their dispute, as this would mean defying the anti-union laws – something Bill Morris, the general secretary, was unfortunately not prepared to contemplate. Once again, the threat of Tory laws was used as an excuse to prevent union action in defence of sacked trade unionists. All motions for solidarity action from TGWU branches in line with the International Transport Federation were ruled out of order by the union’s president for fear of sequestration of the union assets. It was a pathetic stance from such a potentially invincible union. In June 1997, for instance, the main discussion of the 21 month old dispute centred on the wording of an Executive Statement to be presented to the union’s Biennial Delegate Conference the following month, where no less than 8 motions were submitted from around the country including 4 from Liverpool dockers’ branches. The proposed Executive Statement echoed previous official accounts and stressed, “the General Executive Council of the Union has an obligation to preserve the fabric of the TGWU and not engage in activities for which it has no immunity or legal protection.”
Also scandalously, the Blair government that came to power in mid-1997 refused to intervene. Ian McCartney, the then Industry Minister and so-called “friend” of the unions, told Bill Morris he had no intention of bringing in pressure from the government, despite the fact that it held 13.87 per cent shares in Mersey Docks.
In February 1998, after two years and four months of struggle, and after one of the longest disputes in recent British history, some 300-sacked Liverpool dockers were forced to accept the company’s terms. Many dockers were left in considerable debt after such a long dispute. They agreed at a mass meeting by a majority of 4-1 to accept payoffs of £28,000 from the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company. Sadly, the 80 dockers employed by Torside were left with nothing. This was another unnecessary defeat in a string of defeats for the working class. The TGWU alone, given its size and organisation, had the power to sweep away the anti-union laws. But, the leadership lacked the necessary confidence in their own membership to respond, as they should have done. They had retreated too many times before the threats of the Tories. Scandalously, the New Labour government carried on where the Tories left off. The choice facing the union was either to fight with everything at their disposal, or capitulate to the employers.
Jimmy Nolan, the leader of the sacked dockers wrote:
It is with a great sadness in our hearts that we write to all our magnificent supporters and express our deepest gratitude. We have to build upon our internationalism, upon the experiences of all our struggles. Let the words of a great Irish trade unionist capture our thoughts: ‘who is it speaks of defeat? I tell you a cause like ours is greater than defeat can know. It is the power of powers.’ James Larkin.
Despite these brave words, the dockers’ defeat painted a very bleak picture for the labour movement, and again revealed the importance of leadership in the trade unions.
The dockers’ only “crime” was to refuse to cross a picket line, a key principle of trade unionism. Yet their union leaders, who allowed them to go down to defeat, left them in the lurch. This seriously damaged the unions. When the dockers accepted the employers’ offer, the TGWU was once again invited back into the docks, but with its tail between its legs. There was much bitterness, but the damage had been done. It showed how much in the trade union movement had lost contact with its real roots and traditions. Previously, when dockers were under attack, especially in the 1970s, but also in 1984 and 1989, the national union leaders had put up a fight. Even the TUC threatened to act in 1972 over the Pentonville Five. Now, they simply capitulated with hardly a whimper, and little show of a struggle. Yet again the policies of class collaboration led to a serious setback for the union movement.