The crisis of the trade union movement

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THE CRISIS OF THE TRADE

UNION MOVEMENT

The antics of the National leadership of the Irish trade union.

movement at this years ICTU annual conference in Belfast underlined more graphically than at any time in recent memory the crisis afflicting the movement. Blissfully unaware of their stirring role in an event that bordered on: farce at times the majority of delegates voted resolution after -resolution which flew in the face of the repressive reality the working class of this country live in. A random glance at some of the decisions made at conference illustrates well the mental condition afflicting the trade union bureaucracy when they are confronted by political and social realities.

UNIONS ABSTAIN

A resolution from Derry Trades council proposing that the ICTU constitution be changed to to allow for ‘Politics’ to be discussed was overwhelmingly defeated on the basis that it could destroy ICTU’s unity. This attitude was explained on the opening day of the conference when the out-going: President Jim McCusker appealed for the trade union movement to refuse to take positions on one side or the other of the debate on the Anglo-Irish accord.

So The trade union movement takes no position on the issue which has been on the lips of politicians of all shades, has’ filled the editorial colums of newspapers and the news and current affairs programmes of radio and TV. This is supposed ot maintain the unity of the Trade union movement. In McCusker’s own words; ““To those who seek to divide us, I say the trade union movement rises above the sectarian quagmire’’ Similarly a reiteration of congress policy condemning violence to achieve political aims was passed. The emptiness of such pledges was recognised by incoming President John Carroll who said he would not like it to be seen as condemning those driven to violence in self defence by oppression in South Africa, Central America and Poland.

Both Jim McCusker and John Carroll would be hard put to deny that the six county state is now, and has always been, rampant with sectarian discrimination, bigotry and repression directed at the nationalist minority. They cannot deny that the sectarian nature of the 6 county state was the root cause of the revolt of the nationalist population. Yet they see fit to condemn ‘violence’ (in reality Republican violence, as the other forms of violence predate the beginnings of such condemnations). The hypocrisy of such condemnations is self-evident, coming after decisions not to discuss and have no opinion on the political situation out of which the violence emanates.

SECTARIANISM

THe trade union movement has always risen above the ‘sectarian quagmire’ in order to ignore the sectarian reality which it is best placed to confront. For example within all the major employers in the 6 counties where Catholics are systematically excluded from jobs or promotion possibilities.

What was new was the fact that loyalist bigotry was building up to a new height of hatred and violence to reassert their | sectarian privileges in the same month of July that conference -was held. The most telling feature of this nonsense was the Loyalist pickets outside the hall who demonstrated no matter how much you bent over to appease them they still thought the ICTU was basically a republican organisation which threatened their position.

This refusal to take a position on the major political political question facing the Irish working class dooms the trade union movement to political irrelevancy. No wonder the often repeated calls for an end to sectarianism are ignored. Their justification for this position on the grounds of maintaining workers unity ignore the effective partition of the trade union movement between North and South, the unions failure to combat sectarian employment practices and the fact that such unity dissolvers at the first test. The recent Loyalist one day strike shattered one myth about the bureaucracy’s claim to unite wirkers. Their attempts not to offend loyalist workers are miserable failures. They have no influence over these workers and their whole justification for ‘no politics’ is thus completely false. In practice it amounts to no republican or socialist politics and a failure to defend Nationalist workers.

BREAD AND BUTTER

Uutside of condemnations of ‘violence’ and appeals for ‘unity’ the major justification for the refusal to deal with questions related to the national struggle has been that unions shéuld concentrate on the ‘real’ issues facing workers. That is, the so-called ‘bread and butter’ issues. Indeed many if not most leading trade unionists owe loyalty to political parties which share similiar views. The Labour party, Communist party and workers party are all of such ilk and have maintained the schism-between the struggle for national and economic freedom. Of course there are major challenges facing workers on the ‘bread and butter’ issues but congress failed just as spectacualarly to put forward solutions here. There has been no let up in pouring the burden of the economic crisis onto the working class. Yet the main discussions at congress on pay and conditions show a lack of reality that would be laughable if it weren’t so serious for the working class. By a large majority it was decided to seek renewed (‘national understandings’ as unions had failed to obtain satisfactory pay deals since the employer’s side decided to abandon such deals when the 1979 agreement ran out.

There are several reasons why such an approach is doomed to failure. Besides been a rush into cloud cuckoo land by leaders who are prepared to grasp at any scheme which can cover their lack of strategy, it is in reality a capitulation which marks a new level in retreats and surrenders to the government’s monitarist onslaught. All the other fine words about making shorter working hours a priority, for a minimum wage and maximum cash increases are meaningless if the’ objective of a national understanding remains a central one the trade union movement.

John Carroll’s justification that; ‘‘national understandings were not just about how much pay increases and for how long, they were about improving the purchasing power and living standards of the people

\ page 9 “mn: Nita Mas

IRISH TRANSPORT <

GENERAL WORKERS

UNION

® The militancy of Irish workers has been frittered away by U) : ‘their leadership. 4 2 trade unions represented. They had to take into account educatiion, health and a whole range of social and economic issues’’. is totally cynical. How Carroll proposes improving purchasing power and living standards without a strategy on pay betrays an example of pure bureaucratic gobbledegook.

The other supposed compensatory aims in health, education and social issues are precisely in these areas which have been under concerted attack for at least the last 6 years. We cannot believe that even with ICTU’s ban on politics they can’t have been unaware that the government’s programme ‘Building on Reality’ and almost every statement by politicians in the same period was on the need to decimate the public sector. That is why national understandings were dropped in the first place. What mutual ‘understanding’ does the bureaucracy hope to arrive at with a Coalition bent on open class warfare and a policy which aims to make the working class and poor pay for the economic mess? There is no reason to believe that the present government or opposition will change course as these measures are dictated by larger forces. The world capitalist crisis, the big powers and the multinational enterprises which dominate the world economy are the real forces determining the Coalition’s policy which it itself has no decisive power in influencing.

NATURE OF BUREAUCRACY

Anti-imperialists have always maintained that trade union and Labour leaders who betrayed on the national question would inevitably sell out on the ‘bread and butter’ issues.

This equation, while basically true, does not adaquately explain the inter-relationship between the two. In fact the reverse can be just as valid. There has always been an economic and social basis to imperialist domination. Peoples Democracy has always maintained that the trade union bureaucracy (excepting individuals) is a pro-imperialist bloc which stands in the way of the national and social liberation of the working class. Yet the majority of the trade union leadership are based in the 26 counties and have scant contact with the oppressed of the 6 counties and even less regard for them. Their pro-imperialist instincts are developed not primarily by the crisis in the 6 counties but by their participation in the struggles of the southern working class.

Of course the historic roots of the Labour and trade union movement’s pro-imperialist politics are based on its civil war attitudes but its continuation depends on contmporary reality.

The main source of failure of the trade union leaderships interventions into struggles is that it abstracts these struggles from their political reality. There is a fiction that we are dealing with a normal boss-worker relationship as in the major capitalist countries. If we took a look at the modern Irish economy as it developed since the 50’s with the ending of protectionsism we see this is far from the case. When protectionism failed the economy was opened to multinational penetration and the subsequent foreign borrowing which wag used to bolster this artificial economy. This whole period was characterised by a deepening of imperialist domination and of dependency and was reflected on a political level by EEC entry, erosion of neutrality and government economic pains(Building on reality) which are pure and’ simple IMF diktats. The IR£21 billion foreign debt and the withdrawal of funds from the public sector which are required ‘to service it, the huge flight of capital caused by multinational looting are all problems which are related to national sovereignty. This is the reality the trade union leadership refuses to confront and why they have departed so far from their membership.

MILITANCY OF WORKERS

Almost from the inception of the new policy there has been a rising graph of workers militancy, The actions of workers and their leadership took off in opposite directions. Right through

page 10 the 1970’s Ireland had more working days per employee lost through strikes than any other country in Europe except Italy.

In terms of unofficial strikes Irish workers had an’ unparalleled record, with over 50% of strikes unofficial. At the same time the bureaucracy concluded a series of national wage agreements and national understandings all of which had no-strike clauses and served more to present a picture of, stable investment opportunities for multinationals than to forward the interests of Irish workers. The basis of union solidarity was attacked by the introduction of two-tier; picketing. More revealing still has been their attitude to multi-national penetration. Sweetheart deals were concluded by the major unions, sometimes before a brick was laid in new factories and the terms were imposed on the newly recruited workforce which had no choice of union. Implicit in the deals was the promise of no union trouble. Ferenka in Limerick was the most notable but by no means exceptional example of such deals. When the workers decided to change unions the factories closed. Another factor in economic policy was the decimation of previously protected industry due to unequal competition im ‘the EEC. Car assembly, leather and shoe manufacturers, flour milling, paper milling, and a whole host of other industries went to the wall. Most of these had the advantage of being native industries based on local raw materials and skills. The bureaucracy’s attitude was to sell jobs for redundancy payments and when some workers resisted such as Clondalkin and Ranks they were tricked and in the case of Ranks thrown out of their union and their relatives removed by guards from Liberty Hall when the strike leaders were in jail. These types of retreats by the bureaucracy are inevitable as the prolonged nature of the present economic crisis threatens by its very depth and intensity to expose that the roots of the crisis are based in the partition settlement and the economic domination which this allowed to continue.

Their history of collaboration within partition ensures they can do nothing else. The problems facing the working class in the economic sphere are first and foremost rooted in imperialist domination. The dynamic of their struggles are anti-imperialist and the bureaucracy develops pro-imperialist policies in so far as they prevent that dynamic developing and taking on political expression. That is why, for instance, they lacked any strategy in the PAYE tax campaign and set up straw targets such as the self-employed and all farmers while the real culprits - the international banks that recieved the equivalent of all the PAYE take in interest charges this year, went scott free. The tax free subsidised foreign plants, which exported IR£4,034 million profits between 1980 - 85 were never targeted.

QUESTION UF STRATEGY

These questions have major implications for anti-imperialists and republicans. The defeat of imperialism is dependent on a fusion and link-up of all those struggling against imperialist oppression. The struggles of the working class, who are the major force for change in society, while being objectively anti-imperialist will not automatically become conciously so.

Nor will they spontaniously fuse with the struggles of the minority in the 6 counties. These are major questions of strategy which must be resolved while bourgois forces plan a defeat of the southern working class and a decisive setback for the national struggle as 4 whole.

The working class are as yet undefeated and decisive battles have not yet been joined. What is certain is that under their present leaderships they face a gradual erosion of their combativity in the long term. The continuing jobs crisis, with no solution other than the cheap labour schemes of the government and the resumption of mass emigration of young people means that for many youth there is little motivation for . them to make up the ranks of the trade union movement in the future. The fact that ICTU supported the ‘self aid’ gimmick uncritically shows their complete lack of alternative. The danger is shown in that not only has trade unionism declined in numbers as a result of unemployment but the percentage of workers organised has fallen from 55% to below 50%.

The implications of this for anti-imperialists are that the forces necessary to defeat imperialism, the working class and their allies, will not be mobilised unless anti-imperialists can provide leadership and strategy for them against all aspects of their oppression. It is only by mobilising against their felt oppression (and for Southern workers this is primarily economic that they can become fully politically concious that the roots of their exploitation are based on partition and imperialist domination. It is a resposibility of antiimperialists to begin to struggle for an open campaign in the trade union movement for an alternative strategy to the defeatism of the bureaucracy. The alienation and discontent which is endemic within the workers movement ensures an opportunity for a campaign to regain the unions for their membership. The issues on which the bureaucracy have to be confronted will only be worked out »fully in the course of the broadest possible campaign and discussion. Below are some of the demands which Peoples Democracy believes will be central.

Support for the struggle of the nationalist minority in the 6 counties. Against the Anglo-Irish deal Against sectarian discrimination Confront the Loyalist veto Disband the RUC/ UDR Release of political prisoners No national understandings and the persuit of sectional interests - for free collective bargaining and callective action on a national level to defeat the government No repayment of the national debt out of taxpayer money No cuts in public services except in ‘defence’ and ‘security’ Withdraw troops and gardai from the border and from strike breaking roles No two tier picketing KEVIN McCRACKEN