If you were worried about what Labour will be like in government, worry no longer. According to Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, speaking to an audience of capitalists at the start of the party’s election campaign, her plan is for Labour to be both “pro-business and pro-worker”.
The Marxist term for this is ‘class collaboration’. By asking both the bosses and the workers to be ‘reasonable’ in their demands, say the reformists, we can get to the best of all possible worlds, and sand off capitalism’s rough edges.
There’s just one small problem: whenever anyone’s asked lions to lie down with lambs in the past, it generally hasn’t ended well.
Negotiations
Of course, Reeves and company are talking out of both sides of their mouth. They are smart enough to realise that the ‘Labour’ Party should occasionally mention labour. And so they cynically pay lip service to ‘workers’ and ‘socialism’ from time to time, to cover their tracks.
Indeed, such con-efforts have provoked comment from trade union leaders such as Sharon Graham, who stated in a recent article that “the Labour leadership’s penchant for reneging on promises has been a theme of its time in opposition”.
Though firmer in her language on occasion, lefts like Graham are ultimately cut from the same ideological cloth as more openly conservative union leaders.
In this same article, Graham rightly identifies that the forces behind Labour’s U-turns and two-facedness are those of British capitalism. But her ‘solutions’ are the same old reformist policies: calls to tax the rich, and to ‘borrow and invest, not cut’.
This approach may seem more ‘radical’ and ‘militant’ at first glance. But ultimately it sows illusions that disorient and disarm the working class.
The union leaders suggest that all that’s needed is clever negotiations – with a bit of muscle to back these up, in the form of strikes or ‘leverage’, depending on your preference – and ruthless employers can be brought to heel.
But the truth is that it is not possible to win in the interests of workers by playing by the capitalists’ rules. The bosses will never be ‘reasonable’. The only language they speak is that of profit. And only by hitting them in the pockets can workers secure real gains.
Collapse
Let’s take the case of Port Talbot’s steelworks. For years, all three steel unions have presided over a state of managed decline – accepting cuts to pensions and jobs with the excuse that this would stop the industry from collapsing altogether.
Similarly, car workers organised with the Transport and General Workers’ Union (now part of Unite) were told to accept cuts to pay, conditions, and jobs in the 1980s in order to “save the industry”.
And in 2023, the CWU provoked fury in their ranks by retreating and accepting conditions from Royal Mail management that they’d previously opposed – again, because to do otherwise would have been to “destroy the industry”.
The list goes on. In each case, the result has been that workers have ended up paying for crises that they did not cause. In many cases, despite such concessions, the prophesied ‘collapse of industry’ came about anyway, with workers footing the bill.
Struggle
In reality, the capitalists don’t act out of stupidity or greed – although they certainly are both stupid and greedy! Their ultimate objective is to make profit; and moreover, to make more profit than their competitors.
This is what dictates their behaviour. No amount of negotiation or collaboration can change that. Instead of sowing illusions in ‘good’ bosses and ‘bad’ bosses, therefore, we need to recognise that the whole system is founded on exploitation and inequality. And we must act accordingly.
Rather than investing energy into backroom deals and horse-trading, the trade union movement should base itself on vigorous workplace organisation, as the backbone for genuinely militant, coordinated action.
And rather than leaving the politics to Labour and Westminster, the unions should be vocal champions for bold socialist policies to tackle workers’ problems – as part of a wider programme to transform society by planning the economy under workers’ control.
To win, you have to know who your enemy is, their motivations, and how to beat them. Explaining this clearly is the task of every communist in the labour movement.
Workers’ rights and Labour: The hokey-cokey continues
Nick Oung, RMT Croydon No.1 Branch (Personal Capacity)
The recent campaigning experience of RCP activists confirms one thing: how few illusions workers and youth have in Sir Kid Starver.
In a recent issue of The Communist, however, we had to warn against such illusions, as these are still harboured by Britain’s trade union tops.
At that time, a watered-down version of Labour’s ‘New Deal for Working People’ was rightly deemed a “betrayal” by Unite leader Sharon Graham.
Graham’s words were sharper than those of the right-wing leaders of Usdaw and Unison, meanwhile, who openly endorsed the revised pledges!
Even then, the only proposed response from Graham was to withdraw the union’s funding to the party. But Labour’s tops are perfectly happy to take money from big business, if the unions don’t cough up.
Since then, we have been treated to a truly dizzying merry-go-round.
First, Unite leaders dropped their opposition. According to Graham, the union and the Labour leadership had “a really good meeting”. Indeed, Starmer committed to reopen talks with the unions about any final wording.
In other words, Graham’s threat was not withdrawn because of any agreement by Starmer to implement the reforms, but because he agreed to invite the unions to the negotiating table – as he backtracks on his promises.
Now, with a new diluted deal published as a manifesto pledge, Graham is once again decrying the proposals, saying they have “more holes than Swiss cheese”.
If you take Starmer at face-value, the source of confusion is evident: he and Rachel Reeves first denied any U-turn; then made ‘concessions’; then issued the finalised, pathetic deal – only to again reject accusations of betrayal.
It’s almost as if they were trying to obey the demands of big business, while duping us into thinking that ‘Labour’ still has a shred of pro-labour policy.
Communists cannot afford such confusions. We say: prepare to fight back against Starmer’s attacks on the working class!
