“The working class is back!” So declared Mick Lynch, RMT general secretary, in the summer of 2022, as a year-long strike wave began to rock the country.
After forty years of defeats and retreats, the working class in Britain had begun to wake up and flex its muscles. And during this upheaval, a layer of more militant leaders came to the fore of the trade union movement.
From Lynch himself, to Sharon Graham of Unite, to figures like Kevin Courtney in the NEU: these left union leaders spoke boldly and defiantly about standing up to the Tories and the bosses, and fighting for workers.
The Tory government looked like it was on the ropes, especially when faced with mammoth coordinated days of action by public sector unions such as the NEU and PCS.
In the end, however, Sunak and co. were able to successfully splinter the movement, with many union leaderships encouraging members to accept somewhat desultory pay deals.
Now, having failed their members on the industrial front, union leaders are turning to the political plane, and are placing their hopes in a coming Starmer Labour government.
But we must be clear: there is no solution for workers down this path.
No trust in Starmer
From day one, Starmer and his cronies have made it very clear who they intend to represent: not the working class, but big business.
Every utterance from the Labour leaders has confirmed this. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has been at pains to comfort the City of London, assuring the bankers and billionaires that a Labour government will “not rock the boat”.
Most tellingly, Starmer’s Labour have already begun to water down their pledges and renege on their promises in order to appease the capitalists.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has signalled his support for privatisation of the NHS, for example. Along the way, the arch-Blairite has even picked battles with the BMA, which represents various healthcare staff, including junior doctors. This shows whose side he and the rest of these gangsters are on.
There are also rumblings that Labour’s vaunted pledges on workers’ rights will be next to go, with vultures like Peter Mandelson offering their sage “advice” to jettison such policies.
The overall message is clear: a future Starmer government cannot be trusted to scrap the Tories’ anti-union laws, or to take any steps in the interests of ordinary workers.
‘Wait for Labour’
It is little surprise to see the more right-wing unions backing Starmer. Unison and GMB, for example, are infected through-and-through with a conservative, bureaucratic leadership that prides itself on ‘pragmatic politics’ (read: class collaboration). The same is true of the TUC leaders.
The miserable response of these unions to devastating council cuts across the country is proof enough of this tendency.
Left leaders, including those hailed as ‘militants’, are also falling into line, however.
On the picket line and at rallies, such leaders are happy to speak in bold terms, with appeals for class struggle.
Politically, however, their lack of a clear, independent class programme leads them to default towards supporting right-wing reformists such as Starmer, just as the Labour leaders are looking to their right, cosying up to the establishment and the employers.
Indeed, Mick Lynch recently went so far as to call for activists to “grow up” and vote Labour.
Elsewhere, the ‘left’ NEU leaders, including new general secretary Daniel Kebede, have argued that ‘the time is not right’ for another national strike ballot – despite a strong mood for such action amongst rank-and-file members in education.
Kebede may have officially distanced himself and the union from specifically endorsing any political party. Nevertheless, it is evident from their behaviour that the NEU leadership is waiting for Labour to take office, in the hopes that Starmer will fix the manifold problems facing the country’s schools and teachers.
Unite leaders have taken a similar stance in relation to the crises confronting British industry. In Port Talbot, for example, the union’s leaders have dragged their feet when it comes to calling for strike action. Instead, they have effectively told workers to ‘wait for Labour’ to come in and save the steelworks by handing over further massive handouts to Tata bosses.
Disarming the movement
Explicitly or otherwise, the trade unions are all hoping that a Labour government will provide more favourable conditions for them to negotiate a few extra crumbs for their members. But sowing such illusions is a huge mistake.
The Labour leaders have been unambiguous in their appeals to the capitalists. Any promises to workers, by contrast, have either been vague or entirely absent.
Far from being ‘pragmatic’ or ‘sensible’, then, placing any hopes in a Starmer government are at best naive, and at worst harmful – disarming the workers’ movement precisely when it should be on its guard.
This shows the limits of even the most ‘radical’ of the current crop of trade union leaders.
Their reformist outlook lends them a completely narrow perspective. They only see the next strike or dispute, never the bigger picture; never the roots of the problem: capitalism.
Above all, they have no faith in the strength of the working class – either to win industrial disputes, or to change society. Hence their knee-jerk attempts to reach a compromise with the Tories and the employers, demobilising workers precisely at the moment when audacity is required.
Instead of trusting in the power of the working class, and giving confidence to workers, they place their fate in hands of the right-wing reformists, who in turn are desperate to appear ‘respectable’ in the eyes of the establishment.
The result is that all the leaders of the labour movement are clinging to the coattails of the ruling class – precisely at a time when the working class is stirring into action, being shaken and radicalised by the bosses’ offensive and the hammer blow of events.
Prepare for battle
Instead of waiting for Westminster saviours, it is vital that the trade union movement prepares for battle. This includes steeling members for those struggles that will erupt when Labour is in power, continuing the Tories’ attacks on the working class.
Rather than holding off on national ballots, the unions should be redoubling efforts to mobilise workers: not only to face down this ailing Tory administration, but to be ready to confront the right-wing Labour government that will succeed it.
Workers must trust only in their own strength. Neither Starmer’s Labour nor the capitalist courts will protect the working class against the bosses’ onslaught.
More fundamentally, the political limits of these ‘left’ leaders demonstrate the need for a clear, class-conscious, genuinely-militant leadership across the workers’ movement.
Rather than abandoning or neglecting the domain of ‘politics’ to Starmer and the right wing, the trade union leaders should be advancing a bold socialist programme that links workers’ industrial struggles to the political task of overthrowing the rotten capitalist system.
For a start, this means taking the commanding heights of the economy – including the big banks and major monopolies – out of the hands of the bosses, and putting the working class in charge of its own destiny.
Only in this way can industries and councils be saved from ruin, with production and services run in the interests of ordinary people.
The communists of the RCP are striving to build such a leadership. Join us today in making it a reality.
