As a long-time RMT member and dedicated anti-fascist, I note with pride the many RMT banners at recent counter-demos, responding to the outbursts of far-right thuggery on our streets.
Undoubtedly this was helped by the official callout from the RMT leadership, which asked all members to defend “their local mosques, refugee centres, and solidarity groups” and “to offer our union’s solidarity and support on the ground”.
This statement clearly reflects the mood amongst RMT members, who want to defend their fellow workers.
This shows what our unions could do, if they adopt stronger class methods.
Now we must get ready. Any more of this violence must be met with organised and overwhelming resistance.
RMT members and other organised workers must be in the vanguard of this struggle – communicating with each other, across our unions, to build a response to these hoodlums and terrorists.
For our part, this means representatives going into depots and offices, and calling upon members to show up in sufficient numbers at the times and places needed, to see off these moronic oafs.
No pasaran!
SD, London Underground support tech (personal capacity)
I was happy to see our general secretary, Daniel Kebede, appealing to the proud traditions of the labour movement in opposing racism and fascism, and supporting mass mobilisation.
But we need to seriously think about how unions can best achieve this goal. The statement says: “We will support rallies, protests, and initiatives called by Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) as a non-violent counter to the hatred manifesting on our streets.”
We absolutely should support such counter-protests. But we should also stand behind any form of organised self-defence by the communities affected.
Most importantly, as trade unionists, I don’t think that we can stop at ‘outsourcing’ these tasks to other organisations.
Instead, it’s on us to lead the charge and directly mobilise our mass membership. And more than anything else, rather than echoing the woolly, pacifist sentiments put out by SUTR, we must provide a clear socialist political programme for how to fight this scum.
The fascists are nurtured and emboldened by a sick, violent system, capitalism, which relies on scapegoating because it has no other answers. Let us organise to sweep the whole damn thing away!
Tommaso Verga, Lambeth NEU (personal capacity)
The real response to Nazi thugs smashing up towns across Britain should be mass, collective action from the organised working class and its supporters.
Communities have risen up and mounted a brave defence against these savages. Solidarity actions and counter-protests have backed them up.
Unfortunately, the response in some quarters of the union officialdom has been damp, to say the least.
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea describes the problem in front of us fairly reasonably. But what are her conclusions? “The union movement is united…to call for an end to violence, intimidation, and discrimination.”
But, we need more than this from those who lead us. Unison has the power in this instance to mobilise hundreds of thousands of its members, and even millions of their family members too.
If the TUC were to lift just its little finger, or even if one big union like Unison led the way, the far-right thugs would be put back in their box overnight.
What is required is a root-and-branch programme to re-equip the entire labour movement with the capacity to defend against such attacks in the future.
Steve Brown, Northumberland Unison steward (personal capacity)
