Bob Crow and Mick Rix: Give us back our party
Alienation from the political process is running deep. But we now believe that it is time the Labour party was reclaimed for labour, write Bob Crow and Mick Rix.
Alienation from the political process is running deep, but nowhere deeper than among the working class. It was abstention among Labour's most committed voters that sent the turnout plummeting at the last general election. It is apathy that ploughs the furrow where the far right plants the seed, as we have just seen in France and as we may discover when votes are counted after tomorrow's local elections.
Evidence is accumulating that those with the most to hope for from democracy are being turned off the fastest. We have a responsibility to act before voting becomes as middle class as croquet. It is an issue that New Labour, for all its pollsters, psephologists and PR gurus, seems reluctant to address. It is unlikely that gimmicks to make voting easier (it has never been very hard) are going to make much difference.
We believe that it is time the Labour party was reclaimed for labour, that it learned once more to listen to the voice of the class it enfranchised. Yes, we have a Labour government with a vast majority in the House of Commons. Yet five years on, 15 trade union leaders had to gather, as we did in London last weekend, to demand that Britain meets its obligations under the International Labour Convention and repeal the legislation which allows the prime minister to boast that he presides over trade union laws which are "the most restrictive in the western world".
In Britain, solidarity action is unlawful, and even the right to strike is hedged about with hurdles and qualifications. The effect of such restrictions is to make tackling inequality and injustice even harder. The general public does not gain from legally enfeebled trade unions, but bad employers do. And it has now been proved beyond doubt that if trade unions are driven out of politics - New Labour's maximum programme - there is no alternative means of representing working-class concerns to hand.
Democratic trade unionism is much more than a sectional interest: it is a rampart in defence of human rights and public decency in a way which, to be frank, neither Bernie Ecclestone or Lakshmi Mittal are ever likely to be. A PM who is fond of invoking the "international community" for his foreign adventures should be ashamed of being in breach of international conventions to which Britain has signed up. We are not suggesting that Britain be threatened with armed attack because of New Labour's defiance of the international community's agreed labour standards - fortunately, there are other ways to make Britain a decent world citizen.
Trade unions are still potentially decisive in shaping Labour policy. The party is still our representation committee - if we choose to make it so. OK, we don't write cheques for £125,000 and expect the PM to write a letter on our behalf by return. That deluxe service is reserved for business leaders. But our representatives are there when policy is debated, have votes when votes are counted and are embedded in the life of the party at every level.
All that is required is the will to use that influence democratically. For example, Tribune editor Mark Seddon presented a motion to the last meeting of Labour's national executive calling for a halt to moves to privatise public services. The motion expressed the opinions of millions of trade unionists and ordinary voters. It also expressed the policy of almost every union affiliate to the Labour party. Yet the great majority of trade union representatives attending the meeting sheepishly voted the way ministers wanted and prevented the motion's adoption. Had they done otherwise, it would have helped send a clear message to government that our opposition to the privatisation of the NHS is more than just rhetorical.
Likewise, at the party's annual conference, we can make policy if we want to, the more so since our opposition to privatisation and our support for a better deal for trade unions and employees in the workplace are shared by many and probably most party members, who prefer Labour's traditions to the embrace of suspect business leaders. If we have a government that is more Berlusconi than Bevin, it is only because we tolerate it.
Now that New Labour has found out the hard way the corrupting consequences of inviting the right into their political parlour, there could be no better time for the unions to play a more open, and proud, part in Labour's policy debates. Were that to happen, millions more people might decide to make a choice in the polling booths - because they would feel they had one.
Bob Crow is general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union; Mick Rix is general secretary of the traindrivers' union.
Evidence is accumulating that those with the most to hope for from democracy are being turned off the fastest. We have a responsibility to act before voting becomes as middle class as croquet. It is an issue that New Labour, for all its pollsters, psephologists and PR gurus, seems reluctant to address. It is unlikely that gimmicks to make voting easier (it has never been very hard) are going to make much difference.
We believe that it is time the Labour party was reclaimed for labour, that it learned once more to listen to the voice of the class it enfranchised. Yes, we have a Labour government with a vast majority in the House of Commons. Yet five years on, 15 trade union leaders had to gather, as we did in London last weekend, to demand that Britain meets its obligations under the International Labour Convention and repeal the legislation which allows the prime minister to boast that he presides over trade union laws which are "the most restrictive in the western world".
In Britain, solidarity action is unlawful, and even the right to strike is hedged about with hurdles and qualifications. The effect of such restrictions is to make tackling inequality and injustice even harder. The general public does not gain from legally enfeebled trade unions, but bad employers do. And it has now been proved beyond doubt that if trade unions are driven out of politics - New Labour's maximum programme - there is no alternative means of representing working-class concerns to hand.
Democratic trade unionism is much more than a sectional interest: it is a rampart in defence of human rights and public decency in a way which, to be frank, neither Bernie Ecclestone or Lakshmi Mittal are ever likely to be. A PM who is fond of invoking the "international community" for his foreign adventures should be ashamed of being in breach of international conventions to which Britain has signed up. We are not suggesting that Britain be threatened with armed attack because of New Labour's defiance of the international community's agreed labour standards - fortunately, there are other ways to make Britain a decent world citizen.
Trade unions are still potentially decisive in shaping Labour policy. The party is still our representation committee - if we choose to make it so. OK, we don't write cheques for £125,000 and expect the PM to write a letter on our behalf by return. That deluxe service is reserved for business leaders. But our representatives are there when policy is debated, have votes when votes are counted and are embedded in the life of the party at every level.
All that is required is the will to use that influence democratically. For example, Tribune editor Mark Seddon presented a motion to the last meeting of Labour's national executive calling for a halt to moves to privatise public services. The motion expressed the opinions of millions of trade unionists and ordinary voters. It also expressed the policy of almost every union affiliate to the Labour party. Yet the great majority of trade union representatives attending the meeting sheepishly voted the way ministers wanted and prevented the motion's adoption. Had they done otherwise, it would have helped send a clear message to government that our opposition to the privatisation of the NHS is more than just rhetorical.
Likewise, at the party's annual conference, we can make policy if we want to, the more so since our opposition to privatisation and our support for a better deal for trade unions and employees in the workplace are shared by many and probably most party members, who prefer Labour's traditions to the embrace of suspect business leaders. If we have a government that is more Berlusconi than Bevin, it is only because we tolerate it.
Now that New Labour has found out the hard way the corrupting consequences of inviting the right into their political parlour, there could be no better time for the unions to play a more open, and proud, part in Labour's policy debates. Were that to happen, millions more people might decide to make a choice in the polling booths - because they would feel they had one.
Bob Crow is general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union; Mick Rix is general secretary of the traindrivers' union.
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