By Steve McKenzie, Unite Community member
The watering down of Labour’s New Deal for Workers has understandably, and quite rightly, led to howls of protest from trade union leaders. When looking at some of the ammendments to Labour’s ‘New Deal for Workers’, it is easy to see why.
*Banning fire and rehire. Originally this was viewed as a very welcome move. However, new proposals would mean that businesses can “restructure”, if there is “no viable alternative”.
*Ending zero hours contracts and giving employees employment rights from day one. Both were very welcome moves when first suggested. Now these proposals are rendered meaningless by giving employers the right to impose a “probationary period” of up to two years.
Even having the right to “switch off”, and not have the employer bombarding you with texts, emails and WhatsApp messages, has been watered down. On top of all this, where the commitment was originally to implement the New Deal for Workers within the first hundred days of an incoming Labour government, the Labour leaders are now saying that the legaslative process will start within the first hundred days. So it could take years to get virtually meaningless legislation on workers’ rights onto the statute book if things remain the same.
Sharon Graham, the General Secretary of Unite, the biggest affiliate to the Labour Party, has described this as “a row back on the row back”. She has said that a red line has been crossed.
If those fine word aren’t just empty rhetoric, it is clear that a high profile and united political campaign by the affiliated unions is urgently needed, and if Sharon Graham means what she says, then that campaign has to begin with Unite, through TULO and outside TULO if necessary.
The demands should be quite simple. The Labour government should implement, within the first hundred days in office the original commitments on workers rights, with no get-out clauses for the employers.
Such a campaign would involve pressure on MPs, lobbying, demonstrations, resolutions to Constituency Labour Parties, resolutions to the Trades Union Congress. But above all, it would involve effective resolutions being put to regional and to the national Labour Party conferences by affiliated unions.
Empty threats are not a serious opposition
In the absence of such a campaign, mere threats to withold money from Labour is tokenism and will be seen by all for what it is. It would not be serious opposition to the watering down of key policy commitments.
The money paid into the Labour party by the affiliated unions is substantial, but it is only a small amount compared to donations coming in from big business at this precise moment in ti me. Aware that Labour are going to form the next government, those who really run the show are buying influence and seeking to ensure that a Labour government legislates in their interest.
So angry press releases and soundbites from general secretaries are all well and good – but only if they are backed up with some determined action. Isolated threats to withold funding are superficial and divert energy from the urgent task of building a united political campaign. Unite by itself could be the focus and the spearhead of a considerable fightback against the right in the Labour Party, if the General Secretary and the union National Executive committee decided to make it so. It has the means and the justification to do it.
As for Keir Starmer and his right wing cabal, those who have usurped power in the Labour party, an organised campaign against his abandonment of policy is exactly what they don’t want. However, their arrogance, ignorance and political ineptitude are so deep and so ingrained, that the right think that it is acceptable to bend the knee to big business and to turn on the unions over on this issue.
That right wing drift cannot be allowed to continue indefinately and will have to be countered at some point with an effective political campaign by the affiliated unions. The unions control half the votes at Labour party conference, and there is absolutely no reason why Starmer and the right should be allowed to get away with this.
There is an old saying that empty vessels make the most noise. Are our union leaders serious about challenging this abandonment of a key plank in Labour’s policy platform, or is their opposition nothing but empty noise?
They are not completely politically inept, and they must understand that a united campaign, particularly within the Labour party, on the issue of workers rights is something that is urgently needed. If such a campaign is not conducted, it is not because the trades unions do not have the capacity or the means – it signifies that they do not have the will.
