Problems - and Why the branch meetings are empty

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Union meetings are often held at times and places inconvenient for woren members IT is claimed by the right wing witch-hunters in the Labour Party and the unions that the left are 'undemocratic' • We are accused of seeking through procedural wrangles to drive 'ordinary' members from meetings, and then to railroad through 'extreme' motions in late-night sessions of rump committees.

The reality of course is completely the opposite. It is the right wing and the established union bureaucracy that have consolidated a position based upon perpetuating and manipulating the ignorance, apathy, confusion and cynicism of this rank and file membership.

Any attempt to confront and defeat the union bureaucracy demands first an understanding of the techniques it employs . to preserve and extend its control. For union officials, who seek simply to work within the system to win concessions and reforms for their members, the task is to strike a 'balance' between workers' legitimate demands and aspirations and the opposed interests of the employers with whom they negotiate.

To avoid straining relations with the employers, this means securing sufficient. concessions on wages and conditions to placate and secure the more or less willing support of the most privileged sections of the membership.

But the more acute problems of the most exploited sections of members - the lowest paid, women workers, youth, part time workers - can in most instances not. be answered short of an all-out confrontation with management; and they thus tend to be brushed aside for attention sometime In the indefinite future.

For the average union official, therefore, the ideal relationship with his members (and the vast majority of officials are men) will be one in which he occasionally meets with the most privileged and conservative sections to receive their endorsement.

It is thus no accident that union branch meetings are SO commonly infrequent, badly publicised, and generally held in the evenings at times and venues inaccessible for many women and single parents. It is no accident that their rules and regulations appear crafted to alienate and exclude the active participation of newcomers - particularly youth and women new to trade union affairs.

Accident

It is no accident that, with rare exceptions, union officials are not the ones who lead struggles to unionise the low paid black workers, or that so many union rulebooks a period of mass unemployment are careful to keep out or marginalise unemployed people.

By cultivating a structure of small, exclusive mgetings of 'old hands' - longstanding convenors, stewards and branch officials -the union bureaucrats can cling on to a routine existence.

It is when such a strategy fails - such as during the 8-month NHS dispute, in which whole sections of low paid members made their voice heard over Spanswick and the bureaucrats — that officials are forced into action.

But what has always been an elitist, narrow structure in the unions becomes even worse in a period like the present recession.

Far from being able to win concessions and reforms, union officials, whose whole approach remains one of working within the existing capitalist system, wind up as leading advocates of accepting redundancies, speedup and other attacks on working conditions, along the lines that 'half a loaf is better than no bread' Once again the first and main casualties of such retreats are those most excluded from the life and structures of the union -women, youth, black workers.

At the same time the wholesale employers' offensive on shop floor trade union organisation -attacking shop stewards' committees, and seeking to undermine or victimise key militants - also has the effect of strengthening the group of full time union officials over the r rank and file members. . The bureaucracy rests upon ensuring that the bulk of : union members are inactive and thus largely indifferent to the deals and manoeuvres that take place: the technique of the decisive say on the election of union leaders.

The fight for an alternative, revolutionary leadership in the unions must begin by galvanising, educating and organising the membership, taking up their problems, giving them the confidence and collective strength to demand action, and focussing their attention upon the words and deeds of their present leadership.

In place of the continuous retreats on all fronts, we must campaign for action in defence of workers' living standards, for all-out action against closures and redundancies, and put forward policies in the unions which address the problems of women, black people, young workers and Accessible In this way we can give those presently active in the unions reason to-turn out to union meetings and to fight for them to be held under conditions as to be accessible for the majority of members.

We must spell out our demands for the democratisation of the unions, to institute the regular election and accountability of all officials. The employers have been on a war footing since 1979: it is time we rallied our troops for the fight back.

The retreat by the TUC and successions of sell outs that have demoralised sections of workers and allowed Thatcher to drive unemployment to 4½-5 million cannot be halted overnight: but unless we fight now to build from shop floor level a fighting new leadership to combat today's bureaucracy, the setbacks will continue. MEMBERS pl:

LESS

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Socialist iser no.114 Jant