‘Tyrants fall at every foe’

Unity was at the heart of Unite general secretary Len McCluskey’s speech to Unite Scottish delegates at the first ever Scottish policy conference held in Glasgow on January 16 and 17.

Len said it was “an honour to address Unite’s first Scottish conference”.

He called it “a landmark in the life of our union and the development of our democratic structure,” adding, “the passion and enthusiasm which marked the independence referendum debate in 2014 – whichever way you ended up voting – always seemed to me a model of how politics ought to be discussed and debated in our nations.”

“We all have a lot to learn from that. This conference shows the strength of our democracy of Unite and its flexibility to meet new challenges and changes.

“It means that the voice and views of Unite Scotland will be heard still louder and clearer. Not just within Unite itself – that was always the case. But in Scotland, in your workplaces and communities.

“It is one of Unite’s founding principles that decisions are taken by the members who are affected by them.

“So it is right that on matters were the decisions are taken by the Scottish government and other Scottish institutions.

“Our Scottish members should decide our attitude and policy within the overall framework of our common Unite vision and values.

“Our union unites working people throughout Britain and Ireland. We stand for a class unity across all borders and all national or religious differences, just as we unite across gender and ethnic differences.

Unity

“That’s one of the founding ideals of our movement. But unity is also a burning necessity just to get our routine business done in the interests of our members.

“Throughout these islands we have to deal with the same employers and the same problems caused by big business and global capitalism. Exploitation and economic crisis respect no frontier posts.

“And when capital is already footloose and roaming the world looking for the highest rate of profit and the cheapest labour, it is not time for the organisations of working people to be fragmenting.

“And let me say here, while talking about the unity at work – that I am proud to be the leader of the union of Stevie Deans, Mark Lyon and all our members who stood up for the trade unionism at INEOS in 2013. They sought to destroy us.  They failed.  We are still there and will be long after they are gone.

“We need our democracy and our unity if we are to measure up to the immense challenges we face today: the savage and partisan trade union Bill, which brazenly sets out to diminish, if not destroy, free trade unionism politically, industrially and organisationally; the renewed crisis in manufacturing, with the Tories’ “March of the Makers” now exposed as the hot air of a Party that remains 100 per cent in hock to the City of London; and the continuing obsession with austerity, which can now be seen for what it is – not an emergency attempt to balance the books, but a determined drive to dismantle the welfare state and the National Health Service through cuts and privatisation.

“Unite is up to meeting those challenges on every front.

Work Voice Pay

“At last year’s national sector conferences, we launched our Work Voice Pay campaign to help refocus the union on our core function – winning in the workplace.

“Workers join Unite above all to help them at work – with job security, decent pay and other conditions, and giving them protection when they need it and a voice at all times.

“That means different things in different places – the issues in a finance sector call centre will be different to those in a bus garage or a building site.

“But all Unite members whether public services or private sector services deserve the same basic standards at work, and above all respect. Every part of our union must be working together to make sure they secure it.

“That’s going to be vital in 2016. We can already see the signs of a new economic crisis.  Falling oil prices are hitting jobs in Aberdeen and the North Sea. Manufacturing output is plummeting.  And there is still only the barest signs of recovery in real wages.

“So Work Voice Pay needs to be more than just a slogan. It needs to be a daily guide to action for every officer and every lay activist in our union.  Fighting for a better deal at work is the best possible way to tell the Tories that they will never eliminate trade unionism from our society.

Political challenge

“We face political challenges too, and nowhere more so than here in Scotland. You have an SNP government in Holyrood, and almost every constituency is represented by an SNP MP in Westminster.

“Thousands of Unite members have voted for them. I may not agree with that choice, but I can understand it.

“In some cases, it is a vote that comes from a settled belief that Scotland should be an independent nation-state. And in others it is a cry of frustration at the failures of Labour in Scotland over a generation, and a recognition that the SNP has stolen some of Labour’s social-democratic clothes.

“For Unite, we are happy to work with an SNP government that appears to value trade unions, to pay more than lip service to social justice and community cohesion, and to share many of our values on other issues as well.

“Nicola Sturgeon and her team have reached out to trade unions – including on vital issues like blacklisting – and we would be letting our members down if we responded anything other than enthusiastically.

“Preferring a Labour administration cannot mean being blind to reality, or ignoring the opportunities that we have to advance Unite members’ interests.

“But being a friend does not mean being an uncritical friend. We can and should demand more from the SNP.  Nicola’s government should not be hiding behind procedural niceties in relation to the trade union Bill.  Don’t just oppose this wretched bill, but block it in Scotland.

“And while you’re at it – end the council tax freeze and really go the extra mile to lift the cloud of austerity from the lives of the people of Scotland.

“Whatever the SNP does or doesn’t do in Edinburgh or Westminster, Unite remains a Labour union, here in Scotland as across all of Britain.

“Sometimes that is not an easy place to be. I understand that many Scottish working people, particularly perhaps the young, feel betrayed and let down by the New Labour years, by  a party which had grown bureaucratic and remote from people’s needs and, still more importantly, their hopes and visions for the future.

“New Labour let us all down – the illegal wars, the creeping privatisation, the widening inequality, the failure to support manufacturing jobs, the indifference to anti-union legislation. All this is the opposite of everything we believe in and looked to Labour to represent, in England and Wales as much as here in Scotland.

“But let’s acknowledge something else – Labour’s future looks a lot brighter than its past and, to be honest, far more exciting than any of us would have believed possible.

Turning a corner

“Under Jeremy Corbyn Labour is turning a corner. It is rediscovering its radicalism.  Reaching out to those it has abandoned, or who drifted away in disappointment years ago.

“In no small part this is thanks to the support our union has given to him, and to the political strategy we have followed inside Labour for the last five years.

“Of course it is also due to the desire for change amongst hundreds of thousands of Labour members and supporters, and many young people, who have seen the chance to make our Party something different, more progressive and more open and democratic.

“There can be no doubt that this has got the establishment rattled. The attacks on Corbyn from the media and the Labour right are proof of that.  They attack Corbyn not because they think he can’t win, but because they fear he might.

“Now is not the moment for Unite to be losing focus, let alone losing heart. We need to persuade Scottish workers too that they are getting their party back, that it can reconnect to working people.

“That can’t be down to Jeremy alone. Kezia Dugdale and her team have to play their part too, and head in to the elections in May on a radical policy agenda designed to regain the trust of our people.

“And we in Unite must do our bit. Making the case that the changes we really need in society require Labour in power in Scotland as well as London.

“But however our members vote, we as a union need to maintain our unity – and also to build on the tremendous levels of political engagement shown in that referendum campaign.

“Let me end by pledging the full support and commitment of the whole of Unite to all of your work and all of your struggles here in Scotland.

“Whatever the future brings, we are one union, united in solidarity across these islands.

We stand on the principles of class and socialism, principles bred into our movement here in Scotland for a century or more.

“One hundred years ago here on the Clyde, brave men and women took industrial action and organised rent strikes, fighting for justice and peace, amid the horrors of the First World War.

“They raised the red flag in conditions far more difficult than we face today.

“Let that glorious past, which is our heritage, inform our own struggle for a better future for the working people of Scotland, throughout Britain and indeed across the world. And together let’s make a future to hand on to our children and grandchildren.

“As Rabbie Burns said,

“Lay the proud usurpers low

Tyrants fall in every foe

Liberty’s in every blow

Let us do – or die!”

Pic by Craig Maclean