BY RICHIE VENTON
GLASGOW — A bit of working-class history has been made in the past few weeks. Two branches of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport workers (RMT) have voted to affiliate to the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP). After full debates, both votes were unanimous.
Back in 1899, the Society of Railway Servants moved the proposal at the Trades Union Congress that eventually led to the Labour Party being established as a separate party, based heavily on the unions.
In 2003, the RMT is poised to be the first trade union to affiliate to the SSP, which could begin an avalanche of union involvement in Scotland's party of struggle, solidarity and socialism.
The RMT's Glasgow and district engineering branch, which organises about 600 engineering workers across west and central Scotland, used to be affiliated to six constituency Labour parties, but has ended all such affiliations.
"We were moving away from New Labour anyway", branch secretary Willie Nolan told me. "So we welcomed the decision of the RMT national annual general meeting, which gave us the chance to affiliate to a party that thinks the same way as us."
The Motherwell and Wishaw RMT branch, after circulating to every member documents and a resolution spelling out the case for breaking from New Labour and affiliating to the SSP, also voted unanimously to affiliate and to ask the RMT's Scottish regional council to do likewise.
The resolution declared: "We recognise the aims, policies and campaigns of the SSP are in the best interests of our members and are designed to benefit society as a whole. We consider therefore that we should affiliate to the SSP. We call upon all other branches in Scotland to request similar affiliation."
The motion was moved by life-long trade unionist and socialist John Milligan, a former Labour Party member, who denounced Labour for betraying RMT members and explained that the SSP supports the socialist aims of the RMT.
Gordon Martin, a member of the Motherwell and Wishaw RMT who works on west coast infrastructure told the October 31 Scottish Socialist Voice: "I supported this move because the SSP supports the RMT's policy of re-nationalisation of the railways, which would make it a safer and more efficient industry to work in."
The branch's request will now be discussed at the RMT's national executive, as well as at every Scottish RMT branch and at the December regional council meeting.
The moves have opened the door to building the SSP as a mass socialist party with deep roots in workplaces and trade unions. The SSP needs individual trade unionists to join and help build the SSP trade union groups. But it also needs the affiliation of trade union branches, stewards committees and national trade unions, which will give a direct link between workplace struggles and the one party prepared to stand up for them.
It will also give unions a direct input to the SSP's democratic decision-making structures.
[Richie Venton is a SSP workplace organiser. Visit .]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, November 19, 2003.
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