BY LEON PARISSI
Alison Dellit's article "Labor flounders rightward" (GLW #474) cheers on those voices who are in favour of decreased union influence in the ALP.
She wrote: "It would be no loss for workers if trade unions' votes within the ALP were reduced. In fact it would be a positive thing for the union movement if it helped break the dominance of the pro-capitalist ALP over the trade union leaders."
Dellit finished by calling on "the trade unions" to "finally break free of the ALP and fight for a real, pro-working class alternative". Presumably these are the same union leaderships Dellit also derided as being the "big players in the ALP factions". There is a lack of clarity here.
I do not believe that the writer really expects that many of the current crop of union leaders are likely to "break free of the ALP". Dellit's analysis is missing any focus on the potential of rank-and-file union mobilisations to enforce policies which are in members' interests. In a muted way, that is what happened when "the trade unions" forced NSW Premier Bob Carr to back down on privatising electricity and again in battles over workers' compensation.
My union, the Public Service Association of NSW, is not affiliated to the ALP. I can assure GLW readers that this lack of affiliation has not hindered it from working hand in glove with the state ALP government against the interests of its members on essential questions such as pay and jobs.
Union leaders periodically withdraw or threaten to withdraw their union from the ALP in attempts to appear militant before their members. ALP affiliation is not the main issue if the question is finding a means of "lifting the veil of reformism" from working-class eyes. This is putting the cart before the horse.
Dellit avoids the real issues involved. This is partly because of the focus on union leaderships. Socialists need to promote a working-class voice in politics which is independent of capitalist ideas. This cause is not improved by a reduced union voice in the ALP, while there is not a real alternative working-class-based party capable of forming government.
The Socialist Alliance has the potential to grow into a pole of attraction for working-class activists willing to fight reformist ideas and reformist practice. There is still a long way to go before this potential becomes a reality.
The pro-capitalist policies of the ALP, and its behaviour in government as a capitalist government, has, on the whole, expressed the politics of trade-union leaderships for 110 years. In spite of this, it was a progressive act for the unions to give political expression to union interests, and today it would be an advance if union memberships were to fight to hold their leaders to account both industrially and politically.
The debate opened up by Simon Crean on links between the unions and the ALP is a chance to explain the failure of the ALP to be held accountable to the ranks of its union base. The ALP's failure and the labour movement's failure are in part the consequence of lack of internal democracy. It is this failure which cripples them from being tools with which workers can reshape society as a true democracy of producers and consumers.
Winning the fight of workers to control, rejuvenate and re-create their own industrial and political organisations would be the basis for a future workers' government.
To promote the cause of reduced union influence is, at best, to be indifferent to the internal politics of the labour movement. It is a position which is compatible with continuing the isolation of the left.
[Leon Parissi is a member of Workers Liberty, one of the eight organisations affiliated to the Socialist Alliance.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, February 6, 2002.
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