Whose Side Are You On?

Please welcome this stunning guest post on unions finally putting their money where their political mouths are.

Let's clear something up once and for all. I'm not asking anyone to join the Labour Party, to change it, or to do anything. My main argument here is to recognise what is happening and to adapt to the changing reality.
What is happening, at the moment, is that the three biggest affiliated unions to Labour -Unite, UNISON and GMB - are starting to demand something in return for their affiliation. For the past 20 years, all they have pretty much done is to pays their (members') money and leave it at that.

But now, the big three are putting their people forward for selection as candidates, getting their people onto the National Policy Forum, constituency GCs, selection panels; putting motions to CLPs, NPF, conference in a co-ordinated, strategic way in order to set the agenda of Labour in the interests of their members.

Now, I really couldn't care whether you think unions should be affiliated to Labour or not. What we are starting to see, as a part of a political-industrial strategy, is the union movement starting to assert itself in the Labour Party. Rather than leave politics to "other people" to worry about, they are taking a pro-active responsibility for what their affiliation fees are spent on, and who is representing them.

Like it or not, this is not a point of view. This is a fact. And it represents a qualitative break from what has happened before. And unions on the offensive, standing up for their policies and values, is what scares the Tories the most - and what scares the Labour right the most. For the past 20 years they have ruled the roost in Labour and now their position is under mortal threat - which is why they are reacting by trying to weaken the link. Whats worse for the right is that the unions' strategy is actually working. Union supported candidates are getting selected and union supported motions are getting support in constituencies, who are campaigning on union-supported issues.

For socialists, the correct response to the right's attacks on union influence in Labour -whether you think unions should affiliate to Labour or form some sort of 'new left party' (for a new workers' party you need a sizable chunk of the working class) - is painfully obvious and only oblivious to those whose sectarianism plagues their ability to see what's in front of them like cataracts on the eyes.

You support the unions. Simple as.

When the Tories and Labour right attack unions for asserting themselves politically, no matter how they do this, it is the primary duty of socialists to defend the right of unions to do so. To desert from this responsibility is to abdicate from the class struggle, frankly. This doesn't mean you have to advocate fraud. This doesn't mean you have to advocate, or indeed even like, the union affiliation to Labour. What is at stake here is the *right* for unions to affiliate to political parties and have an active role in the direction of those parties.
It is not scaremongering to state that if the unions lose this battle, if they lose the *right* to organise with and within political parties, then it will be lost forever. The Tories will legislate to stop it, and our unions will be turned into workplace versions of the AA or the RAC. If the unions lose their ability to affiliate to and have representation within the Labour Party, you can kiss goodbye any hope of any union affiliating to TUSC.

Ever.

You don't have to like Miliband; I bloody well don't. In fact, the more trade unionists who enter Labour and support the unions against Miliband weakens Miliband and the forces he represents. Up until now, the unions haven't wanted to rock the boat, but now they realise they have no choice if they are to retain any credibility.
It really does boil down to this question: whose side are you on? Are you on the side of unions and political trade unionism, or will you end up as a fellow traveller of Progress, of the Tories, and be partially responsible for the death of political trades unionism?