Weekly Worker 586 Thursday July 21 2005

Weak, but still alive

Maria Exall is LRC vice-chair and a member of the national executive council of the Communication Workers Union. She spoke to Mark Fischer

How do you think the conference has gone?

It is probably slightly smaller than last year, but with more people attending as delegates from affiliates. For the first time we are actually taking resolutions from the floor and having a proper discussion on them. Last year, there was not enough time to allow this and the day was not structured to allow people to get the most out of the debates.

Is the new timetable an accident or an innovation after criticism of previous conferences?

No, it was consciously done. I’m involved in my local LRC group and the feedback I got was that it was a little top-heavy in terms of speeches, etc. I think it was a problem associated with the early days of the organisation - the urge to show how many strands within the movement were supporting the project. When you develop a proper affiliated structure after some time, you have the same effect, but hopefully with more input from the floor.

What would you highlight as the important debates?

The only real controversy was over interpretations of the war, terrorism and Iraq. There was obviously a certain tension between the motion from the RMT branch and the one from Labour Against the War. That came out in the debate and that’s clearly important because of what’s happening in Iraq.

However, I also think the debate this morning on privatisation - although everyone was in agreement - was very important. Michael Meacher started the day off well when he said that we had to oppose the sell-off of public services and have a campaign about it. This is clearly going to be a campaign that is focused within the Labour Party - which will entail the trade unions having to get their act together to uphold their position - and also outside the Labour Party in particular unaffiliated unions, such as the PCSU, for example.

This offers the chance for the LRC to make itself visible as a body that is actually supporting working people in their struggles. A lot of the people that spoke in the morning on this debate were making really important points about, say, what was happening to the cleaners in their hospital, or changes being imposed on them in their particular workplaces. I thought that the conference really got a taste of what was happening in the public sector. People pinpointed where the important attacks were - the NHS, civil service jobs cuts, pensions and so on. These sort of really important issues.

Of course, the debate on the war and terrorism was important, but all it brought out was the differences on the left on these questions.

Which is not a bad thing, surely? Did you actually personally draft the Central London CWU motion that was put to conference on policy and strategy [see below]?

Well, I’m giving away trade secrets, but yes …

Don’t you think that “central class questions” must include the question of the Iraq war and occupation? If we want to counterpose ourselves to Blair and the interests he serves, Iraq remains absolutely central in this period. The issues in the resolution are obviously very important, but too narrow.

As I said in my speech moving the resolution, the reason why these issues were chosen are because they are something that the trade union movement is united on. You have just seen the debate on Iraq and terrorism at this conference. Within the left, there are lots of shades of opinion on how we should deal with the occupation - withdrawal next year, early withdrawal, or the viewpoint that withdrawal will lead to a bloodbath.

If you have that range of opinions amongst the left, imagine the situation in the trade union movement - you have all of those standpoints and more. Yes, the union movement was generally against the war, but there is less unity now on what should be done. So, I’m not saying Iraq is not important, but the issues we highlighted give a perspective for the LRC to do the work in Britain. They lack a global angle, but they are the main issues for us to move forward on here and now.

The war and the occupation were left out for a very particular reason - they didn’t fit those criteria. Also, by itself, opposition to the war straddles a very wide social group. There are plenty of Tories who were against the war, for example. So, we don’t want to do an ‘SWP-lite’ approach here - a grand coalition of everyone who thinks Blair is a “liar”. That’s not a sharp enough political approach.

So how has this LRC conference prepared the left for the coming Labour Party conference?

What is worrying is that you would have thought that the Blair government would have taken stock of the feedback on the doorsteps from the election. Even on things the government is doing right, people were cynical because they viewed Blair as such a liability.

So I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. The key question, as always, is where the trade unions stand - particularly the big four. It seems promising that the trade union movement is united on a lot of quite progressive policies, but whether even good resolutions at conference on things like privatisation make any difference in the party is more problematic.

One delegate here today underlined that we must have more trade union involvement in the Labour Party. There is still a very low level of engagement. There is potential for change, but little direct evidence of it. The role of the union bureaucracy in the party remains a highly problematic one.

Until you get a rank and file turn to the Labour Party, you are going to have this problem. At our recent CWU conference, we had (for the fourth time!) a debate about whether we maintain affiliation to Labour. This was done in the context of a positive motion from LRC supporters that said we would stay affiliated, give the same amount of money, but that we would fight them tooth and nail on policies and work with the LRC. That was overwhelmingly carried at conference by around five to one.

The right in our union had no answer. The anti-Labour left were irrelevant or took a semi-syndicalist stance - a worrying development that I think we are seeing in some other unions. It is in that situation that I see the potential for the impact of the LRC. Getting some general secretaries on a platform is good, but the campaign has to be built branch by branch, region by region, as well.

But there seemed to be a question whether the LRC has a distinct role at all …

CWU Central London branch motion

That the LRC prioritise central class issues in the promotion of its policy. These include:

• Fighting privatisation and the defence of public services
• Abolishing the anti-union laws and the restoration of full trade union rights
• The defence and extension of council housing
• Increasing the state pension and defending occupational pension rights
  

These are the key issues on which the trade union movement is united and can promote working class interests against neoliberal policies of the New Labour leadership of Blair and Brown. To make these policies effective they must be linked up with the fight to maximise the trade union and working class voice in the Labour Party.

Related articles

• Weak, but still alive. Report of the LRC conference
• Broken silence. Graham Bash's column

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