Left victory in firefighters’ union

LEFT-WING candidate Matt Wrack has won a bitterly fought contest for the
assistant general secretary position in the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). His
victory over John McGhee will be welcomed by Left activists inside the FBU and
other unions.

The election for general secretary of the union will now begin on 7
February. It is widely expected that the contest for this post will be between
the incumbent Andy Gilchrist and Matt Wrack.

In a bruising contest which saw red scare and witch-hunting tactics from
much of the union officialdom, Matt Wrack defeated John McGhee by 6,260 votes
to 5,527. Another Left candidate, Dean Mills, received 1,981 votes. The
turnout was just over 25%.

The result follows one week after the election of Left candidate Christine
Blower as deputy general secretary in the National Union of Teachers.

John McGhee was seen as Andy Gilchrist’s chosen successor. If he had won
this election then it was speculated that Gilchrist – who was widely
discredited in the union after the setbacks of the national strike action in
2002/2003 – would have stepped aside to allow McGhee to be frontrunner for the
general secretary position.

Witch-hunts

However, McGhee was rightly seen as the hardline of the union bureaucracy
who have been behind suspensions of left-wing national officials and
witch-hunts in the union against activists grouped around the Grassroots FBU.

Red scares and muckraking, which were common features of the campaign
against Matt Wrack in particular, have rebounded on this layer of officials
who were desperately trying to cling on to any influence they had in the union
after they were discredited over their handling of the firefighters’ strike in
2002-2003.

The votes of Matt Wrack and Dean Mills shows that there is now a harder,
more critical Left in the union – a fact also shown by the decision last year
to disaffiliate the union from the Labour Party.

There was a hope amongst many on the Left that there would not have been
two Left candidate standing in this election, because of the necessity to stop
McGhee who would have imposed a much more autocratic regime in the union.
Nevertheless, McGhee has now been defeated and it is likely that Matt Wrack
will be the sole Left challenge to Gilchrist for general secretary.

Development

At the same time as Matt’s election there has been the development of a
hard-Left group on the National Executive, which Matt Wrack will need to work
with and help develop if the union is to be transformed into a fighting and
more democratic organisation.

A prerequisite for this will be the sweeping away of the rules that were
introduced by Stalinists in the 1950s. They prohibit effective organisation of
Left groups inside the union and do not allow candidates to canvass or advance
their industrial and political programme in elections.

However, Matt and others on the Left in the union will also have to ensure
that firefighters’ confidence about winning industrial struggles is restored.
An essential first step towards this could be a successful ballot for strike
action on pensions alongside other unions on 23 March.