Unison Conference 2004
Political Fund debate
Break with Labour - for a new workers party
The decision by the FBU to end its links with Labour is no surprise
after the disgraceful treatment of them by the government.
Now it is our turn to end the link
As each day passes the anger of members against
new Labour grows. Relentless attacks from PFI, Foundation hospitals, low
pay and War, have led millions to disassociate themselves from New labour.
In the last few days the FBU have now joined the
RMT and agreed to support candidates other than labour.
In UNISON such is the antipathy to New labour
that less than half the members pay into the affiliated political fund (APF)
and only a minority of branches can find anyone who wants to be the Labour
party link officer.
In truth a minority in the union are keeping us
bound and gagged to the Labour party.
Frustrated
For nearly ten years the Socialist party and
others have proposed measures which would allow our funds to be used only
to support those parties who genuinely supported us, but for ten years we
have been deliberately frustrated and banned from debating any rule
changes to open and democratise the funds let alone allowed to debate
disaffiliation.
Every year a quack lawyer is dragged out to say
that it would be unlawful to change the existing arrangements. In UNISON
it is allegedly unlawful for the national conference (the sovereign body
of the union) to amend its own rules!
Incredibly no such laws have prevented the RMT
and the FBU having an open democratic debate.
We believe the reason is that the new labour
clique controlling the union knows that if given a real choice the members
would not want to carry on funding a party intent on attacking us.
Last ditch effort
In a last ditch effort this year Bromley and a
number of branches proposed that a ballot should be carried out of all the
members, along side the legal political fund ballot asking them whether
they wish to carry on the exiting funding arrangements or whether they
wanted to allow funding other candidates or whether they wanted to
disaffiliate.
Once again even this minimal democratic demand is
not allowed to even be debated.
However it is not just the New Labourites in the
union who opposed such democracy. Disgracefully the Untied Left led by the
National secretary and members of the SWP openly opposed this position and
have put themselves in the camp of leaving things as they are.
The only real debate we are now left with at this
year's conference is whether in the political fund ballot, we "hide
from members our link with the labour party in order to secure a yes
vote" or we tell them that that "Labour is the best thing sliced
bread and of course they should vote yes."
The socialist party cannot support either position
The socialist party cannot support either
position. One is a blatant lie and the other is a deliberate attempt to
deceive the members.
The socialist party is calling for you to vote
against the motion and amendments.
A key question for the left in the union is what
do we now do in the forthcoming political fund ballot.
The socialist party is in favour of the union
having a political voice that genuinely reflects the needs, wishes and
aspirations of its members. That is why we call for disaffiliation and for
the creation of a new workers party launched by the unions.
However the only option we will be faced with is
to vote yes carrying on funding new labour.
In those circumstances and after every effort on
our part to try and allow the members a genuine democratic say we believe
that we may soon have no choice but to take the unprecedented step of
calling for a no vote and for the creation of a new fund that is open,
democratically controlled by all the members and not affiliated to the
labour party.
Political fund ballot
This would be in respect of the political fund
ballot which is to take place next year and then to bring a motion to next
June’s conference for a new open and democratic fund to be established
following a further ballot.
We realise that this will be a controversial
position, which would only be taken with great reluctance.
The right will say "putting us outside of
new labour would lose us influence in the government". What influence
has the millions that we have given since 1997 New Labour is happy to take
our money with one hand and beat us with the other. Could anyone could say
that being expelled from the Labour party has made the RMT any less
effective.
Others will say that, it would mean that we would
not be able to fight cuts and privatisation because we wont have the GPF
either. We may have to put up with this in the short term in order to
bring about necessary fundamental change.
Others will say that this would lead to a
non-political union. At the moment the only political party that the union
can support is New labour, our proposal would mean that the union could be
without a political fund for a relatively short space of time.
Twelve months or so of no money going to New
Labour is money well saved in our book. Imagine what we could do with the
extra £3 million we gave last year alone.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Not a penny more to New
Labour and for a new open democratic political fund. |
