The Socialist 19 June 2013

Cuts can be beaten!

Cuts can be beaten!

Why we're going to the NSSN conference: Coventry communications workers

Fight the Tories for right to a decent education system

Student loans threat: Action needed on student debt mountain

Lowest living standards in a decade

Sir 'sell-out' Brendan

Them & Us

We can beat the bedroom tax - Supplement to the Socialist

Let's axe the bedroom tax

Turkey: Eyewitness to Erdogan's state terror

Southampton byelection: Labour vote halved

Fire cuts - public will support strike action

Stopping the BNP from meeting

Home care: Cuts and outsourcing equal abuse

Wales campaigners fight for NHS

Socialist Party news

Bin workers strike for seven days

NUT members strike to defend teaching assistant posts

Housing support workers say 'enough is enough'

Unison Local Government conference: Leadership faces delegates' anger

Support for socialist alternative to pro-cuts New Labour at GMB conference

Wales Shop Stewards' Network conference

Workplace news in brief

Budding trade unionists and passionate Chartists

BBC 'unbalanced' on Liverpool 47

PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT

020 8988 8777

[email protected]

Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/770/16924

Search the site	Printable version

Home | The Socialist 19 June 2013 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | PDF | ebook

Sir 'sell-out' Brendan

Alex Davidson

That former TUC general secretary Brendan Barber is now 'Sir' Brendan will come as no surprise to any union activist who saw the pensions dispute destroyed in 2011.

Following successful pressure by the Socialist Party, the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) and others, 30 November 2011 saw two million workers on strike over the Con-Dems' assault on public sector pensions. It showed just how much power the union movement could have.

The sell-out that followed was orchestrated by Barber and designed to destroy the growing momentum that had been built up.

The knighthood given to him will be seen by all rank and file trade unionists as a reward for the deliberate destruction of a strike movement that could have defeated the government.

Barber has spent his entire life in the TUC bureaucracy. He has never been a shop steward, never held an elected position in any union.

He and others like him see their role as managing the union movement and presenting a 'responsible' face of trade unionism to the government.

They think that the only role of trade unions is to mitigate the worst aspects of the employers' plans.

When you are faced with a government which is determined to destroy everything we have ever won, this approach is totally inadequate.

With their six figure salaries and hefty expense accounts the TUC leaders have little in common with the rest of us.

Rank and file

That is why we need to strengthen rank and file trade unionism to fight not only the employers but the traitors within the union leadership.

The role of the NSSN is crucial in helping to develop a new generation of class fighters.

The Socialist Party stands for the full democratisation of the union movement. All key union officials should be elected and paid no more than the average wage of their members.

We must end the rule of unaccountable bureaucrats such as Barber and build a fighting, democratic union movement.

These rotten traitors must be swept aside if we are to beat back the attacks of the Con-Dems and the employers. The NSSN conference on 29 June is the next stage in building such a movement.

In this issue

Socialist Party news and analysis

Cuts can be beaten!