UK
Why we must oppose racism and war at the TUC Congress
Sean Vernell is a UCU union national executive committee member and delegate to the TUC union federation's congress. He surveys some of the key debates this year
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC union federation
Wednesday 28 August 2024
Among delegates to this year’s TUC union federation congress, there is a heightened sense of expectation.
For the first time in 14 years, congress takes place for under a Labour government. Motions to congress, which begins on 8 September, call upon Labour to fulfil its manifesto promises from repealing anti-union laws to addressing climate change.
But, as is customary at the TUC, there is little on how to achieve these demands. A lot of fire and fury, but very few calls for action to back up the demands.
While most motions and amendments will pass without controversy, not all will. There are key debates over climate change, arms expenditure and racism that will be contested, which reveal the tensions among union leaders.
The TUC is only the echo of the battle that takes place inside workplaces—most delegates are union full timers—but it does matter who wins these debates.
The GMB, a union led by the right wing within the trade union movement, represents some of the lowest paid workers. It also represents some of the most skilled workers in the arms and energy industries.
GMB has been successful in shifting TUC policy to the right over the last three years. It successfully moved a motion calling for an increase in arms expenditure and arming Ukraine—a bloody battleground between the West and Russia. And it moved the debate on climate change to the right by successfully passing motions in support of fossil fuels.
The Unite union has members working in the arms and energy industries and is in competition with the GMB. This leads general secretary Sharon Graham to pander to the GMB on key issues such as climate change and arms expenditure.
GMB’s lead motion this year is entitled, “Industrial strategy is national security.” The motion argues that their members working in steel, gas, chemicals and water are in a unique position to understand the relationship between economic growth and national security.
The motion claims that protecting jobs in these industries is at the same time protecting the “national interest”. It ends by calling for support for more gas and the building of Sizewell C, a nuclear power plant.
And, not to be outdone, one of Unite’s lead motions is on “a workers’ transition in the North Sea”. It aims to unravel a key Labour commitment to ban new oil licenses in the North Sea in response to the climate crisis.
It starts with welcoming Labour’s commitment to 650,000 green jobs but ends with calling for an end to the ban. It calls upon congress “to do everything in its power to prevent oil and gas workers becoming the miners of net zero”.
These arguments are completely false. The NUM union miners’ fight to defend their jobs and communities in 1984-85 was in response to Margaret Thatcher’s brutal union-busting agenda.
Thatcher’s claim was that the pits were “uneconomic”—the destruction of miners’ jobs was nothing to do with the environment, “net zero” or climate change. Indeed, the Tories quickly replaced British coal with imports from Poland.
We only have to throw our minds back to the lockdowns to see how a number of industries converted their plants to make socially useful products to save people lives. Workers in fossil fuel industries could use their skills as part of a green transition. Why aren’t the Unite and GMB leaderships making these arguments?
In Port Talbot workers face a jobs massacre because of bosses’ drive to maximise profits—and Unite and Community union leaders’ failure to lead a fight.
Unite and GMB would be much more effective in defending jobs if they identified this as a key struggle and united with those campaigning for a rapid and urgent transition to highly skilled jobs which could transition us away from fossil fuels.
The Unite leadership will also attempt to outdo GMB by watering down a Palestine motion that calls for an “end the arms trade with Israel”. Its amendment deletes this and replaces it with calls to “ban export licenses for arms directly traded with Israel and encourage others to do the same”.
The only people who will be cheering if these motions are passed are the CEOs in the fossil fuel and arms industries and the far right who peddle the same myths.
Many union leaders have signed up to support the Stand Up To Racism campaign against the far right. Hopefully congress will support the NEU union’s amendment which calls on the TUC to “mobilise for demonstrations and campaigns against the far right called by SUTR”.
But, if the trade union movement is to be effective in combatting the far right, it should also oppose militarism. When government unleash the dogs of war, it unleashes the dogs of racism as well.
This is why it matters who wins these debates at Congress. Unison and PSC have two good motions that put the alternative argument over these issues. The UCU also has an amendment to the Unison motion on climate change. It calls on the government to “seek to taper defence spending and arms proliferation, with a just transition into climate jobs for affected workers”.
The attempt to defend jobs on the grounds of a “national interest” will always undermine the class interest of workers. Workers, whatever industry or sector they work in, have no national interest—they only have a class interest which they share with workers across the globe. It is this class unity that real internationalism must be built upon.
