Fight for militant trade unionism

THIS YEAR'S Unite Policy Conference took place in the broad context of class struggle. The last year has seen a sharpening of industrial disputes across the UK and Ireland. The overwhelming sense amongst trade union activists is that there is a need for a powerful, collective fightback of working class people.

By Callum Robinson

commit to a strategy of coordinating strike action across unions and sectors in dispute, calling on the wider labour movement to mobilise a mass campaign of working class people. The motion was passed unanimously.

Workers

AT a prominent bar and music venue in Glasgow, The 13th Note, took strike action in July in what was the first strike of bar workers in the city in 20 years. The workers demands centred around health and safety, pay, contracts and union recognition.

The owner of the 13th Note had ignored the worker’s concerns over health and safety, seeking to preserve their profits even at the expense of their worker’s well-being. These many hazards in the workplace included; unaddressed infestation by rodents, leaks and wet floors and heavy equipment kept on broken unsteady wheels at risk of collapse. The owner even threatened workers with disciplinary action for leaving work after a large fridge fell on them.

Workers in the 13th Note were also kept on exploitative wages, for example, the head chef is paid £11.25 an hour compared to the industry average of £17. The staff were also made to work as a skeleton crew, with staffing being so minimal that bars were often staffed over 12 hours at a time by individual members of staff.

The vast majority of the staff joined Unite and voted for strike action. In response, almost immediately after the workers went on strike the owner threatened to close the business altogether throwing 21 workers on the scrap heap in a blatant act of trade union victimisation. This shows what workers in the most casualised industries are up against. The workers have set up a Go Fund Me, seeking to take over the venue to save their jobs and have asked union branches to donate where possible.

“We are the people who have put blood, sweat and tears into this venue, making the owner millions in personal wealth over the course of the last 20+ years” the worker’s wrote in a statement. “No pint is poured, no dish is served and not a beat is played without the explicit permission of workers."

At the same time there are important threats to our movement that were recognised at the conference. In many industries employers are preparing fresh attacks on workers pay and conditions, with many resorting to union-busting methods. The Tory government has been engaged in an onslaught against the unions, including attacking the right to strike.

Militant trade unionism

The conference pointed to a militant response to this in order to defend jobs, pay and conditions. Unite leader Sharon Graham, in her keynote address, said "We didn't change our rule book to work outside the law if necessary to make it neater. We changed it for the days to come. Unite will defend its members by all and every means."

One motion moved by a member of the Socialist Party called for Unite to

Keir Starmer spoke at the conference, much to the dismay of many delegates. His speech was expectedly pro-business, referring to greater "partnership" between labour and the bosses. Unite recently reaffirmed its affiliation with Labour despite the right wing leadership making clear its distaste for striking workers. The relationship of trade unions to Labour is a key question confronting Unite going forward.

Transphobia and gender violence

Importantly, delegates also made clear the union's support for trans rights. A Socialist Party member moved a motion calling for 'Action Committees on Gender Violence and Transphobia' to be established, to commit the union to building movements of young and working class people on these issues. Delegates spontaneously took to their feet in response to make clear that Unite stands against attacks on trans people from politicians and the media.

Capitalism’s total inaction on the climate crisis is leading to devastating effects globally. This summer saw many parts of the world plunge into an extreme heatwave, with preliminary data showing that the first week of July 2023 was the hottest on record. Isidora Durán Stewart writes on this impending catastrophe.

BEIJING AND Arizona experienced the hottest consecutive number of days recorded in one year. EU Firefighting planes were sent to Greece to combat rapidly spreading wildfires. Parts of Spain hit 45°C, with the ground temperature in some areas surpassing 60°C.

Rising temperatures and El Niño

And while Ireland isn’t experiencing this intense heat, recent data shows it is undergoing a significant change in climate. The report confirms that the Island is distinctly warmer and wetter than it was 30 years ago, with the average nationwide temperature increasing by 0.7°C across all four seasons.

This exceptional warmth is occurring simultaneously with the onset of El Niño, a natural weather event that warms the equatorial Pacific Ocean by up to 3°C, adding up to 0.2°C to the Earth's average temperature. Since the planet is already 1.2°C above pre-industrial times, this extra heating phenomenon could tip us over the 1.5°C target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement within the next year.

A typical El Niño causes drought in Indonesia, Australia, southern Africa, and India; intense hurricane seasons in the Pacific; colder winters in northern Europe; and widespread heat waves, causing deaths and mass displacement and sharpening poverty and food insecurity for millions of people.

System failure

Leading energy companies – whose use of fossil fuels is the leading cause of climate change – are paying no heed to the climate emergency. In fact, amidst recordbreaking heat in February, BP scaled back an earlier goal of lowering its emissions by 35% by 2030, saying it will aim for a 20 to 30% cut instead, all while expanding gas drilling!

Exxon’s CEO recently told an industry amount of oil produced from its US shale holdings. Meanwhile, Mobil has quietly withdrawn from a widely publicised effort to use algae in creating low-carbon fuel. These corporations' pledges are hollow and subject to change when the market requires it.

Similarly, representatives of the capitalist system will operate in the pursuit of profit regardless of the human misery it engenders. They have their hands bound by the anarchic economic system they represent and will use their accumulated wealth to shield themselves from the worsening effects of climate change, while working-class people disproportionately suffer.

Capitalist governments

While shameless climate change denier Donald Trump is no longer in office, Biden is effectively continuing his policies by kowtowing to fossil fuel companies and corporations. In March, he approved of the Willow Oil project, a drilling venture that will add two trillion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year.

COP, the yearly conference for UN Framework Convention on Climate Change parties extinguished any pretense it created about taking climate change seriously, when the amount of gas and oil lobbyists in attendance actually increased this year, by 25%.

In the south, the Green Party, alongside other establishment parties, unwilling to take on big business, have utterly failed to meet the country’s emissions target, now hoping to achieve a 29% reduction ‘at best’, rather than the agreed 51%. To wide indignation, Eamon Ryan even went as far as to say that he wouldn’t support free public transport because it would incentivise ‘unnecessary’ bus journeys!

Climate change does not occur in isolation but perpetuates and deepens every interconnected crisis borne out of capital- growing inter-imperialist rivalries and the new cold war. Perversely, the world’s major powers are looking at the rapidly thawing Arctic ice caps as opportunities to develop new shipping routes to undercut their rivals, along with exploiting its oil and gas reserves–extraction will throw further fuel on this existential crisis. This is resulting in a massive military build up with the US establishing a new deepwater port in the Arctic, while Russia has built up a substantial military presence to protect its North Sea routes. Meanwhile, Chinese imperialism is hoping to create a “polar silk road”, to expand its power and profits.

Potential fightback

Yet out of the countless profit-driven emergencies taking place, climate change is one of the most galvanising. Fridays for Future, the international climate movement led by school students, is still taking place, with young people participating in weekly school strikes to demand immediate climate action. Just Stop Oil has gained significant media attention for their direct action stunts in galleries and snooker halls. Extinction

Rebellion has shifted focus from occupations and roadblocks toward mass protests alongside trade unions, feminist organisations and other progressive groups, organising a four-day series of protests in April, where up to 60,000 people were in attendance.

This surge of mass protests as well as a growing feminist wave and labour movement globally is where our hope lies. The logic of the capitalist system means that, if allowed to do so, it will extract profit through every means possible until there is nothing left. But shining a light on it isn’t enough. We need to tackle the source of the profound inequality that has allowed global warming to go unchecked, resulting in the abnormally hot weather we see today.

Nothing but an organised workingclass movement can confront the fossil fuel industry and the despotic politicians and billionaires who protect it. Only by taking matters into our own hands can we pose a genuine threat to the system. For a prompt transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, for the end of mining, fracking and deforestation, for the liberation of working people and the planet, this capitalist system needs to go – now, more than