Work in trade unions — their conception and ours

The most basic task of socialists is to lead the struggles of the working class to victory. From victory in their daily struggles against the bosses to the victory over the ruling class. This, of course, requires that the mass of workers actually follow the socialists. Today, not only does the socialist movement not have sway over the majority of the working class, but most workers are at best indifferent if not outright hostile to it.

The leaders they do have, the leaders of the trade unions, led the recent strike wave to defeat in their refusal to topple the hated and weak Tory government. As a result, the unions emerged weaker, with many quitting out of frustration and anger. Fast forward to 2024, the trade union leaders all campaigned to bring the anti-working-class Starmer government to power.

Workers stand disarmed, demoralised, and saddled with a treacherous leadership. The question of how to get out of this sorry state is one that any serious would-be revolutionary must ask themselves. Our answer: we must strengthen and rebuild the unions, and that will be done against the current leadership and for a socialist leadership. So how does the left respond?

Some seek to “lead” the class by supporting (occasionally critically) the current set of betrayers, or some group of “oppositionists” who might talk militant while holding the same pro-capitalist views. Another version of the same game is “rank and file” caucuses which don’t fight for a new leadership committed to a different kind of unionism but only to pressure the current one. Then there are those who close their eyes and pretend the current leadership of the class will simply disappear and suddenly the class will follow them. What they all have in common is refusing to treat the pro-capitalist leadership as an obstacle that needs to be toppled.

Groups like the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party and Communist Party all have members in union posts, from branch reps all the way to national executives. They got these posts not in competition with the pro-capitalist leaders, but in combination with them. This is always justified by saying some leaders are more militant, or more left than others. But they always make the same betrayals. They get to say they are leading workers, but all they are doing is heaping the rightful hatred of workers for these bureaucrats onto socialists as well.

In times of struggle many of these same groups form “rank and file” committees to press for a strike to be continued, or more demands made, etc. The ranks do need to be set against the tops, not just to pressure, but to overthrow them. A strike that is losing because of its leadership needs new leadership, not more demands to lose.

Groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party think that just saying “join the communists” will answer everything (or make workers forget that yesterday they supported Sharon Graham!). For their part the World Socialist Web Site often has insightful articles about the conditions of the class and betrayals of their leaders, only to then denounce the unions as a whole! Both of these strategies actually mean a non-aggression pact with the current leaders of the unions, just the flip side of the support other groups give them.

Our starting point is not to pick the best of a bad lot to work with, nor is it to ignore how bad things are. We start from the general position of the working class and how to bring forward its struggles. At the moment this is the need to regroup, protect and rebuild the unions after defeat.

From this vantage point we look at each industry, and formulate a line of struggle based on the needs of workers there corresponding with this broader strategy. The fight for rights and conditions on the job is how the unions gain the confidence of their members; that confidence is necessary to solidify the unions and recruit to them.

We call out the obstacles to carrying this out: the sabotaging strategy pursued by the pro-capitalist leaders. We formulate and fight for our demands in opposition to them. In this way we put the question of leadership where it belongs, as a test of what advances and what drags back the daily conditions and general struggle of the working class.

The articles below represent this. We sincerely hope that others on the left will join us in these fights.