Mark Serwotka Call for Unity at Durham Miners’ Gala

British union chiefs decry vicious cuts

Two of Britain’s biggest labour movement events including the Durham Miners’ Gala and Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival have been held with union leaders calling for unity against vicious coalition government’s cuts on public services.
The Durham Miners’ Gala rally was told by head of Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, Mark Serwotka that there should be unity “in our unions, communities, town halls and parliament”, British media reported. 

At the so-called ‘Big Meeting’, which was held by nearly 100,000 people in attendance, Ed Miliband denied he took an electoral risk by becoming the first Labour leader since Neil Kinnock in 1989 to address one of the country's most traditional trade union events.
At the event, which was first held in 1871, Serwotka cited youth unemployment as being the highest on record.                                                            
He also talked about the tens of billions of pounds of public spending cuts, including huge job cuts, the public-sector pay freeze, attacks on pensions, and unemployed and disabled people "receiving unparalleled abuse."
"There has never been a more important time for the labour movement to be united," Serwotka said.
"We have to be united in opposing the most vicious attack on everything our movement stands for - protecting the most vulnerable, providing decent jobs for all who can work and a decent standard of living for those that cannot, providing decent public services that serve the public good not private profiit, and defending working-class communities through strong trade unions and community organisations.
"So we need unity across the trade unions, in campaigning organisations and in Parliament.
"That unity is built around opposing this Tory-led government's attacks on the people we represent”, added Serwotka
MOL/HE

 

                                                          

Gala a lesson for Labour

 

Few groups of workers have been as single-minded in their efforts to secure a Labour government than the Durham miners and their annual celebration at the weekend reaffirmed this goal.

But neither the north-east region NUM nor its guests at the Big Meeting wants to see the next Labour government repeat the disappointments of the Tony Blair-Gordon Brown years.

New Labour zealots championed an agenda of marginalising the trade union movement, both politically and financially.

In their eyes, allowing affiliated labour movement organisations to take part in decisions over policy and political representatives was an outdated concept.

Equally, they were not overjoyed with the Labour Party being dependent on trade unionists for funding through the political levy paid through the unions to the party.

They were far happier as recipients of the largess of wealthy business people such as Lord Sainsbury and wanted to see further state funding of political parties to break the link between Labour and the unions.

Far from this guaranteeing Labour's political independence, it would result in its total estrangement from organised labour and its subservience to capitalist orthodoxy.

Trade unions are the major stumbling block in the way of those forces creating a US-style duopoly of two openly capitalist parties.

It's often been touch and go. Both Blair and Brown treated the unions like embarrassing older relatives and went out of their way to dismiss their concerns and proposals.   

                                                                                                                                     

The bitter fruit of that approach has been the installation in office of the most viciously right-wing government for years, which is determined to hack away at social gains won over decades and at working people's living standards.

Blair claims that Labour lost office because it failed to champion a new Labour approach - but, as Mandy Rice-Davies said, he would, wouldn't he?

Few people in the labour movement would fall for that nonsense now, which is why it was good that Ed Miliband told the racecourse rally that Labour and the unions should stick together.

It's an incontrovertible truth and one that is easy to express at a 100,000-strong audience made up of Durham working people.

Trade unionists and the left will hold Miliband to this position and will insist that it be concretised in the policies that Labour puts forward.                                                                                                                                                 

Overseas wars, austerity for the workers and kid gloves for bankers and the boss class won't enthuse Labour activists or the millions of Labour voters turned off by the new Labour aberration.

All tendencies to this wrong direction will be opposed by the trade union movement, which will emphasise a united and disciplined response.

This should be a lesson for members of the leftist grouplet who thought it their "revolutionary" duty to try to prevent the massive audience hearing what Miliband had to say.

They might have believed they were striking a blow against the Labour Party.

However, as Durham miners' leader Davey Hopper told this paper at the weekend, no-one dictates to the Durham Miners Association who speaks at the Big Meeting.

By whistling and shouting down Miliband, they were actually showing disrespect to the miners' representatives who invited him.

The Morning Star will continue to criticise anti-working class policies, whoever raises them, but it will do so in a way that respects and seeks to maximise labour movement unity as the basic necessity for defeating the conservative coalition government. 

Morning Star                                                             .