Defending real trade unionism

Written by Peter Hadden Wednesday, 10 March 2010 11:11

Sacked Belfast Airport Workers
A reply to Unite leaders' slanders and lies

The Socialist Party has produced this pamphlet answering the lies of the Unite leaders' in relation to their dispute with the sacked Bellfast airport workers. We are posting the contents of this pamphlet in response to the fact that Unite continue to spread these lies on their website.

By Peter Hadden

A Socialist Party Pamphlet (2008)

Who would have thought back in 2002,  that when a group of low paid airport security workers went on strike for a fifty pence an hour pay rise, the action would be the start of a six year battle for justice, not only from their employer, but also from their union? Who would have thought that this struggle would involve not just pickets and demonstrations at the airport, but also protests and even hunger strikes outside their union offices in Belfast and in London?

Certainly not the workers who had voted 100% in favour of the action and certainly not the shop stewards who organised and led them. To them this was a straightforward issue; a struggle against poverty pay. All they were looking for was £6 an hour, to give them parity with the airport porters. They expected, as most workers would, that their union, the T&GWU, having sanctioned the strike would stand by and support them.

There were certainly not prepared for the betrayal that was to follow. Their action had barely begun when it was repudiated by the union. Their own official, Joe McCusker, who had organised the ballot and assured them that the strike was official, secretly colluded with Managing Directors of ICTS to have half of those who went on  strike, including all the shop stewards, sacked.

One year later the union leadership negotiated a rotten deal with  ICTS, which all the sacked workers rejected. From that time the workers were effectively abandoned by the union. They were left to continue with a legal battle against their employer, which after years of hearings, delays and appeals, they eventually won in June of this year.

Throughout this time they have fought a battle for justice from their union. They have demanded a full explanation of what happened in 2002, when the union leadership handed them up as a sacrifice to their employer. They have also demanded an explanation of why the union leadership then abandoned them and left them to continue the fight against ICTS on their own.

Threats, lies and slanders
Instead of providing answers, the union leadership attempted to ignore their demands. When they have protested in order to highlight their case, they have been vilified and slandered. Union officials have called the police to remove them from Transport House, headquarters of the T&GWU in Belfast. They have been served with an injunction barring them from protesting at Transport House. They have also received paramilitary style death threats.

Evidence that at least one of these threats came from someone in Transport House was passed to the police and also shown to senior officials of the union. They have also been offered money in return for an agreement that they will never again speak in public about the role of any official of the union, past or present, in this dispute.

Most recently the Unite leadership has issued two statements purporting to set out the facts of this dispute. These statements are an attack on the shop stewards and on the Socialist Party, which has consistently supported their struggle going right back to the start of the dispute. In attempting to explain why the shop stewards have kept up their protests, and in trying to justify the role of the current leadership of the union, these statements give a totally distorted picture of how things got to this point.

The Socialist Party produced replies to both these statements in order to set the record straight. Our replies make up the bulk of this pamphlet. This is not a point scoring exercise. The airport workers' dispute has been an important struggle that is rich in lessons for the labour movement in Ireland, Britain and beyond. To draw these lessons we need to know the facts of what actually happened. We cannot allow the litany of falsehoods that make up the Unite statements to go unchallenged and, by default, pass themselves off as the truth.

Economic crisis - living standards under assault
We are now twelve months into the financial crunch that began with the collapse of the sub prime market in the US, but whose tentacles have spread through the world financial markets into every corner of the globe. Financial markets are still in turmoil, with even the most optimistic pundits predicting that there is still plenty of bad news to come.

With oil and other commodity prices soaring and the major economies teetering on the precipice of what could be a lengthy economic downturn, working class people are already feeling the pinch.

Meanwhile, those who benefited from the years of financial excess, pocketing millions and tens of millions in bonuses, stock options and commissions, are now demanding that the working class shoulder the bill for the crisis. We "privatise the gain", but "socialise the pain". That is the current motto of world capitalism.

The neo liberal agenda adopted by virtually every government across the globe has seen an unrelenting assault on public services, pensions and working conditions. Working class people are now being hit by a new offensive on jobs and particularly on wages.

More than ever, in this period of turbulence, instability and upheaval, the working class needs organisations that are prepared to fight to defend its interests.

The airport workers' dispute is important in that it exposed the weaknesses and deficiencies at the top of the unions. Workers taking strike action today want to know that their union officials are behind them - or, better still, are leading from the front. They do not expect to find them on the other side of the line, conniving with management to get rid of them. No worker wants to experience what the sacked airport workers experienced in 2002.

Strikebreaking role
An all-too cosy relationship existed between management and union officials in Belfast International airport up to 2002. Strikes were unheard of, and not because workers were satisfied with the low pay and poor working conditions. It was because the ICTS shop stewards upset all this that their union official conspired with management to get them sacked.

Today there are a good many right wing trade union leaders who have the same cap in hand approach to industrial relations as existed in Belfast International Airport before 2002. They are still wedded to the notion that the way to solve problems is through "partnership" arrangements, not through struggle: this at a time when the government, alongside the employers, is engaged in an all out offensive on jobs, services and wages. The strikebreaking role played by the GMB during the 2007 Classroom Assistants strike in Northern Ireland and again during the July 2008 two day local government strike is an example.

In other unions, the right wing leadership has responded to the growing calls for action from members by attempting witchhunts against left activists. The Unison leadership is currently threatening to expel a number of Socialist Party members who have been campaigning for union democracy and for a fighting approach to be adopted.

The right wing have been able to maintain a stranglehold at the top of most unions because, for a whole period - going back to the defeats inflicted by the Thatcher government - there has been a downturn in activity and a sapping of the confidence of the working class to struggle. There were fewer activists coming through prepared to challenge the leadership.

All this will change as workers are forced into struggle. A new generation of activists, especially of young workers, entering the union branches and structures, will transform the situation. They will inevitably come into collision with those right wing leaderships that try to carry on as they done over several decades.

Build a genuine left
What happened to the airport workers holds many important lessons for the struggles that will take place to build genuine lefts and to transform the unions. A year after they were sacked, there was a regime change in the T&GWU. Tony Woodley, who was supported by most of the left in the union, won the General Secretary election and took over from Bill Morris.

Apart from a reshuffle of posts among the bureaucracy, very little changed, as the airport workers soon discovered to their cost. After the 2002 betrayal, their case became a cause célèbre among opponents of the Morris leadership. They were invited to, and attended, national meetings of the left.

Then, when Woodley got elected, the mood music abruptly changed. As this pamphlet explains, Woodley's first act was to try to coerce them into accepting a rotten deal that, among other things, accepted the victimisation of the shop stewards. In terms of their relations with the current union leadership, it has been all downhill from that time.

What emerges clearly from this, is the need for a genuine open and campaigning left capable of mobilising members to change the union. 
The left in the T&GWU, as in a number of other unions, has been handicapped by the bad traditions of Stalinism, inherited from Communist Party members. It is neither open, nor campaigning. Nor is it organised around policy differences.

Its main function is to get its people into positions at the top of the union. When the right has control, it operates as little more than an alternative bureaucracy in waiting. In power, it becomes the bureaucracy.

Woodley's accession altered the career paths of sections of the bureaucracy. But apart from a change of faces, everything else stayed pretty much the same. Officials remained unelected. They got the same large salaries and generous expenses as under Morris.

Instead of following the lead of unions like the RMT and FBU and breaking with New Labour, the union maintained its affiliation and continued to pump millions into this party.

Now, following the merger with Amicus to form Unite, the leadership of the new union is proposing a constitution which removes some of the democratic rights that members of both unions had previously enjoyed. Amicus members, for example, had the right to elect their officials. Under the new rules, this right is removed. The socialist clause that previously had pride of place in the T&GWU constitution, reflecting the past struggles of workers that put it there, has been removed.

As Unite members are increasingly drawn into struggle and into activity in the union, the basis can be laid for the emergence of a new and genuine left that will fight openly for real change in the union. Demands for the election of all officials by the members and for officials to be paid the same salaries as those they represent will get a real echo. So will the call for the union to break the link with Labour and instead begin the process of creating a new party of the working class.

Hunger strikes
The betrayal at Belfast International Airport took place at a time when activity levels within the unions were at a low level. Very few fresh activists were emerging. The airport shop stewards were an exception to the general rule.

This explains the tactics they have felt it necessary to adopt in their battle with their union leadership. Although two of the shop stewards became members of the Socialist Party, partly in recognition of the solidarity work we had done for them, we always advised against the use of hunger strikes.

Hunger strikes, when they occur, are usually a product of the downturn or defeat of mass movements. Those who undertake them generally do so out of desperation, because, in the absence of mass struggles to achieve their objectives, they do not see any other way.

The hunger strikes by republican prisoners in 1980 and 1981 that led directly to the deaths of ten prisoners, came about because of the failure of the republican movement outside the prisons to build an  effective campaign to back the prisoners' demand for political status.

The prisoners were left with the choice of trying to maintain a no wash protest that was causing unbearable hardship and was showing signs of breaking, or else of bringing things to a head by escalating the protest. With no prospect of mass pressure being applied from those on the outside, the prisoners felt that their only option was a hunger strike.

The airport shop stewards would have preferred to have taken the course we suggested of a campaign within the T&GWU, and in other unions, to force the hand of the leadership, but, with the lack of genuine activists and the low levels of activity, they were not convinced that this would succeed. On the other hand, they were not prepared to back down and let those who were responsible for what had happened to them off the hook. So they resorted to the drastic and desperate tactic of hunger strikes and even of hunger and thirst strikes.

Had there been a powerful left within the union, they would not have felt the need to put their health on the line in this way. They could have linked up with activists throughout the union and challenged the leadership. As it was, the left section of the bureaucracy, which had championed their cause as a stick with which to beat Bill Morris, quickly dropped them when Tony Woodley took over.

Victory
Nonetheless the airport workers, with the backing of the Socialist Party, fought on. In David versus Goliath fashion they continued their battle against ICTS, a powerful international security company. 

After six years, they won a significant victory. They would have preferred that this had come through industrial means, but the betrayal of their 2002 strike ruled this out. Using the courts, where it is very difficult for workers to get a fair hearing and where justice is priced beyond the means of most individuals, is always a last resort, when industrial means fail. The airport workers were forced down this road and, in winning their case, set a legal precedent that gives an added protection to every trade union member against victimisation.

They also took on a union leadership that had all the resources of the most powerful union in Britain at its disposal. They stood up to the lies and the slander and the intensive, intimidatory pressure to back off. When all else failed, the union leadership tried bribes. 

Two of the three shop stewards have signed up to the union's offer of compensation in return for their silence about the dispute, but Gordon McNeill has made clear that his right to tell Unite members the truth - and their right to know the truth - is not for sale.

Their courage and persistence in taking on a major international company, and in challenging the bureaucracy of a powerful union, should be an inspiration to all trade union members. Their determination has paid off. They have inflicted a defeat on ICTS and have forced the Unite leadership to concede much of what they were demanding. Hopefully, this will encourage others to get active in their unions and fight for change.

This pamphlet has been produced to begin to set the record straight and to allow Unite members, and members of other unions, to begin to draw the lessons of this important dispute. We reprint the two most recent statements by Unite along with a detailed reply to each. Also included are an open letter from Gordon McNeill to Tony Woodley which sets out his terms for bringing this dispute to an end. Some of the key documents referred to in our replies are also appended.

Statement from Gordon McNeill
"I would like to thank the Socialist Party for the invaluable support they have given myself and my colleagues throughout the long and difficult years of our dispute. Without this help we would not have got to get to where we are.

"We have won an important victory against our employer and also against our union leadership, who, instead of backing us, chose to attack us and try to blacken our name.

"My two colleagues, Madan Gupta and Chris Bowyer, felt they had no choice but to sign up to the gagging clause insisted upon by Tony Woodley and Jimmy Kelly. I cannot sign away my right to free speech. My campaign for justice will continue until the compensation they are prepared to give is offered as a right, not as a bribe.

"Trade unionists need to organise politically as well as industrially. We are each not just fighting one employer, we are fighting all employers and the system they represent. During the dispute I saw even more clearly the need for a political party that represents working class people and fights for socialist change. That's why I joined the Socialist Party.

"I would encourage all those who supported our struggle and who want to continue the fight for real change to join the Socialist Party and stand with us in our ongoing battle to democratise our unions and to finally get rid of the capitalist system that puts greed before need."

Gordon McNeill