Restoring our fighting traditions
By Eddie Conlon
Article originally published in Issue 4 of Rupture, Ireland’s eco-socialist quarterly, buy the print issue:
The Covid-19 crisis has shown us three things. First, capitalists are ruthless. They are prepared to put workers at risk to keep the wheels of industry and profits turning.
At all times they have sought to expand what was meant by ‘essential work’. In a remarkable interview, on 25 April 2020 the head of Ibec, Danny McCoy, said
“...the term “essential” might not be appropriate when it comes to reopening Ireland. One criteria [for reopening] would be that labour-intensive industries would become more essential to get people back to work … The idea of getting mass groups back to work, while it might seem counter-intuitive from a public health dimension, is very important for the economic problem we have.” (emphasis added) [1]
This was at a time when the cases in labour-intensive meat plants were rising as workers were working on top of each other. 25% of meat plant workers have been infected.[2] In manufacturing, where much of the work could not be done at home, work continued as normal. What happened during the pandemic is that: “the simple act of physically going to work suddenly became a potentially deadly source of risk for the whole workforce, and not just for those usually unseen minorities working in particularly dangerous occupations.”[3]
Secondly, we learned that workers make the world go around. And not just frontline healthcare workers but bus drivers, postal workers and those working in food retail. While there was much clapping from government ministers for frontline workers this was not matched by any concrete measures to improve their lot. The recently agreed public service pay agreement is an insult to these workers.
Thirdly, we learned that many frontline workers are not very well paid and are unlikely to be paid sick pay as there is no statutory requirement to do so. The lack of a decent sick pay scheme meant many workers continued to work when they shouldn’t have. In meat plants, nine out of ten do not have sick pay and employers refused to negotiate a scheme with SIPTU to cover the period of the pandemic.[4]
The cost of Social Partnership
This points to the general low level of workers’ rights here, which places Ireland very low down the European league tables in relation to issues such as protection from dismissal, maternity and sick pay, and holidays. This must be regarded as remarkable given an extended period of social partnership, from 1987 to 2009, when union leaders claimed they had a seat at the government table allowing them to effectively shape public policy in workers’ interests. But following 23 years of social partnership our unions ended up seriously weakened with union density down to 31% compared to 62% in the early 1980s.[5] It's now 26% and as low as 15% in the private sector.
This low level of membership reflects a failure to demonstrate on the ground that unions can be effective. While there is much to criticise about social partnership its main failing is the manner in which it weakened workplace unionism and eschewed the use of the strike as a weapon to win gains. As Mick O’ Reilly has pointed out industrial “muscle atrophies from lack of use.”[6] There is a remarkable contrast between the growth and militancy of the movement between 1960 and 1980 and its weakness now. In that 20 year period membership rose by 70% and density by a quarter to 62%. There were 132 strikes in 1980 alone, of which 81 were unofficial, reflecting strong independent workplace organisation. In contrast the decade up to 2020 saw 86 strikes.
So it's not surprising that a fourth lesson we can take from Covid-19 is that the union bureaucracy remains committed to partnership and has failed to call for any action which would protect workers. While, at one point, the Migrant Rights Centre called for meat plants to be closed for two weeks for a deep clean, SIPTU called for a taskforce “involving all meat industry stakeholders”[7]: a clear preference for partnership over action. Having said that, the response to Covid-19 on the ground has also been muted, reflecting a lack of confidence and organisation.
The one shining light has been the Debenhams workers and their fantastic campaign for their ‘2 + 2’ (two weeks’ statutory redundancy, and two weeks’ pay per year of service). It showed the importance of being in a union: without a union they would never have had the entitlement to the ‘2 + 2’ redundancy agreement or the capacity to fight for it. They highlighted the possibility of fighting even in difficult circumstances and how in fighting back workers learn deeper political lessons. But it also showed the difficulty of winning without some degree of support from the wider union movement. ICTU and the leadership of Mandate could not have done less. ICTU even failed to condemn the mobilisation of the Gardai to smash pickets. It is shameful how the 1990 Industrial Relations Act, which ICTU endorsed, was used as the basis for the mobilisation of state forces against a legitimate picket.
““There were 132 strikes in 1980 alone, of which 81 were unofficial, reflecting strong independent workplace organisation. In contrast the decade up to 2020 saw 86 strikes””
While the left played an important and useful role in the dispute we should have no illusions that we can substitute ourselves for the support of the wider movement. While the circumstances of Covid-19 made it difficult, an open and public support group should have been formed and greater efforts made, over the heads of the bureaucracy, to involve the wider Mandate membership.
Diagnosing the problem
In order to restore the fighting traditions of our movement we need to understand what the sources of our problems are.
For some, the problems in our movement are caused by external factors undermining the structural capacity of the working class. [8] Globalisation, automation, deindustrialisation and precariarity tend to top the list.[9] Kim Moody has addressed these arguments showing that precarious work is not a new phenomenon and may not be as high as people think but also that the restructuring of global supply chains has provided workers with new points of attack. [10]
In Ireland 77% of workers are in permanent employment while 23% are at “elevated risk of precariousness”, up only 2% between 2004 and 2016. When measures of deprivation and poverty are taken into account for permanent workers almost half of all workers could be considered to be in “precarious” employment.[11] What can be lost in the debate about precariarity are the wider changes in working class lives in recent decades which are a decline in living and working standards, job intensification and declining wages. Wage share in national income fell here from 55% in 1995 to 44% in 2015 – the second biggest drop in the 37 countries surveyed. It was 66% in 1960.[12]
What arises from this is that all workers have an interest in a fightback. Our task, as always, is to find ways to link the well organised with those who are not to build resistance to casualization and precariousness.
Another external factor, favoured particularly by the left union bureaucracy, is the 1990 Industrial Relations Act. While it is true that the Act is restrictive it does not fully explain the failure of the unions to support industrial action or take the Act on directly. They might learn something from Eric Blanc’s account of teacher strikes in US states where striking is illegal. As one worker said to him: “It doesn‘t matter if an action is illegal if you have enough people doing it”. The teachers' mass defiance meant the courts did not move against them.[13] This is not something that the left of the bureaucracy is prepared to contemplate. In the current ESB dispute UNITE has advised members that it is a matter of personal conscience if they want to respect pickets.
Strategies for Change
So we need to look within. There are three general strategies for bringing change in our unions.[14] The broad left strategy focuses on replacing current leaders with new leaders from the left. The assumption is that our leaders are bad people or have bad politics and need to be replaced by those with better politics. The record of this strategy has not been good. Given their social position, left wing officials are subject to the same pressures as officials more generally. They are not immune to pressures to compromise and to control radical action from below. A classic example of this is the manner in which members of the Workers Party became absorbed into the bureaucratic apparatus of ITGWU/SIPTU and in some respects became more conservative than the right wingers they sought to displace.
The other two strategies focus on either (a) building rank and file power and strong workplace unions or (b) forming, or breaking away to join, more radical unions. My focus is on the former. We need to understand that our movement is dominated by a layer of appointed full time officials whose social role, position and material interests put them apart from the interests of the workers they are meant to represent. In essence bureaucrats work to control workers’ activity so it is not disruptive of what Gramsci called ‘industrial legality’. [15] Thus we need structural reform with officials elected by workers, paid a salary related to those they represent and subject to recall by the members.
We can’t have illusions that any sustainable project for change will come from the top. But there are nuances to this understanding of the bureaucracy. There can be differences between left and right wing officials, and officials can’t always do what they want. At some level they must retain the support of members. If they don’t they are of little use to the members and of less use to the employer who is dependent on them to deliver their members to industrial peace.
It's because of these nuances that some have called for a hybrid strategy whereby those committed to a rank and file strategy should form a united front with left wing officials who are prepared to fight. The context for this proposal is the stark difficulty facing those of us committed to a rank and file strategy that you cannot build a rank and file movement without action, but the rank and file are not strong enough to take action independently of the bureaucracy. This hybrid strategy would seek to involve sections of the “left union bureaucracy as a means of increasing the potential scale of workers resistance and thereby allowing the rank and file to maximise its own leverage.” [16]
While I have no principled objection to working with officials who are prepared to fight there is no evidence that such a strategy would work here. There is not much evidence that the unions who are perceived to be on the left are prepared to work with those of us who favour a rank and file strategy. The evidence from Covid-19, and particularly the Debenhams strike is that they are as inclined as the right to defend "industrial legality”. They are not prepared to see industrial action as a key weapon in turning things around for workers.
Contradictions and conclusions
““The effectiveness of unions can be best demonstrated on the ground. By organising effectively and winning small gains you can demonstrate what unions can do.””
So we are back to building from below and addressing the contradictions of the building of rank and file resistance in the context of low levels of action and the need to unionise workers into unions which appear completely ineffective. These contradictions need to be acknowledged and addressed and lead me to three simple conclusions:
The effectiveness of unions can be best demonstrated on the ground. By organising effectively and winning small gains you can demonstrate what unions can do. Strong workplace based organisation can also learn to operate independently of the bureaucracy as long as its strategy is based on organising rather than mobilising members.[17] Despite some limitations in her understanding of the trade union bureaucracy there are useful ideas in McAlevey’s work in relation to deep organising and understanding there are no shortcuts. As a first step, workplace reps should be encouraged to see members’ grievances as the basis of collective activity rather than individual problems to be solved by officials.
We must also build a solidarity network to support all those, such as the ESB workers, who are prepared to fight. This must be based on strong rank and file groups working in each union but also linking up to build support for those who fight. Such a network should seek to draw in those like the Debenhams workers who have learned much about how to fight and also seek to widen the terms of the struggle with a more politicised approach to union organising. This has been a central theme in successful examples from the US where a strike wave amongst teachers focused not just on pay and conditions but on education provision and resources.[18]
Given that Covid-19 has exposed a paucity of workers’ rights such a network should push for a serious campaign for a Living Wage of €15, statutory sick pay and the right to organise.The socialist left has always been an important ingredient in building resistance in the labour movement and must prioritise this work now. Further, this work is important for what we can learn from workers by retaining a dialogue with them which allows us, as Gramsci put it, to “live permanently immersed in the reality of the class struggle”. Only then will we be in a position to “give real leadership to the movement as a whole and impress on the masses the conviction that there is an order immanent in the present terrible disorder.”[19]
Eddie Conlon works at TU Dublin, is a Teachers’ Union of Ireland activist and part of People Before Profit's trade union department
Notes
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/lifting-the-lockdown-what-are-the-plans-1.4236891
Tassinari, A., Chesta, R.E. and Cini,L. (2020) “Labour conflicts over health and safety in the Italian Covid19 crisis” Interface 22 May 2020 https://www.interfacejournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Tassinari-Chesta-Cini.pdf
Conlon, E. (2002). “Fighting partnership: The left and the unions”. Red Banner, 13.
O Reilly, M (2019) From Lucifer to Lazarus – A Life on the Left. Lilliput Press.
See https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland /irish-news/covid-19-testing-centre-for-families-of-meat-plant-workers-planned-1.4254775
This term is taken from an early book by Eric Ohlin Wright (1979). Class, Crises and the State. London: Verso. I used it in my analysis of the 1990 Waterford Glass Strike see See Conlon, E. (1998). Fighting back in hard times: the 1990 strike in Waterford Crystal. Annual SAI Conference, May 8-10, Wexford. Available at https://arrow.dit.ie/schmuldistcon/7/
See Mc Alevey, J. (2016) No Short Cuts, Oxford University Press.
See https://www.nerinstitute.net/blog/2016/04/01/a-worryingtrend-in-wages/ for more details
Blanc, E. (2019) Red State Revolt. Verso.
See Conlon, E.(2020c) Do We Need Red Unions? Rebel News. http://www.rebelnews.ie/2020/12/11/do-we-need-red-unions-eddie-conlon/
Gramsci, A.(1968). Soviets in Italy. New Left Review, 51.
Darlington, R. (2014) The rank and file and the trade union bureaucracy. International Socialism, 142
This distinction is taken from Alevey (2016). For an example of how unions can organise effectively on the ground see Conlon (1998).
See Blanc (2019), Mc Alevey (2016).
Gramsci (1968)