Have the SWP really decided to ride to Brown’s rescue at CWU

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Have the SWP really decided to ride to Brown’s rescue in the postal union. Surely not?

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This week the Communication Workers Union (CWU) was due to send a clear message to the Labour Government and Labour MP’s that it would not stand idly by and allow them to push through the part-privatisation of Royal Mail.

The union seemed poised to support a call to withdraw support from all Labour MPs who supported privatisation. On may 28th the union executive voted to support a motion to this effect.

The actual text of the motion says this:

99 This Conference instructs the incoming National
Executive Council that any Labour MP who does not support the
Early Day Motion on the part privatisation of the Post Office will not receive
either financial or physical help from the CWU and or CWU Branches in the
forthcoming general election.

In a bizarre twist, yesterday the General Secretary Billy Hayes managed to engineer an about face. The union executive will now be asking for the motion to be remitted and if it is not, they will ask conference to vote it down.

Billy justified this change of tack with a completekly spurious line of reasoning that allows him to sound like he’s saying the motion is actually ‘too soft’. He said that motion 99 only taked about the EDM and it was possible that people could support the EDM, but end up backing the government in a commons vote.

Most experienced left wing executive members immediately saw this as nothing but a transparent attempt to take the political pressure off Gordon Brown and voted to maintain support for motion 99. As one astute observer of CWU affairs put it after the executive meeting: ‘Alan Johnson has been on the phone to Billy…’

You don’t have to be a genius to work out what the messaage sent to Billy Hayes was. Something along the lines of ‘we don’t want any bad headlines for Gordon from the CWU’. What would remain unsaid would be the implication that if you play ball with us we might play ball with you. If Billy had argued the case like an honest right wing bureaucrat, he would be wrong, but then at least you could have some respect for him for putting things clearly. But to dress up in militant phraseology a gambit crafted in the corridors of westminster is to insult the intelligence of the union’s members.

Nevertheless, Billy won the vote even though his argument was laughable. He did so by relying on support at the executive from the union right wing and from the SWP.

Executive member Jane Loftus, a prominent SWP trade union activist, fell for Billy’s argument hook line and sinker and voted with the union establishment. And so Billy can look forward to enjoying some left cover during the conference debate. Most worrying of all is that the SWP have some influence in the branch that submitted the motion and may be trying to prevail on the delegation to go along with the leadership’s demand that it not be put to a vote.

Whether or not the actions of Loftus amount to the considered position of the SWP, or just reveal a lack of common sense, dim-wittedness and/or blissful ignorance of the methods of trade union officers is a moot point .

In a previous case, when the SWP supported Billy over not withdrawing support for Labour MP’s who backed the Iraq war, the action of Loftus did then have official backing. But that was back in the bad old days of the Rees/German leadership and concerns to maintain unity with trade union leaders in STWC at any price.

Surely the new SWP leadership can spot a bureaucratic MacGuffin when they see one? Well I certainly hope they can, and that they get their comrades to change tack. If not, they are allowing the organisation’s CWU fraction to function as Mandelson’s poodles.

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http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-ea ... -23813877/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Gordon Brown will face anger from postal workers when one of the biggest affiliates to Labour will decide whether to split from the party in protest at controversial plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail.

The annual conference of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will debate its links with Labour and its MPs in the wake of moves for a partial sell-off of the postal group.

The union gives around £1 million to Labour every year in affiliation fees and constituency development funds, but the financial support is now in doubt.

A series of motions will be debated at the Bournemouth meeting, including one to disaffiliate and end all funding to the Labour party "at the earliest opportunity".

Another motion calls for financial support to be withdrawn from any Labour MP who backs the Government's plans.

The union's Coventry branch is calling for the CWU to open talks with other unions to create a "new political framework" to provide "genuine representation" for workers. The branch's motion adds: "Union money spent on affiliation to the Labour party cannot any longer be justified."

The Prime Minister and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, who is pushing hard for the sell-off, are set to be fiercely criticised by some of the 1,000 delegates.

A vote on disaffiliation is thought to be close and if approved it will deliver another crushing blow to the Prime Minister.

The plans have also been criticised by over 140 Labour MPs, who are planning a huge revolt against the Postal Services Bill when it is discussed in the Commons, probably later this month.

It is believed that many Labour MPs will raise the future of the Royal Mail during the crucial meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which could also decide to call for a leadership election. Union officials and some Labour MPs have said they felt "betrayed" by the Prime Minister over the plans to sell off around a third of the Royal Mail to a private company.