Here we are, the last day before the voting closes for UNISON NEC elections. It has been a bit of a difficult election for me personally so far as it has given me a bit of a dilemma about who to vote for South West region male seat. Normally my natural instincts would make me vote for the candidate of the Left , in this case Berny Parkes, without any hesitation . But this time my own branch chair, Mike Hines is standing too making the choice slightly more problematic. As we are all working towards the same goal – better working conditions, more rights for the workers, fighting austerity etc - under normal conditions, the difference between the candidates would not be big enough to have a major impact if the vote went one way or another. But these are not normal times! We have Tory-led government which day after day blatantly weakens our rights in the work place and tramples all over the unemployed, minorities, disabled… by any means it can – including lying and distorting facts while the opposition Labour Party vacillates on how to deal with the disastrous consequences of Tory policies unfolding before our eyes. Given the weak state of the opposition, the role of the trade unions in fighting the government to bring about economic revival and social justice becomes hugely important. In this context who we choose to lead our unions becomes more critical.
Reading Mike and Berny’s election statements I was disappointed not to see a more robust statement by Mike about the issue of leadership. I was also disappointed not to see any criticism of the leadership of the Labour Party. After all, this is the party that takes a big chunk of our members’ subscriptions as donation. So we, the members, are entitled to have a view about Labour’s policies and influence them or even demand to review our policy of affiliation to this party. Mike says in his statement that his membership of the Labour Party will not affect his work as a union activist, but my experience of working with him and observations of his attitude to more radical political views and activists have convinced me otherwise. Whether working as a member of the NEC will affect this or not remains to be seen.
I've thought about this one for a while Siamak. The thing is really that the system is set up against normal people. It's designed to have at least two parties for normal/poor/working people and ONE party for the wealthy to vote for. This way the majority vote will always be broken up into at least two (lets say Labour and the Green party, or Lib Dem). However the wealthy all get to vote for the conservatives so you get one dominating party.
ReplyDeleteI can't see things improving unless we manage to secure a representational voting system. Our current system is too biased and heavily weighted against the left. I was reading about Denmark last night and how 89% of people vote as they feel their views are important and also their vote matters. The danish people are generally speaking really happy, but then a social system that gives you around 90 pounds a day if you become unemployed or matches your last salary if you've worked x-number of years, would have that effect! Taxes are high, but people are happy to pay high taxes if they get the benefits in return. On my last visit to Denmark I got the impression it didn't matter what profession people had, they all saw themselves as equal human beings and this reflected in the way they interacted with one another. So very opposite to what we experience here. Clifton is a good example of that!
As for your branch, well what can I say, my branch sec just emailed everyone with a list of people we'd nominated as a branch all of which were left candidates so for me it was very easy to decide who to vote for. Personal political views are ultimately part of our personalities and they will influence our decision making, it's inevitable. I personally think the union as a whole is too keen on pleasing whatever government is in charge, this demotivates me, makes me lose my interest in being active in the union. I still value the ideology of being part of a unionised work force as we've lost too many rights already but do I believe the unions can really influence important decisions? Well not with the current state of leadership we have, no.
Thanks for this. You are so right! There are not many countries where the consept of social class is as deep-rooted as England. Of course class divisions exist in every country but England ranks the lowest amongst the developed countries (and probably mose developing countries too) in terms of social mobility (according to OECD http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility So your career and future is largely determined by the class you are born in. The education system and schooling testify to that. Some union activists in leadership position certainly hide behind "we will listen to members and act accordingly" while subtly promoting their own political agenda. But yes, any trade union should provide a leadership which doesn't shy away from political activity. Specially at the time when we, the workers, are under relentless political attack by rulling classes from all direction.
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