National Shop Stewards Conference - Saturday 28th

[Nigel Irritable]

Just got back from Stewards Network conference. It was in a way uplifting and a shot in the arm. Lots of committed trade unionists and we heard from Unison that 16 & 17 July is confirmed strike days. This was a big boost to those attending.

Sad to hear the witchunts in Unison still going on - against SP people and others. I went to the workshop on pay struggles - NUT will look to ballot in autumn on their dispute. PCS could be involved on 16 & 17 July plus the autumn ballot in their area.

The Network is at an embryonic stage but potentially there are exciting times ahead and a growing anger on pay issues. Keyboard and Poster please get involved in the bumpy times ahead. Trade union activists are not dead or in a coma - they are all waking up.

Good to hear. I'd be interested in a longer and more detailed report from you and also the views of others who were there.

It wasn't all that long ago that the SWP were claiming that the NSSN was an SP front set up to undermine their Organising for Fighting Unions subsidiary. Now OFFU seems to be dead and the SWP are participating in the NSSN. What happened to trigger the change?

 

[Groucho]

Good to hear. I'd be interested in a longer and more detailed report from you and also the views of others who were there.

It wasn't all that long ago that the SWP were claiming that the NSSN was an SP front set up to undermine their Organising for Fighting Unions subsidiary. Now OFFU seems to be dead and the SWP are participating in the NSSN. What happened to trigger the change?

Not quite true is it. The SWP have always been involved even to the point of having SWP members on the stearing committee.

 

[cockneyrebel]

To be honest I've never heard anyone say that it was an SWP front.

Reports I heard from PR members said it was about 250-300 people there (the same as last year and once again about 75%+ from the far left).

Apparently the big problem was that once again nothing concrete came out of it, so it might well be that another year goes by without anything moving on. The SP pushed for the NSSN to help build the CNWP (which isn't gonna happen) and the SWP just did what they usually do and said that the UNISON strikes on the 16 and 17 will be brilliant and a potential turning point. I think a perspective more rooted in reality is needed that, while being positive, gets to grip with how weak the unions are at rank and file level and how weak the far left is.

Personally I think it would of been good to start producing organising packs for stewards to help them build in their workplace and also to build a demo around the pay freeze that in turn would of been outside TUC control.

 

[mutley]

'to build a demo around the pay freeze that in turn would of been outside TUC control.'

Why? We've got a shed load of unions in dispute, and the much derided strategy of pressurising the bureacrats appears to be paying off. Coordinated national action is in sight imo. You're fetishising rank-and-filism.

We all know why Offu is..erm.. low profile. No need to rub it in.

 

[cockneyrebel]

'to build a demo around the pay freeze that in turn would of been outside TUC control.'

Why? We've got a shed load of unions in dispute, and the much derided strategy of pressurising the bureacrats appears to be paying off. Coordinated national action is in sight imo. You're fetishising rank-and-filism.

We all know why Offu is..erm.. low profile. No need to rub it in.

I think this is more of the SWP type analysis. Co-ordinated action has been undermined again and again by the bureaucrats and to be honest I don't think it's in any way a certainty that this is gonna change.

However I didn't say anywhere that pressure shouldn't be put on the bureaucrats, of course it should. But the advantage of a demonstration called by the NSSN would mean the TUC couldn't sabotage it. Both things can be done at the same time.

As for "fetishising" the rank and file, the fact is that most unions have to built up from a very weak base and in many workplaces there is next to no organisation at all. If we're gonna get power back off the bureaucrats this will have to change and this can't be done with either slogans or a perspective which is totally out of touch with reality. Basic organising is needed such as getting union notice boards up, producing decent union literature, recruiting stewards and calling members meetings.

The problem with the NSSU (and the problem with the OFFU when it was around) was that they aren't organising stuff outside the conferences.

 

[the button]

Basic organising is needed such as getting union notice boards up, producing decent union literature, recruiting stewards and calling members meetings.

I agree with cockers.

Otherwise, abstract "calls for such-and-such" are an attempt to have the icing without making the cake.

 

[mutley]

April 24th. NUT and PCS and Brum Unison. Good start.
Looking at the price of food and fuel i think there'll be more on the way.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

...
We all know why Offu is..erm.. low profile. No need to rub it in.

When did the 'independent' steering committee of OFFU make that decision?

Or do you now accept that it is nothing more than an SWP front?

 

[Zeppo]

There were 7 workshops; organising in the workplace and young workers, pay struggles, trade unions and the war, Privatisation and the voluntary sector, pension rights, abortion rights and women in the workplace, history of the shop stewards movement and organising migrant workers.

I went to the pay struggles lots of good views on more co-ordination between NUT, Unison, PCS and others on the ground. Unison next strike days were big talking point.

Overall good vibe and agreement more needs to be done by the Network. One speaker talked of the UK being in a revolutionary situation but he was maybe overcome and a very extreme optimist. SP talk on the need for a new workers party - this is a major theme for SP on the following Sunday.

Lots of SWP in attendance.

However, the Network is not controlled by any one political faction and agree that hard work at trade union level is needed for the future.

 

[the button]

One speaker talked of the UK being in a revolutionary situation

Blimey.

 

[durruti02]

was at nssn all day .. i thought it was very very good .. will post report later

 

[The39thStep]

There were 7 workshops; organising in the workplace and young workers, pay struggles, trade unions and the war, Privatisation and the voluntary sector, pension rights, abortion rights and women in the workplace, history of the shop stewards movement and organising migrant workers.

I went to the pay struggles lots of good views on more co-ordination between NUT, Unison, PCS and others on the ground. Unison next strike days were big talking point.

Overall good vibe and agreement more needs to be done by the Network. One speaker talked of the UK being in a revolutionary situation but he was maybe overcome and a very extreme optimist. SP talk on the need for a new workers party - this is a major theme for SP on the following Sunday.

Lots of SWP in attendance.

However, the Network is not controlled by any one political faction and agree that hard work at trade union level is needed for the future.

Bit shocked at that as last time I was informed by a certain poster we were in a pre revolutionary situation. You would think that we would be updated on a regular basis other wise things could just pass us by.

 

[belboid]

Quite a good day, decent amount of people there - largely public sector and Unite, but a fair few others as well. Good to hear about various struggles, big and small. I found the workshop the best bit (I went to the Voluntary Sector one) as we actually organised something! Only a bit of a VolCom Sector 'combine', which may or may not actually happen, but it was done, unlike the union fraction meetings which all seemed to fail to happen. An interesting meeting as well, people reporting day to day issues, discussing some strategies and tactics, not just making some semi-abstract point on behalf of the group.

The final session was a bit duller, imo, as I'd heard far more than enough members finishing off their contribution with 'and this shows us the crisis in political representation, which is why everyone should come to the CNWP conference tomorrow.' the session just didn't really add that much, imo, and it is completely unclear what the network is actually going to do, if anything, over the next year. I missed the debate on Political Representation as I didnt see any point in going to hear people making the same old same old points yet again, but it sounded slightly more interesting than that, but only cos the Left List speaker, Unjum Mirza, spoke without ever mentioning the Left List, Respect, or Political Representation. Even when directly asked to. Poor boy.

All in all a fairly good day, but not an overwhelmingly brilliant one. No one actually spoke about building up a shop stewards movement! How they had recruited other stewards or created a local shop stewards committee to better cop-ordinate stuff. That kind of discussion would seem far far more useful to me than yet another sterile debate on a new workers party.

Most of the people ,there did seem to be some kind of far lefty, tho not all by any means. Mostly SP, a few SWP, not that many tho, and they hardly spoke at all in the sessions I was at, and a smattering of the rest, tho quite a few of them weren't there at all, which was nice. Only one Spart, who was practically thrown out of the building for a somewhat excessively vituperative attack on the presence of the 'policeman' Brian Caton.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Zeppo thanks for the report but it seems people from PR who went were right. I'm not trying to knock the event at all but what actual concrete things came out of the conference in terms of what the network will do? Indeed, to all intents and purposes it seems there is no network.

 

[belboid]

how did the CNWP thing go? Looking at the blog, and a few other comments elsewhere, it seems to be dead...

 

[cockneyrebel]

What were the other comments?

 

[poster342002]

Keyboard and Poster please get involved in the bumpy times ahead. Trade union activists are not dead or in a coma - they are all waking up.

Shame the membership isn't. Round here we'll get the same old crap as usual - a "strike" that's just ignored by everyone except the branch officers. As usual, I'll be one of the small handfull of people to actually strike. Big morale-boost that'll be.
I'll strike on the day (fuck load of use it'll make) but I really can't be arsed to get involved in the picketing (ha ha) just to watch everyone else prance past me into work as usual. But never mind - I'll be able to read afterwards how "brilliant"! massive! solid!" it all was.

For christ's sake, people - wake up and smell the coffee! There ISN'T any sort of TU revival going on except in the heads of a handfull of isolated, almost comically deluded leftists suffering from Reality Detachment Disorder - which, ironically, immunises them from seeing the Corporate Stockholm Syndrome being exhibited by the rest of Workplace Britain..

 

[cockneyrebel]

Apparently a Workers Power member introduced themselves as "vice chair of the campaign for a new workers party". I bet SP members were regretting giving him that position at the point hahaha! I should think it was also a WP member who said we were in a revolutionary period although I suspect that also put "pre" before it. Still bonkers though.

 

[treelover]

Zeppo, said

The Network is at an embryonic stage but potentially there are exciting times ahead and a growing anger on pay issues. Keyboard and Poster please get involved in the bumpy times ahead. Trade union activists are not dead or in a coma - they are all waking up.

Thank god for that, we need strong unions for many many reasons, but they must engage more with the communities they are from.In my home town, Unison are funding an event called Pulse: a celebration of sixty years of the NHS


http://www.gca.burngreave.net/events/

 

[poster342002]

Thank god for that, we need strong unions for many many reasons,

Shame I see no actual evidence of it around me. Just in the fevered ravings of the left.

 

[belboid]

Shame the membership isn't. Round here we'll get the same old crap as usual - a "strike" that's just ignored by everyone except the branch officers. As usual, I'll be one of the small handfull of people to actually strike. Big morale-boost that'll be.
I'll strike on the day (fuck load of use it'll make) but I really can't be arsed to get involved in the picketing (ha ha) just to watch everyone else prance past me into work as usual. But never mind - I'll be able to read afterwards how "brilliant"! massive! solid!" it all was.

For christ's sake, people - wake up and smell the coffee! There ISN'T any sort of TU revival going on except in the heads of a handfull of isolated, almost comically deluded leftists suffering from Reality Detachment Disorder - which, ironically, immunises them from seeing the Corporate Stockholm Syndrome being exhibited by the rest of Workplace Britain..

just fuck off you scab apologist shit. You're a worthless waste of time and space

 

[poster342002]

just fuck off you scab apologist shit. You're a worthless waste of time and space

Yes - I'm such a scab-apologist that I'm livid with rage at everyone prancing into work as usual on strike days. That makes sense - not.

What I refuse to be is a scab-denier. Which is what I think the game here is - that I should just shut up and not mention awkward facts about the majority-scabbing I witness EVERY SINGLE TIME there's a strike and that the unions, activists and the left seem to be turning a blind eye to.

Shhh!!! stop spoiling the party!

 

[belboid]

you couldn't spoil your dinner, everyone ignores you (except scabs...)

 

[cockneyrebel]

If poster and KJ are involved in this it's the end of the thread.

 

[poster342002]

If poster and KJ are involved in this it's the end of the thread.

The two people who are preared to say they see the elephant in the lviing room and are prepared to admit that 2+2=4?

Alright then - I'm outta here. You can all sit around in your bizarre group self-dillusion that bears no similariity to what I see going on out in the real world.

Enjoy it. Enjoy all telling each other what you want to hear.

 

[belboid]

they you go again - apologising for a scab. Fuck off and die.

 

[poster342002]

they you go again - apologising for a scab.

As opposed to denying they see the thousands of scabs all prancing into work.

 

[durruti02]

if people want to debate the revival or not of miltancy please do it on another thread .. this thread is specific about the NSSN

 

[treelover]

Poster, on this occassion the reports on the event have been balanced and not at all 'triumphalist', deluded, etc, it is a start...

 

[durruti02]

ok i thought it was an excellent day alltogether.

yes there was a bit to much CNWP, yes there was someone who said we are in a rev situation ( bless), yes there was no enough practicalities

but there WERE 300 ( 200 delegates and 100 observers ) activists most of who were elected reps i.e shop stewards or branch officials, there was a good mix of politics and i did not feel that SP dominated though clearly they are the backbone of this ( non SP charecters like shela cohen and dave chapelle are key also) , there were a lot of people there with deep roots and influence, whether bob crow, dave nellist, tony mulhern, brum unison leader etc, and there was a wide range of regions, industries/work represented incuding teh new warehouse and call centre areas ..

tbh i normally HATE politcal meetings as i hate the cod left one up manship but i really felt that in this organisation there was a a common purpose that is currently overriding this .. it felt to me very positive

one thing that had concrened me was what i felt was a lack of activity over the last 12 months .. i was reassured that actually a hell of a lot of activity has gone on but i had just not seen it, including conferences in many parts of the country.

the big sessions were a bit conferency but a good number of people spoke an related important news etc with the highlight of jack hayman a SF docker who had called and lead the dockers anti war strike on may day this year

i went to the migrant workshop as this seems most relevent to where i work. there were two speakers form the RMT ( who have organised the mainly migrnat cleaners and indeed have strikes coming up) and from Justice for Cleaners who are campaigning for mainly Latin american cleaners in the City. It was inspiring to hear both. The debate pleased me immensely as while speaker after speaker related how they have helped migrants orgnaise ( including myself) all were very savvy as to the impact this can have on non migrant workers .. a young bengali women impressed me with her arguments including about young people being excluded from work by how the neo libs are using migration.

I agree with other posters that there should have been more practicality coming from the workshops but mine was still good

like i say all in all i think this organisation has a lot of potential

imho the swp were pretty well marginlaised even though they had a significant nuimber of their big guns there. One of their speakers put the point that there needs to be more ideology .. well i am sure, as syndicalism is clearly not enough, but the ideology she was refering to apperred to be anti fascism ..

other criticism could be a lack of young workers, indeed the average age is middle aged .. we just have to deal with this .. it is a consequence of thatcher .. and alos tha teh TUS are smaller than 30 years ago .. but again i feel of we can actually get back decent unions we WILL attract back more people

so all in all i think this is a very important develeopment