The meeting where the ‘N’ word could not be mentioned!
rab
Thursday, 17 September 2009
The meeting where the ‘N’ word could not be mentioned!
THERE were no questions allowed at the Unite TUC fringe meeting in
Liverpool on Tuesday evening, so determined was the Woodley-Simpson
leadership that the dreaded word ‘nationalisation’ would not be
mentioned in connection with saving the jobs of thousands of Ellesmere
Port and Luton car workers.
The Unite leadership had nothing at all to offer their members or
anybody else, except a tale that thousands of workers are going to be
robbed of their jobs by some German-Russian conspiracy, and by cheques
that were signed for unlimited amounts, in order that Merkel could win
the forthcoming German general election.
The only solution, that was on offer, to this act of robbery, was for
workers to place all of their faith and hopes, not in the power of the
union or the power of the working class to change the situation, but
in Lord Mandelson, who, the meeting was told, was ‘working his socks
off for us’.
How low the movement has fallen when it is powerless (as far as the
Unite leaders are concerned) and the only hope of the workers resides
with Lord Mandelson!
The real situation is that the Unite leaders are in bed with the Brown
government, and since this is where they are really comfortable, they
have not the slightest intention of using the power of the union to
fight for their members’ jobs, in case it spoils their love affair
with Brown and Mandelson.
This is why they will not defend a single job.
They did not defend the jobs at the LDV van company and they will not
defend them at Luton or at Ellesmere Port.
Their policy is to get down on their knees before ex-CBI boss Lord
Digby Jones and the Brown-Mandelson government, and to plead with
them.
The logic of their reformist politics is, when the chips are down,
they would prefer the two plants be closed rather than see the workers
occupying them, and the union organising a national campaign to see
them nationalised, and taking on and defeating the Labour government
to achieve nationalisation.
Woodley in fact has a record of organising or agreeing to plant
closures, whether it be BMW Rover in 2000, Vauxhall Motors Luton in
2002, or MG Rover in 2005.
At the meeting Unite joint general secretary, Woodley, declared: ‘I’m
gutted because of the seriousness of the situation.
‘This isn’t about Ellesmere Port, it’s about Luton as well as
Ellesmere Port.
‘It’s about all those families going back to 2000, with the
disgraceful closure of Vauxhall, and we were unable to fight back.
‘If we don’t win now – and we are going to win – if we don’t win this
battle, in the years to come there will no Vauxhall Motors in
Britain. . . . But due to a massive reaction by the German government,
the German workers – who would do anything, including hara-kiri to
defend their jobs – everything changed. It’s heavy.’
As Woodley knows, he agreed to the closure of Vauxhall Luton in 2002,
just after a 20,000-strong international demonstration of GM workers
from Germany, Spain and Belgium launched an international struggle to
keep the plant open. GM workers even stopped work in Brazil!
Instead of developing that united strike of workers Woodley aborted
it, in order to agree to the closure.
When the workers were united, he sabotaged that unity, which we know
is absolutely vital.
He knows full well that only occupation, and strike action to demand
nationalisation, can win the struggle. He is not prepared to organise
it, instead he prefers to blame the German workers.
Workers in Ellesmere Port and Luton must immediately demand mass
meetings to discuss the fight for jobs. They must organise the
occupation of the plants, and begin the struggle for their
nationalisation, urging the Opel workers of Germany, Belgium and Spain
to do the same.