People’s Assembly fails to offer a concrete way forward in fighting the cuts
Over 200 people attended the launch of the People’s Assembly on the 25th of January in Glasgow. The event attracted trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners to hear speeches against the shocking impact of austerity on the lives of working class communities. But anyone attending hoping for a discussion on a concrete way forward in the building of mass opposition to the cuts would have left disappointed.
In the first session the platform was comprised of speakers from the STUC, Unite, Unison and PCS chaired by the RMT. Ricky Tomlinson of the Shrewsbury 24 campaign also spoke in this session.
The platform speakers on the day made the case against austerity with Graeme Smith of the STUC saying that we had won the arguments against austerity, and that we are facing a ‘crisis in democracy which is both industrial and political’.
John Stevenson from Edinburgh Unison spoke of the stress that overworked staff are being put through, and asked where the leadership of the Labour party has been since the trade unions put them where they are ?
Kevin McHugh, vice president of the PCS, spoke about the union busting tactics of this government with attacks on facility time, and put forward his union’s position of co-ordinating action with other unions saying ‘Don’t just march together, Strike together’.
Ricky Tomlinson gave the most rousing speech of the day as he spoke about the cuts agenda and asking ‘where are the jobs?’ He called on a massive house building programme to create jobs and homes for people and to get the economy back on track.
Glasgow City Unison convener for social work and Socialist Party Scotland member Ian Leech was given a few minutes before the meeting was opened up to the floor to talk about the ongoing dispute between the Labour-run Glasgow city council and its residential care staff.
He outlined some of the tactics used by the council in recent disputes including the threats of 45 day redundancy notices that the Tories brought in to make it easier to break disputes and fire the workforce.
During the discussion, I spoke as a member of Socialist Party Scotland on the need to build for a 24-hour general strike, asking delegates to go back to their union branches and to begin putting forward motions to show there is a real appetite for a fightback.
I also also called into question the trade unions funding of the Labour party, and called for delegates to demand that Labour affiliated unions should call a conference with a view to breaking that link and forming a trade union based party that actually represents workers interests.
The second session had a platform that included Labour and SNP MPs and MSPs, the Communist Party, Coalition Of Resistance and a speaker from the Woman’s Assembly against Austerity.
Labour MSP Elaine Smith spoke of her battle to pull the Labour party to the left, and of the need for a fairer taxation policy. SNP MSP Christina McKelvie (whose Scottish government is imlemeting cuts to public services) told us how she envisioned the Common Weal project and the Nordic model as the way out of endless austerity. Cat Boyd of the Coalition Of Resistance made the case for the positive change that could be achieved if we could harness our collective power, and mentioned the Grangemouth dispute, saying it symbolised the inequality of the system ‘where it was one man against an entire workforce’ and called for a “broad movement” of resistance to austerity.
Raymond Mennie, a member of the Communist Party Britain, put forward the idea of re-claiming the Labour party and said that the People’s Charter should be the Labour Party manifesto for the 2015 general election. How such a shift to the left is to be achieved between now and the election next year was not explained. Especially given the cast-iron commitment by by Balls and Miliband that the cuts would continue under a Labour government.
The aim of the event was to link up trade unions and community campaigns in a forum to co-ordinate the fight against austerity, but there was no real strategy put in place as to how that was to be done.
In refusing to call on the TUC to organise for a 24-hour general strike, or putting forward any concrete proposals for building mass action against the cuts, the PA runs the very real risk of becoming just another talking shop. Or worse, becoming an organisation that allows trade union leaders to pass on the responsibility to the PA of what is rightly their responsibility, in terms of building a mass movement against austerity.
Unless the PA takes a clear position on this, and the need for the trade unions to build a new mass working class party, it will be unable to develop.
The Socialist Party Scotland leaflet calling for the TUC to name the day for a 24-hour general strike and for the building of a new mass workers party, whle highlighting the role of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition in building a political alternative to the cuts politicians, got a warm response from many of those attending.
