STUC congress: A missed opportunity to build a fighting strategy for the workers’ movement
By Socialist Party Scotland reporters at the STUC
The 126th annual Scottish Trade Union Congress met recently in the wake of the historic events of the past year. The number days lost to strikes in Scotland in 2022 was the highest since 1989 – more than three decades ago.
Many motions and speeches at the STUC commented on these struggles. General secretary Roz Foyer, for example, highlighted the more than £2.1 billion won for workers in the past year in Scotland as a result of a series of strikes and threatened strikes that have forced pay concessions from government and employers. These have included local government, the NHS and Scottish teachers.
However, the cost of living disaster is ongoing and further strike action is inevitable. As the motion from the Inverness Trades Council – where Socialist Party Scotland members play a leading role – demanded that the STUC General Council must: “at the earliest opportunity convene a meeting with affiliated unions in Scotland to assess how strike action taking place can be coordinated in Scotland and with our brothers and sisters in the rest of the UK….to prepare for the maximum co-ordinated industrial action.” Leah Ganley spoke to this motion at the congress.
There were precious few other calls for such coordinated action – and none from the STUC leadership itself. Passing motions are, of course, one thing, actually implementing these decisions are essential. The Inverness motion was passed unanimously.
As Jim McFarlane, a UNISON NEC member, in his speech pointed out: “We live in a time when there have never been more billionaires in this country and across the world.
“Victor Hugo was right years ago when he said “The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor””
“Food, fuel, energy and housing costs are still rocketing for most people. The wholesale gas price has plummeted yet our energy bills are going up. All this while the profits for the energy companies have never been higher,” slammed Jim.
“Big business are raking in bumper profits, 89% higher than before the pandemic. Our members are more deserving than greedy shareholders,” he said, pointing to how unions won significant concessions from employers and govt when we organised, campaigned and built industrial action. Our members are more deserving than greedy shareholders”.
fighting anti-union laws
The first composited motion debated at the congress was on the right to strike and the need to combat proposed further anti-union legislation from the Tory government at Westminster. There is a clear necessity to organise a mass coordinated action – a 24-hour general strike – to defeat this fundamental attack on workers’ rights. Yet there was nothing from the STUC General Council on need to build such action.
There were correct demands on the Scottish government to oppose implementation of the legislation – echoed by SNP first minister Humza Yousaf when he spoke to the Congress. There was also, rightly, a demand on a Labour government to: “repeal all anti-trade union laws within 12 months of gaining office”.
Yet there is zero chance of a Keir Starmer government repealing all anti-union laws. Like Tony Blair before him, Starmer will be from day one, a government acting for big business not the working class. The SNP government’s own record has been long on pro-trade union rhetoric but in practice it has implemented cuts to public services and attacks on workers’ wages.
Incredibly, there was not a word in the composited motion on trade union freedom on the need for the trade unions to build coordinated strike action, or even demonstrations and a mass campaign to defeat the Tory outrage.
Socialist Party Scotland’s bulletin for the STUC argued that: “The need for trade unions to build coordinated strike action and, given the threats from the Tories to introduce yet more anti-union laws, to prepare for a 24-hour general strike has never been more important. The STUC and the TUC should be councils of war to build the action that is needed.”
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) speaker pointed to that union’s commitment to “explore how we can fight this draconian legislation with every means available to us – including mass mobilisation and non-compliance.”
But it’s urgent that the trade union movement as a whole draws up a strategy to build that “mass mobilisation”, with strike action being central to that strategy against a weak, unpopular and divided Tory government.
public ownership
Inverness Trades Council had tabled a motion, which Sean Robertson spoke to during the debate on public ownership of the energy industry. It called for a “campaign for a publicly owned, democratically controlled energy sector, including the nationalisation of the oil and gas sector and energy generation, transmission, distribution, and retail companies, to lead the green energy revolution with guaranteed jobs and no loss of pay and conditions for workers moving over from fossil fuels to renewables.” This motion was composited with others but significantly STUC policy is now for the above.
Key motions were also passed supporting public ownership of transport, ferries and other key setors.
workers party
Socialist Party Scotland members at the STUC were campaigning for the trade unions to build a party of their own. To ensure that at elections a genuine working-class alternative was available.
We also took this message to the packed fringe meeting on the fighting the Tory anti-union laws at which Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT, was a keynote speaker. Mick had rightly pointed out that there were virtually no elected politicians currently prepared to fight for the interests of the trade unions.
Surely, therefore, the workers’ movement standing its own candidates on a platform of nationalisation of industries like rail, Royal Mail, BT, energy etc and for the abolition of all anti-union laws was an essential step, we argued. Mick opposed this approach in his reply, but the support for the trade unions to build a new workers’ party is growing.
We organised a meeting of the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition on the theme of “building a workers’ election alternative”. Jim McFarlane spoke at the packed meeting, chaired by Leah Ganley from the Inverness Trades Council. There were representatives there from Unison – health and local government – the CWU, GMB and PCS, among others.
union elections
There are key elections taking place in Unison and the PCS just now. It was clear from the congress that the need to build a fighting leadership of the trade union movement at all levels is essential. We would encourage all those who have a vote to back left and socialist candidates in these elections.
Socialist Party Scotland members distributed hundreds of our party bulletins and Scottish TUSC leaflets at the congress and the various fringe meetings. 35 copies of the Socialist were sold and Over £100 was donated to the FF.
