The TUC Conference

The TUCs 143rd conference takes place this week with delegates representing the 55 unions. On Wednesday unions will discuss the prospect of a mass strike by millions of public sector workers. The TUC leader, Brendan Barber, said that the umbrella body was "prepared and ready" to co-ordinate strike action if talks over public pension reforms fail. Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, the country's largest union, said in an Observer interview that "every conceivable form of protest and action should be carefully considered" in protest at coalition cuts to pensions and public services, from civil disobedience through to co-ordinated industrial strike. Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, one of the four unions that took action in June, signalled that "more than 10 unions" might take part in a second coordinated strike in mid to late November.

A study published by the TUC last week showed that working families will see their living standards fall by more than £4,600 by 2013 as below-inflation wages, benefit changes and public spending cuts turn the screw on households.

The trade unions have been banging on for years about “Fat Cat” pay. During these days of wage restraint and austerit, the TUC and trade unions have complained about pay rises and pension awards of top executives. How, they ask, can freezes on the wages of employees be justified when directors are merrily awarding themselves massive pay packages and bonuses. It is not a "free" market that sets their remuneration. They apply networks of association to restrict access to the jobs, and then set one another's pay. They have a number of means by which they can supplement the appearance of receiving a set salary. They pay each other bonuses for performance, which they get automatically, no matter how they have performed. They get share options, the right to buy shares at a future date at a set price, which will usually be less than the going market price (giving them an instant windfall). They get severance packages that ensure massive payments on departure. These directors use control over the process of exploitation to secure for themselves a overly generous share of the surplus value (the source of capitalist profits, being the difference between the value of the work we do, and the cost of maintaining and reproducing our capacity to do that work.) In effect, the directors are swindling the share-holders, taking a share in their profits, based on the fact that share-holders aren't in a position to control the directors effectively. A spat over who gets the booty, who gets what share of the unpaid labour of the working class, squabbling among parasites. Workers shouldn't waste their time trying to sort out this mess, or to try and better regulate it.Trade unionists should be directing their attention to taking control of the productive process for ourselves, so that the immense riches it produces can be directed toward our benefit not theirs.

A lot of people would say that since then the TUC has rather lost its way. The TUC now gives the impression of being part of the status quo. For many years now the TUC and the trade unions in general have languished in a role which provides little scope for action beyond preparing for the next self-repeating battle with employers. They tend to be bogged down in bureaucracy and run by careerists and timeserving officials for whom the future means little more than their pensions. It has to be said that this does present itself as a sterile accommodation with the capitalist system. In the 19th century it was in the forefront of the movement for democracy. If trades unionists could recall the early struggles for democracy and rejoin that battle they would re-capture their vision of a better world and play a constructive part in working for it.

The world is now largely under the control of the multi-national corporations who are able to move production to sources of cheaper labour plunder natural resources and corrupt local politicians and officials. In fact, the entire organisation and running of factories, offices and services is under the authoritarian control of boards of directors and their managers. These are the hierarchical structures from which the great mass of people are excluded. But where are the practical ideas for bringing it to an end. Nationalisation as a means of building a democratic society but this has been a diversion that led nowhere.

The time for the trade union movement to break out of its narrow defensive role is long overdue. An organisation like the TUC, with its research departments, is well placed to conduct discussions on how production and the work-place could be democratically organised. With common ownership, control of production by boards of directors and their corporate managers would end. The exploitative operations of the multi-nationals would cease. This would leave workers with the job of carrying on with the useful parts of production and services and for this they would need to be democratically organised. At this point control of all units engaged in production and distribution, services such as schools and hospitals, and useful parts of the civil service and local administration etc., would switch to management committees or councils elected by the workers running them.

Unlike Boards of Directors and CEOs, works committees would not be responding to the economic signals of the market. They will be responding directly to the needs of the community. In this way, the links connecting production units and services in socialism will be far more extensive than the buying and selling that connects capitalist units with their suppliers and market outlets. One immediate difference would be that access to information throughout the world structure of production would be unlimited. There will be no industrial secrecy, copyright or patent protection. Discussion about design, materials or technique will be universally open and the results of research will be universally available. As well as having access to world information systems, production units will operate in line with social policy decisions about priorities of action. This would indicate the ways in which particular industrial and manufacturing units would need to adapt or possibly expand their operations. This again would be administered by elected management committees

The unions could bring a great deal of experience to bear on the question of how a new society could be organised democratically in the interests of the whole community. Certainly in the developed countries they have organisation in the most important parts of production. They have rulebooks that allow them to be run locally and nationally in a generally democratic manner and they also enjoy fraternal links across the world. All this is already in place. By setting their sights beyond the next wage claim and by becoming part of the socialist movement, once a majority is achieved, they could so easily become part of the democratic administration of industry that would replace the corporate bosses and their managers who now organise production for profit.

Industrial unionism, is a familiar concept within the radical fringe, the idea that instead of "craft" or "trade" unions, representing workers of a particular trade/skill/type, there would be one union representing everyone in a specific industry (thus a Chemical Workers Union, or a Steel Workers Union), and thus avoid all the in-fighting and protectionism of one union poaching members from another , or demanding that a specific job be done by a specific union. Real solidarity. It is a sign of hope, a cause for inspiration, that workers are setting aside their factional disputes, and deciding to stand solidly together, in common interest against the capitalist foe.

Many leftists think it's all a matter of the wrong people being in charge, the lack of an adequate revolutionary leadership. If pressure could be brought to bear, or the right people put in charge, then, the mass will to revolution of the working class can be unleashed, they argue. This is nonsense. The working class gets the unions, and the leadership, it deserves. Union leaders are only union leaders because they are followed. To imagine they lead is to imbue them with mystical powers within themselves, and set up a phantasm of leadership that exactly mirror images the same phantasm as our masters believe. So long as the workers themselves are content to deal with such a union system, and its leaders, then such a union system and its leaders will remain, and will have to react to the expectations of the members. The way to industrial unions is not through the leadership of the unions. The unions will always reflect the nature of their memberships, and until their membership change, they will not change. Unions are neither inherently reactionary, nor inherently revolutionary; they are simply a means to an end for their membership. The only way to change unions is not through seizing or pressurising the leadership, but through making sure that they have a committed membership. When folks have a strong emotional and practical commitment, they can make grass roots democracy work. It's up to us socialists to encourage that commitment.

Yet it is not the amelioration of our suffering under the wages system we seek but the abolition of modern slavery – the emancipation of labour. Under slavery, you are sold to a master once and for all. Under wage slavery, you hire yourself out by the hour or the week or the month. The basic relationship between master and slave has not changed. We need to get rid of the master, take the means of making a living under our collective ownership and control, and organise our own lives, democratically, and on the basis of freely organised, freely given work. In a word, socialism.