Trade Unions and the CPI
Part 2
While we wait for the CPI to answer the questions we posed in Part 1* it is useful to look at how the Party approaches it relationship with the trade unions generally.
The CPI correctly accepts that the trade unions have specific though limited roles to play in developing a more equitable society, even in creating the conditions for socialism. In the past, the Party did have a measurable input and influence in the trade union movement and was not shy in beating its chest – internally, at least – celebrating this fact.
For whatever reasons, that input and influence did not gain any enduring or ongoing influence in the trade union movement, yet extracted considerable time, energies and talent from the Party itself.
Today, all is changed. With little influence, the Party now resorts to treating the trade union movement with distain and contempt. Principally, these traits present themselves in the way the Party approaches trade union issues:
- it makes demands on the trade union movement that it never directly communicates to them
- it never directly challenges trade unions or the trade union leadership
- it then condemns their failings – the failings that the Party neglected to bring to their attention. Indeed, the Party is more often than not correct in its analysis but cannot find the organisation or perhaps the courage to engage directly with the trade unions
- has a tendency to support the leadership of the trade unions when there is a dispute where the workers are less than satisfied with their union leadership – for example, during the course of the Debenhams Lockout. See Jimmy Doran interview here
- disowns their established procedures – even when the Party has none of its own – in handling alleged bullying inside the Party, for instance. Worse still, it abuses sections of established procedures to shield themselves while they pursue and execute what arguably amounts to predetermined outcomes
- regards the Trade Union Left Forum (TULF) as its own, particularly in internal reports and discussions. An odd position to take really considering that TULF itself has little or no influence in or on the wider trade union movement despite being around for more than ten years.
The trade union movement need not think it has been singled out for roughshod treatment: this typical ineptness of the Party is its enduring attribute – its lack of organisation, strategy or professionalism and the type of ‘leaders’ it attracts condemns it to the fringes leaving space only for internal self-congratulation and enduring delusions of grandeur.
*Our own attempts to get the same questions answered by the trade unions we have contacted have come to naught.
Part 3 will look at some of the leadership of the CPI in relation to trade union practices