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Title: Why the Unions Fail Us Author: Anonymous Date: 2009 Language: en Topics: trade unions Source: Retrieved on September 10, 2009 from http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090908161359117 Notes: from Direct Action #47 (Britain)
This brings home the crucial failure of the “organising model” favoured
by Unite! and other unions. They are social democratic in nature and
essentially believe capitalism can and should be managed better to
benefit workers.
To do this they have to work with the bosses and get the Labour Party to
provide a legislative framework. A top down model of union recognition,
negotiation controlled by full time officials and a concentration on
“headline” issues like the London Living Wage, not the real concerns of
workers, are their objectives. Unite!’s relationship with Mitie was
always more important to them than the interests of a small, troublesome
group of workers.
Social democrats take the fact that cleaning contractors are rich
multinationals to mean they should be more willing to pay better wages
as they can “afford” it. In fact, they are rich precisely because they
constantly cut costs on existing contracts and win more by undercutting
competitors.
Besides giving investors a greater return, this attracts further
investment and keeps share prices up. Their wealth proves they are
ruthless but makes them attractive “partners” for social democrats.
Winning the London Living Wage has always led first to cutting jobs,
like with the shift changes at Schroders and Willis, then to
victimisation of union activists. These workers are “hard to organise”
due to the level of commitment required from the union to support them.
The “organising model” of reformist trades unionism is based on gaining
union recognition followed by organisation around health and safety and
other routine issues; it can’t cope with the class warfare which arises
from this race to the bottom.
Trouble begins with the transfer to a new contractor, which will have
won the contract by offering the same service for less. To make profit
they cut costs by sacking the better paid workers and not replacing
them, increasing workloads. Contractors rely on convincing workers they
have no rights and can’t organise, or that there will be dire
consequences if they do. The easiest way to do this is to use
immigration controls. Immigration controls don’t keep people out of the
UK; they control them when they’re here creating a “good business
environment” for contractors. Rich companies thrive in this environment.
Mitie lags behind Capita and SERCO in the “outsourcing” and services
stakes, but in 2008 its pre-tax profits were ÂŁ67.9m on a turnover of
ÂŁ1.4bn. Year on year increases since 2004 had roughly doubled these
figures. The NPL building management contract was run by SERCO which
also runs immigration detention centres and carries out deportations; it
subcontracted the cleaning to Amey, thus making money both from the
cheaper workforce provided by immigration controls and from deporting
migrants. SERCO is part owned by Ferrovia, a major shareholder in
Tube-lines, which itself subcontracts cleaning on London Underground.
These companies have their fingers in all the pies and are very
powerful.
The layers of subcontracting require research to find and pressurise the
people who matter, who control the money, have the public profile and
can be embarrassed. One reason for subcontracting is to evade
responsibility for the workforce, as well as to hamper solidarity and
cut costs. Our targets shouldn’t be Amey, but NPL with its standing in
the scientific community; not Mitie or Lancaster but the bank that
subcontracts to them and who has a reputation. Our aim shouldn’t just be
to shame capitalists into acting against their own interests, but to
expose their true nature and advocate their abolition. The existing
unions can’t and won’t do this; it is not just the methods but the aims
and objectives of social democrats which fail the working class.