WITH Labour’s National Policy Forum coming up, we need to reflect on what this opportunity means for the labour movement.
This policy forum has apparently had more than 4,000 amendments. That shows a strength in depth for our party that the media won’t give us credit for. The NPF is something we can be proud of, with constituencies, Government, unions, co-ops and others coming together. The contrast with the Tories’ policy-making process couldn’t be clearer.
The NPF comes after 11 years of Labour in power. While we’ll always want to go further, this Government really has done a great deal for all working people in this country.
For instance, pensions have been protected and extra holidays have been introduced. After a slow start, the Government has begun work with the trade unions to help the beleaguered manufacturing sector. And a new range of family-friendly policies have come in, giving hard pressed parents real help.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. None of this would’ve happened if Labour had not won three successive general elections.
But let’s be honest with ourselves – no one votes for you out of gratitude, they want to know what’s coming next.
The opinion polls seem to suggest voters are waiting for us to set out our vision. They want to know how we can change their lives.
Our members aren’t asking for the earth. My union, Community, will be putting forward some simple, bite-sized, bread-and-butter ideas at the NPF. For example, our disabled members would have their lives changed if they had peak-time concessions on public transport. When a firm goes bust, workers would be assisted through that difficult period if they were the first creditor.
Unions – with the assistance of this Labour Government – are working hard for their members. There are still too many hurdles in the way of us getting the job done as much as we’d like. No one wants a return to the 1970s, as the right-wing press suggest. Fairness is all that unions want. By removing some of the bureaucratic barriers that the Tories constructed, unions can stand up for members and also improve society by helping negotiate better training or pensions, or by helping to enforce and extend the provisions of the national minimum wage.
2008 sees in a very different political environment to that of 2004, the time of the last National Policy Forum. The Tories have their tails up and we must do much, much more to persuade voters of all social classes and ages that Labour is on their side.
The reality is that there’s a chance of a Tory government on the horizon. Former Labour MEP Richard Balfe has been doing the rounds as David Cameron’s “personal envoy”. He has told trade unions that the “time of Thatcher has past”. Well, the majority of Tories haven’t read the memo because Balfe’s colleagues are gunning for the unions just like they did in the 1980s.
I’m under no illusions. Working men and women would lose out by not having a Labour government but it would be a double whammy to have the Tories in charge.
Unions know the stakes here and we don’t want lectures from some of Labour’s more fair-weather friends in the media and elsewhere about the need for election-winning policies. Trade unions will be first in line to get out campaigning for this Government and this Prime Minister, but issue this plea: give us policies which we can take to our members – policies to excite and policies that will change lives. Together, we can make voters an offer of more rewarding lives and a fairer country.
Michael Leahy is general secretary of the Community union
This article is posted for debate at www.compassonline.org.uk
