For all its faults, Billy Hayes thinks Labour in power is the best hope for working people in Britain
This year’s TUC takes place with a possible change of government on the horizon. Whatever our criticisms, after 12 years of this Labour Government, there ought to be a good deal to defend. The major achievements have to be the introduction of the national minimum wage; the devolution of government power; the Irish peace process; a formidable array of equality legislation; huge increases in spending on health and education; rights for agency workers; improved statutory holiday rights.
After these, we come to the particular issues which occupy individual unions. As far as the Communications Workers Union is concerned, we greatly value the fact that the Royal Mail remains a public service and the substantial investment it has received since 1997. On occasion, this has been a result of stand-up fights with the Government. But it is results that count. Each union can point to some similar gain that is important for its members.
There were no such advances in the preceding 18 years of the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. But we know that, for those under the age of 30, tales of Tory misrule seem ancient and hazy. So Labour’s key failures loom large. Across the generations, workers will need to be persuaded of the need for a further term for Labour.
Clearly, trade union allegiance to Labour is not as strong as it once was. Those unions which have conducted internal polls point to a clear decline in support. Time is desperately short to reverse this. What is frustrating for both union leaders and Labour activists is that many of the failures have been unnecessary. The persistent promotion of big business interests over those of working class people looks senseless, given the responsibility of big business for the current recession.
Unwarranted faith in the market has more than burned Labour politicians’ fingers – the scars are up to their shoulders.
To present a positive future under Labour is a very a difficult task now. Yet that remains the only option for serious union activists. We know the policies necessary to end the current council house waiting list of nearly five million people can only come under Labour. There is no other progressive government on offer, despite all the bluster of David Cameron and Nick Clegg.
At the TUC, unions must show that they are defending workers from the recession. There are no other organisations which allow working people to negotiate a way forward in these difficult times. We will not accept that wage freezes, cuts or unemployment are essential to the recovery of the economy. Such policies are no more acceptable than the Tories’ planned massive cuts to state and welfare spending.
What is at the heart of the recession is the collapse of investment. While gross domestic product has fallen by 4.9 per cent, investment has fallen by 14.7 per cent. This collapse is not the result of Government indebtedness, workers being overpaid or reckless welfare provision. It is, above all, the failure of private investment which has created the recession.
New policies which recognise this could result in a rapid return to the expansion of the economy. Instead of returning Northern Rock to the private sector, it should be used to promote an expansion of lending for investment. Those sections of the economy where investment has collapsed furthest, such as construction and transport, should be nationalised. Many of the policies which the TUC will be debating offer the Government a much more progressive agenda than the one it is currently following.
And if there are to be cuts in state spending, let them come from cancelling Trident and withdrawing from the unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Also £5.6 billion could be saved by scrapping the proposed national identity card scheme. Doing this would be both principled and popular.
Labour needs to win back millions of lost voters from the working class and the liberal professions. Rebuilding the progressive coalition for government is a decidedly difficult task. But living under a Tory government will be harder still.
Billy Hayes is general secretary of the Communication Workers Union
