Superviced by the concillation service ACAS, these talks represented a last-ditch attempt to avert the coming strikes and begin resolving what is an increasingly bitter dispute.
There are issues with the way events have unfolded, such as the continual willingness of the union leaders to sell their members short. Unite drew out the time between the ballot on strike action and the action itself. Their unwillingness to fight was evidenced by their insistence on seeking concillation even as BA shed jobs and declared "We will not allow Unite to ruin this company." Tony Woodley's public comment that the strikes were "unneccesary," as workers were in need of solidarity, was beneath contempt.
However, whilst this does need to be challenged, it is the members who must do it. These issues are a product of the bureaucratic hierarchy present in all unions, and can only be addressed by a grassroots movement to reclaim control of the union from within. Stunts such as the SWP's fail to address this fact, or to achieve anything, and are incomprehensible to ordinary union members who can only see a bunch of Trots causing havoc.
Tony Woodley referred to the SWP invaders as "idiots" and "lunatics," but - as Harry's Place point out - union members "will be saying things far harsher than what their union leader said."
A Very Public Sociologist goes further;
Call me cynical (and one cannot help be after watching the SWP's behaviour for a period of time), but this is about promoting the SWP and has little to do with the demands of the workers themselves. Since its split with Respect and losing ground on the left to the Socialist Party, the SWP have placed more emphasis on narrow party building than was previously the case. That might be more comforting to the leadership and long term members who had their fingers burnt engaging with "the movements", but if it is to build wider influence it has to make its own opportunities. High profile stunts is one such way it can make itself visible to the public at large.
So leaving aside the wishes and interests of cabin crew and the trade union, AND the effects the stunt will have on popular perceptions of the strike, today's been an unalloyed success for the SWP. They were catapulted to the top of the news agenda for the first time since ... well ... when has the SWP ever led a news bulletin? The coverage has also positioned them as a dynamic activist force able to throw convention aside to get its message across - a portrayal that will prove attractive to some. And lastly for the comrades involved, well, a few of them will feel a wee more revolutionary tonight than when they woke up this morning.
I'm sorry though, but this is a pretty poor show. The SWP have let down those they profess to defend, and future such antics will find them further marginalised in the labour movement.
The degree to which they are out of touch and margianlised already is apparent to most people who have dealt with them. Serious antifascists will compare chanting "Willie Walsh, who are you? We support the cabin crew!" whilst disrupting the talks that would have saved the same cabin crew from going on strike to scenes of all-white middle class students leading off with "we are black, white, Asian, and we're Jews..."
The assertion over at Lenin's Tomb that "the protest did not disrupt negotiations" because "the BA management is not negotiating, and the union leadership is neither in a position to compel them to negotiate, nor is it inclined to" is a case in point. As one commenter on Socialist Unity put it, "as if all that matters is that the BA workers strike - no, what matters is that they can defend their pay, conditions, jobs and union. If ever there was an illustration of how a student organization without working class influence can get tactics so wrong, this is it."
But the SWP is just the tip of the iceberg. With a "activist" base of students who like to hide behind the newspapers they're flogging*, and little connection to actual workers in struggle, they are perhaps the archetypal Trotskyite group. However, many if not all of the same critiques that can be applied to the SWP can be applied to their rivals.
Dave Hyland, for WSWS, outlines a couple of these key criticisms as they relate to the recent general election. Unfortunately, he follows this up by declaring that "the advanced nature of the political situation in Britain places before every class conscious and politically aware worker and young person the urgent job of building the Socialist Equality Party as its new revolutionary leadership." In doing so, he unwittingly reveals the real problem with what he calls the "pseudo-left," including his own party.
The working class do not need a "revolutionary leadership."
The "vanguard of the proletariat" is a concept common to both the Leninist and Trotskyist strains of communism, and it is nothing more than a convenient precedent to seize and hold power. In post-revolutionary Russia, it saw the self-organised soviets infiltrated and commandeered by the Bolsheviks, the army re-centralised, and the establishment of a counter-revolutionary dictatorship.
Vanguardism is a dead-end for real, libertarian socialism. In times when it had a chance of gaining power, it was a vehicle for dictatorship. Now, the point is to boost the numbers, fill the coffers, and sell the papers.
Some groups, such as the Socialist Party - being formed from Militant Tendency - do have the upside of actually getting involved in workers' struggles in practical ways. But they hold to the same belief in workers' needing revolutionary leadership, and the same tendency towards building front groups. I also have a personal aversion to their ideology following on from a conversation I had in 2005 with Tony Mulhearn, who informed me that he thought George Orwell was "overly cynical about Stalin!"
Ultimately, workers need to self-organise. Yes, we need to rid ourselves of the dead-weight of union bureaucracy, but that does not mean installing an out-of-touch vanguard in their stead. Serious and effective resistance to the class war can only come from below, at the hands of people who are willing to take direct action but who also realise that looking revolutionary isn't the same as being revolutionary.
The invasion of the Unite-BA talks, then, was an act of attrocious stupidity. But if there is anything positive to be gained from it, let it be that the labour movement pushes away from the trappings of the authoritarian left and its many front and splinter groups.
*underclassrising.net realise that this is a very crude stereotype. underclassrising.net do actually know people within the SWP who are sincere and amiable people. underclassrising.net also have nothing against students or the middle class, especially those who realise their shared lot with the rest of the working class and want to get involved. Unfortunately, that is the stereotype they convey to the working people their party wishes to be the vanguard of, and it is a stereotype that too many of them fit.
Comments
Hide the following 21 comments
All very well but...
23.05.2010 11:12
But why are you relying on the likes of Harry's Place (Zionist) website to back up your 'anti-authoritarian' points. Seems a bit counterproductive. Like saying 'the Daily Mail condemned the demonstrators and we agree'.
communist
on the news
23.05.2010 12:47
anyone
Jerry Hicks & SWP spilt/vanguardism/Willie Walsh's kamikize pilot mission
23.05.2010 12:51
My view: BA Cabin Crew are overpaid compared to Cabin Crew of other airlines, which is why the workers have accepted a pay-cut. BA is a damaged business now and customers are leaving in droves, it seems Willie Walsh's raison-detre is to drive the business into the ground.
Re: SWP, agree with comment quoted from Socialist Unity that "If ever there was an illustration of how a student organization without working class influence can get tactics so wrong, this is it."
Re: vanguardism, aren't some anarchists vanguardists?
Real issue is need for rank and file movement.
syndicalist
Anarchists talk too much!
23.05.2010 14:12
Absolutely agree with that sentiment.
If you look at the comment structure of IM its easy to see anarchists spending a lot of time trying to present the entire readership of IM as anarchists.
The current favourite is comment along the lines of "we as anarchists, antifascists blah blah blah, rubbish rubbish rubbish" Inference being that "we" means us and therefore that IM is an anarchist forum, that IM as an activist resource is all about anarchism.
We should have a debate about exactly how relevant anarchism is in the modern world. From what I can see on the streets they are a pretty miserable lot, drunk, on drugs and generally looking like lost children that got kicked out of their parents house too early. Its usually the case that if anarchists are involved, then the campaign they are attached to fails. If they are not present then game on!
Rank and file movement?
Interesting to have that debate too. Non-hierarchy has certainly worked in the past but right now, with the political system having staged a major shift in direction, not so sure at the moment about how much more we can wring out of the idea of non-hierarchy.
Not going against the IM mantra, just seeing a change on the streets that we are going to have to address at some point. Very sure the anarchists have no role to play in it though. The state is now very wise to them. Wherever the anarchists go, a pre-planned state narrative follows. This isn't helpful anymore. We have bigger things to be doing.
Anarchic Dispepsia
anarchists doing cheap pr-stunts
23.05.2010 15:12
In reality, most anarchist groups who claim to represent workers are doing the same you criticise the SWP for: vanguardism of some students posing as working class.
Your accusations remind me of the critics of the FAU in Germany. They did numerous PR stunts to illustrate they are the vanguard of some students gone worker in the Babylon cinema dispute.
me
@above
23.05.2010 17:04
The anarchist groups in London I know say they are part of the working class and act within it, whether as part of an anarchist group or as individuals.
The issue here is not the PR nature of the stunt, as more often than not anarchists engage in it as well, its the fact that it is from a leninist, vanguardists political party that seeks to represent workers i.e. it is a vanguardist action by a vanguardist political group.
If the same action was done by actual BA workers, then it would be different, as it would be seen as an attempt to undermine the delegation of power that already happens in these "negotiations".
An Anarchist
Anarchism - The synthesis of the Social Individual!
23.05.2010 17:08
No doubt the SWP are about collecting e-mails and addresses on 'petitions'.
Little doubt too they are political opportunists as witnessed on the Nakba demo last weekend in Sheffield.
Socialist
Social (ist) what humans naturally are, being social animals. A human trait co-opted and exploited by Corporate State Capitalism (Fascism) in War and in the Capitalist means of production.
No need for the ideology (Socialism) created to control workers dissent and stymie the rise to power of the industrial capitalist (new money)
Worker
Wage Slave no one wants to be a slave, withdraw your labour indefinitely, until you get a fair return for the value you create, otherwise grow your own and produce your own energy get off the Corporate grid!
Party
So if you've joined SWP
Your job is to control the dissent of the wage slaves.
All these 19th century political ideologies need updating, Marx was right to say that value is only created by labour, but we need a new dialectic one that clearly identifies the Powerful as the antithesis to human social evolution. Anarchism represents the synthesis of the individual, libertarian and society, or socialist ideology, anarchists are socialists, but aren't prepared to bow to the tyranny of the majority, or forget they are individuals. ideally consensus forming and non hierarchic forms of organisation are favoured because they should ensure equality and freedom, well that's the theory, has been seen working successfully on rare and short lived occasions, usually the Authoritarian Communists come along and 'organise' everything.
Marx mistakenly thought dialectics was the way the world works, the truth is Machiavelli got it right, he saw things from the perspective of the ruling class, divide and conquer, Marxism is a ruling class ideology, it's classic divide and conquer and this needs to be addressed by those calling themselves Marxist or any of the ideologies that stem from Marxian doctrine.
Still I'd settle for socialism over corporate planet rape any day!
Peace
Chimpski
Indymedia editorial guidelines - not for hierarchically structured organizations
23.05.2010 17:12
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/editorial.html
IMC UK Editorial Guidelines
Articles and/or comments may be hidden for the following reasons:
* Hierarchy: The newswire is designed to generate a news resource, not a notice-board for political parties or any other hierarchically structured organizations.
@non
trot on ..
23.05.2010 19:23
xXx
Is it true..
24.05.2010 09:48
Just wondered.
saapht
Jealous middle class kids fighting among each other over who is working class
24.05.2010 16:34
Anarchist groups in London say they are part of the working class and act within it.
Exactly! They SAY they are part of the working class, they SAY they act in within it.
C´mon admit it. If some anarchists staged that BA stunt all would be fine, nice and thank you.
Thing is, you´re not interested in saving jobs, because you regard working for a living as a kind of protestant ethics stuff. Its´easy to drop put of the system if you ain´t got a family and kids to support.
Thing is, you´re a subculture! You´re completely isolated from the working class and the real world. I´m not saying that this doesn´t apply to the SWPers. But at least they´re trying to act within the class.
Hierarchy. O yes. It doesn´t exist in anarchist groups. ....sad, sad dreamers! Or, outright liars!
Who, over 40 or 50 of age and with his marbles intact stays in the SWP OR the anarchist "movement". Waffling and endless blah won´t pay my rent.
The Left as a WHOLE in Britain AND in Europe is in a crisis. Ordinary working class people trying to make a living no longer look to the left. They don´t feel represented by them, they don´ t feel in any way attached to the left. They´re so fed up that they either abstain from voting in masses (which anarchists regard as a proof for a raised political consciousness - How ridiculous!), or working class people got so disillusioned they vote for the extreme right.
Me again
Bankrupt economic models & the rise of nationalism
25.05.2010 06:00
Actually, they were not all SWP, coming as they did straight from the Right-to-Work Conference which was round the corner of Friends House; if you want to have a go at them which anarchists have a penchant for doing (for many good reasons over the years), then the main criticism that can be levelled at them is that, as usual and as anarchists/activists know only too well from many occasions b4, they have taken all the glory; however, they were no doubt more SWP's among the 30 occupiers than any bother left wing group.
Meanwhile, unpredictably, on this comment thread already, self-proclaimed holier-than-now anarchists display nothing more than petty envy and elitism (where was the solidarity for Tamil people last year at Parliament Sq; a post-colonial struggle received no recognition amongst the white activist scene, saying much about even how the edifice of our civilisation is built on the blood sacrifice of innumerable cultures across the world, and still is, and how anarchists are confined to western political philosophical reasoning as are Marxists who put disporoportionate emphasis on the industrial working class while discounting the peasantry (Marx said that peasants are like "potatoes in a sack" ...ok, only the industrial working class can seize the means of production, but the analysis discounts the impact of the anti-colonial struggle - how far might a dockers strike across the Atlantic permeated down the food chain in the right circumstances, admittedly restricted by the slavery of the developing world thanks to the IMF/debt)
Me again said:
"C´mon admit it. If some anarchists staged that BA stunt all would be fine, nice and thank you. Thing is, you´re not interested in saving jobs, because you regard working for a living as a kind of protestant ethics stuff. Its´easy to drop put of the system if you ain´t got a family and kids to support."
- other reasons also - one being that the system is fucked. Who wants to support workers in an airline industry responsible for climate change, overpaid trolley dollies for predominantly the middle classes and busines class
Me again, again: "Thing is, you´re a subculture! You´re completely isolated from the working class and the real world. I´m not saying that this doesn´t apply to the SWPers. But at least they´re trying to act within the class."
- yep. If the dominant culture is going the same why as the dodo, then subculture is a shining path out of the mire
"Hierarchy. O yes. It doesn´t exist in anarchist groups. ....sad, sad dreamers! Or, outright liars!"
- the anarchist propaganda is steeped in this hypocrisy. Why not be open and honest! we are ultra-left (where things are so far left. we've on the extreme right!) If we had the opportunity, we'dd be the new feudalists. The logical conclusion to the climate camp ethos is that - rationing under state control run by a dictatorship of the revolutionary struggle comprised of those "active' in the struggle (irrespective of class other than the upper class, gender etc .. a reintepretation of Lenin's concept dictatorship of the proletariat which Bolshevism actually was; as seen in Thailand and Jamaica right now, the oppressed classes will not overthrow the elite on their own ..as in Venezuela, they need a split in the military and police, who obviously are comprised of people of all classes, except obviously the middle class)
"The Left as a WHOLE in Britain AND in Europe is in a crisis. Ordinary working class people trying to make a living no longer look to the left. They don´t feel represented by them, they don´ t feel in any way attached to the left."
- that can quickly change, esp in a recession; however, it can also go the other way as well though that hasn't really ever happened in this country up til now (ie the rise of fascism). Islamic-white working class tensions in an economic depression would be marked, and decades of govt social policy to play community against community (divide & rule) will have/is already having negative consequences that will/is capitulating large numbers of working class people to the politics of nationalism
eco-warrior syndicalist
correction
25.05.2010 06:09
I said "...as in Venezuela, they need a split in the military and police, who obviously are comprised of people of all classes, except obviously the middle class)"
INCORRECT, meant to say instead: "...as in Venezuela, they need a split in the military and police, who obviously are comprised of people of all classes, except obviously the upper class)"
eco warrior syndicalist
WTF? Real World!!!!!!
25.05.2010 12:11
What's life for?
Looks like you think it's 'working for a living' and 'paying the rent', what A SAD F**K.
Like your social economic position has nothing to do with the way the ruling class run your world and create your reality for you. Nothing to do with the way 1% of the population hold 99% of global wealth.
What a huge raft of sweeping generalisations! And then you go on to speak for the whole working class! if it wasn't so sad it'd be hilarious! arrogant or what?, like yeah workers vote right not left, did you see the voting numbers for the BNP they were wiped off the map!
If hierarchy exists in an Anarchist group then it's not an Anarchist group is it.
Time you did a radical analysis Michael Parenti style.
'Real World' ha ha ha c'mon don't make me laugh.
WTF do you mean 'real world' are you talking about what Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, the father of PR, the original doctor of spin, wrote about in his 1928 book, Propaganda.
Here's a quote for you
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power .... "
Is that what you mean? if not WTF do you mean by 'real world'? Define your terms!
Chimpski
Great talkers you are!
25.05.2010 13:58
The EU is about ot fall apart. The governments of Europe are gearing up for attacks on wages and social security. Greeks are already fighting back, Rumania is fighting back. There will be a general strike in Spain, a national demo in Italy on 5th of June, and in Germany on 12th of June.
At least in some countries we try and get something started, forming alliances of all groups, socialists, anarchists, trots, tankies, trade unionists.
Whereas you lot in Britain couldn´t organise a piss up in brewery. You´d say: fine! Making 1000s redundant and cutting social welfare will benefit the environment. People will have to stay at home and sell their cars. They won´t be able to go to soccer matchers or drink as much beer and eat burgers and pizza as they did. HOW wonderfull.
Let the poor eat organic cake!
It´s a pitty we can´t put the poor in eco-friendly concentration camps. That would reduce reduce green house gases.
I tell you what you are: Green-Black-and-Red Thatcherites!
I´ve been knowing the British left since the míd 1980ies and I can state that non such talker and waffler exists as the English eco/climate change/ anarchist/ animal-rightists middle class type.
Read Trotsky: Their morals and ours. You´ll find a very good discription of you, phillistine posers.
Where´s John Pilger living that he can speak in the New Statesman about unrest coming to Britain, I wonder?
Keep on tossing about how bad the trots are. That´s as far as you get. You´re rotten to core!
me again and again
All Power to the Serviettes. Trotsty's polemic is naught but dogma
25.05.2010 16:41
Looks like you're spreading fear and panic........ crrriiiiisis, Calm down and have a cup of tea
Governments in general are the political operatives of the ruling class they've been gearing up for and successfully carrying out attacks on redistributive policies for decades now. It began as soon as the workers won some early reforms and has continued throughout history. Crises are manufactured and the expected dissent is controlled and manipulated. Like you're being controlled and manipulated by an ideology.
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds. (Robert Nesta Marley)
See you on the streets
Peace
Chimpski
indy uk - turning into sectarian blog
25.05.2010 17:19
For info about Greece: garizo.blogspot.com
occupied london, libcom, teacher dude bbq
so long!
Me
SWP in Harrow
25.05.2010 21:04
On the day fortunately there was no mechanism in place to exclude Anti-Fascists who fail to come up to the left's exacting standards of working-class perfection, and we were stunned and relieved to see upwards of 1,200 Anti-Fascists, and the few EDL who were able to arrive in any coherent group were literally sent running for their lives. The protest was even attended by 2 Tory councillors - one Jewish and one Asian - whose presence did (like or not) give considerable credibility to idea that this protest was an example of genuine community resistance.
SIOE scheduled another rout, which, sadly for them, went ahead, and UAF prepared for this by printing 5,000 leaflets (which we helped distribute), holding regular stalls near St Anne's shopping centre, and organising a Festival of Unity to promote the demo. UAF described their festival as a great success - it wasn't. Less than 20 members of the public turned-up to hear speeches from expenses-guzzling MP Tony McNulty, a cringe-worthy "socialist magician", and lumpen UAF leader Weyman Bennett (who could barely force himself to shake my hand when I made the mistake of trying to be FRIENDLY to him on the previous protest), etc.
I've never seen SWP stalls in Harrow before or since, but, surprise surprise, in the lead-up to the 2nd protest SWP stalls appeared on the same day and same street as the UAF stalls, and on one day the SWP and UAF stalls were directly next to each other. The result of all this frenetic campaigning? For the 2nd protest Anti-Fascist numbers FELL by nearly 1,000.
The EDL and SIOE were still routed mind you, and there were other reasons Anti-Fascist numbers fell (bad weather, the protest being on a Sunday when the hundreds of school-kids who'd previously attended couldn't pretend to their mums they were on their way home from school), but the fact is branding the counter-protest as a conspicuously SWP event alienated many well-connected local movers-and-shakers, turning what had been a well-attended and genuinely populist Anti-Fascist protest into a embarrassing lefty paper-selling jerk-a-thon, where you could barely make out the distant Fascists through the assembled ranks of rival left-wing paper sellers.
In "building" what the SWP see as their movement the SWP actually achieved the exact 180-degree opposite of what they intended, and so far as I'm aware much the same was achieved in Stoke, where UAF poured tens of thousands of pounds into a successful Anti-Racist music festival, to find only 300 people supporting their protest against 3,500 EDL and BNP supporters when Stoke's turn finally came. I'm certain there are lots of great people in both the UAF and SWP, and I don't know if this experience chimes with people involved in the BA strike, but in my opinion the SWP need to take the blinkers off and seriously address their tactics and priorities, because in some contexts their involvement seems to do more harm than good. Before any Anarchists get too smug about this post however, 3 or 4 middle-aged blokes making stupid jokes about Harry Roberts doesn't make an Anti-Fascist victory either
Harrow United
What Anarchists look like?
25.05.2010 21:36
For the record, Anarchist vanguardism is just as opportunistic as SWP vanguardism however - the only real difference is that the SWP are better organised and more systematic in their attempts to take over those political causes that the general public actually seem to embrace
Natty Dresser
UAF are SWP
26.05.2010 00:20
>>> that's because UAF are run and predominated made up of members of SWP
web monkey
jumping on bandwaggons
26.05.2010 11:49
Antifascism, although, is a pet subject of middle class reverberates (school kids, would-be anarchists) it´s building around a firm date, like a march, and then it collapses again.
The thing is, are a few bunch of nazis worth waisting manpower, money and other resources plus engaging in internal sqabbling?
Again I come back to Greece and the crisis. This applies to anarchists and trots alike: Wake up and stop sqabbling about the ownership of action, ideas and social movements!
If it´s true that there´s no copyright on revolutionary ideas, the anarchists and antifa in Britain for sure seem to hold a copyright on inactivity in social struggles and in solidarity with the movement in Greece.
Me