The 4th Morning Star Northern Regional Conference, "Seizing the Time", was held at Gateshead Civic Centre on Saturday 1 December 2007.  The following is an extended version of the report which appeared in the Morning Star on Tuesday 4 December:

Speakers at last Saturday’s Morning Star Northern Regional Conference in Gateshead got to grips with the urgent issue of rebuilding a fighting labour movement in the region.

Left MP John McDonnell, chair of the Labour Representation Committee, started by describing the recent donor scandal in the Labour Party as “absolute bloody corruption”, warning against Gordon Brown’s attempt to use the crisis “to break the link with trade unions” by putting a cap on donations.

“We need to stand back and assess where we are at the moment,” he said.  “All hopes of change from Blair to Brown must now be dashed.  Brown is a neoliberal – and a neoconservative internationally.  The closing down of Labour Party democracy has gone dramatically further.  It wasn’t possible to get the major unions to nominate a socialist candidate for the Labour Party leadership or to resist taking motions off the conference agenda.  And all attempts at building alternatives to the Labour Party have failed.

“However, there are good reasons for optimism” he continued.  “Within the trade union movement, mobilisation is building up on a scale not seen in a generation.  Unions that are supporting struggles are growing.

“Politics may not be in the Labour Party but it is breaking out everywhere else – as in the campaign over climate change and the battle over the proposed third runway at Heathrow.  But such campaigns need to be linked to something much broader – the labour movement.  The slogan has to be ‘Fight Where You Can – but Fight Together.’”

Commending the role of the LRC, now with over 1000 individual members, Mr McDonnell pointed to the need to get back to political education but also to launch a broader united front.  “We need to work within the current ferment of political activity, to build a climate of opinion and solidarity action that overcomes our weaknesses within internal structures”, he concluded.

Graham Stevenson, National Transport Officer of the T&G section of Unite, said, “The answer lies in how we rebuild the trade union movement itself.  We have to go beyond managing decline and demoralisation, and into a new period of mobilisation.”

Reporting on a recent study visit to Australia, Mr Stevenson revealed how the trade union movement there had had to reinvent itself in response to legislation from the Thatcherite Howard government.  By remodelling their structures, embracing new technology, and investing millions of dollars in communicating and campaigning – engaging with the fears, worries and concerns of public opinion – the trade unions had shifted the political climate – and the Australian Labour Party had shifted in turn.

“The lessons for us are clear”, he said.  “Forget lobbying – the government won’t listen till it knows people are moving.  British unions would have to spend £20 million in 12 months to communicate to the same extent.

“The strategy of reclaiming the Labour Party by appealing to workers to take part isn’t working.  We need to reclaim the working class.  We have to create a change in revitalising our trade unions.  Composite 4 at the TUC Annual Congress told the General Council to listen to these experiences and engage in a massive campaign.

“Pennies from millions of workers provide clean money.  Millions from a few spivs creates disillusionment among workers,” he concluded.

Kenny Bell, Northern Regional deputy convenor of UNISON, pointed to the ethos of marketisation, privatisation and the move from service provider to commissioner underpinning New Labour’s approach to health and local government.  “This undermines local democracy and democratic accountability”, he said.  “Local strategic partnerships are increasingly taking major decisions and the private sector is driving the whole agenda.

“Councils are being put under pressure for ‘shared services’ with the private sector.  Academy schools are being set up at a rate of knots.  Home care is being privatised by default.  Subsidised nurseries are being closed.  And local government is being reorganised on the basis of ‘efficiency’ – i.e. outsourcing services.  Many councillors are unhappy but feel they have no choice.

“We need to think about a much broader political agenda”, he continued.  “UNISON is working in partnership with the GMB, and our Regional Conference has agreed to equip our branches to make in-house bids, to understand how to intervene in local strategic partnerships, and to organise in communities where our members live.”

Having just returned from Colombia, “the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists”, Mr Bell pointed out that its “extreme casualisation and privatisation at enormous rates shows just why we must stop this neoliberal bandwagon in Britain.”

Carolyn Jones, director of the Institute for Employment Rights, also took up the theme of mobilising.  “There are several areas where we might be able to take this agenda forward”, she said. 

“First, the general state of trade union freedoms.  The law excludes 95% of workplaces, allows employers to set up their own ‘sweetheart’ unions and prevents recognition unless unions get a 51% vote.

“Secondly, the government’s failure to react to the ASLEF case over its right to expel a BNP activist.  It is outrageous that they had to take it to court.  International standards are that unions should be independent of state interference.

“Thirdly, the government’s response to recent disputes – the fire service, post office and prison service.  These have been about providing an essential service for the public.

“Brown has no intention to repeal anti-union laws – but the Trade Union Freedom Bill is popular, and shifts the debate forward.  The government’s promised Employment Simplification Bill will salami-slice trade union rights.

“We should unite around the ‘Three Rs’: Recognition, with improved access for trade union organisers; Return of Rule Books, so unions can decide how to organise; and Repeal of anti-union laws.

Concluding, Ms Jones, who is also vice-chair of the Management Committee of the peoples Press Printing Society, urged conference participants to read and support the Morning Star, as an “educator, agitator and organiser.”

Steve Gregg, FBU Northern Regional secretary, stressed the need for solidarity in disputes and for political education to avoid a lurch to the right.  “Our members have learned the need for solidarity”, he said, “and I want to thank you for that.  It helped to keep us going.  The press was awful but the Morning Star was brilliant in support.”

Still a Labour Party member himself, Mr Gregg condemned New Labour for its policies of privatisation and for alienating vast swathes of workers.  “The FBU is unlikely ever to reaffiliate to the Labour Party nationally”, he admitted.  “And only about 100 of our 2700 members in the Northern Region will vote Labour at the next election.”

John McCormack, secretary of Northumberland County Association of Trades Union Councils, outlined the campaigning work carried out by his organisation in fighting threatened closure of care homes, battling academy school proposals, reaching out to young people and mobilising against the BNP.  “Trades councils are an essential link between trade unions, work places and communities”, he said.  “We fight for fairness and justice, and against prejudice and discrimination, and we involve people who would otherwise never dream of participating in trade unions.”

John Berry, Secretary of the 30,000-strong North-East Pensioners’ Association, pointed to his organisation’s doubling in membership as a consequence of disillusionment with New Labour policies.  “Blair was bad, and Brown is worse,” he said.

Warning the conference that the poor pension prospect facing many young workers was a key organising issue for today, he castigated the government for its fiasco over the means-tested pension credit.  “Far too many pensioners are still not getting this benefit,” he said.  “It can’t be claimed by women till they reach age 65 and it involves a massive form-completion exercise in any case.  The simplest way to avoid pensioner poverty is to raise the basic state pension and to restore the link with earnings.”

Historian Nigel Todd, also a Newcastle Labour councillor and regional director of the Workers’ Educational Association, said “The Abrahams case symbolises what has gone rotten in the Labour Party.  99.9% of Party members are not – like Jack Straw – just ‘irritated’, they are furious.  Where did the money come from?  Will it lead to a cleansing?  State funding would be a death-knell for political parties, an opportunity for careerists.”

Stressing the role of adult learning, as used for example by the GMB union to break down barriers faced by migrant workers, Mr Todd condemned the government’s ‘skills strategy’ for cutting the funding for broader adult learning which had been in place for around 100 years.  “We must campaign to defend adult liberal learning”, he said.  “It builds people’s confidence and awareness of the world around them, and they often go on to be significantly active, becoming part of movements changing other people’s lives.”