Whose side are the trade union leaders on?

Coal not Dole: Strikers lobby in Yorkshire during the Miners’ Strike of 1984-5 (Pic: John Sturrock, Socialist Worker’s photographer at the time)

Trade unions express the potential power of working class people when they organise in their workplaces.

Some six million people in Britain are members of a union. Historically this is low, but it means unions retain significant social weight. But the unions are divided between the trade union bureaucracy and rank and file workers—the ordinary members who don’t hold a union position.

The bureaucracy are full-time officials who are paid by the union. Most union leaders are paid around £150,000 including their pension and benefits packages.

Socialist Workers Party founder Tony Cliff explained, “The bureaucracy balances between the two main classes in society—the employers and the workers. Top trade union officials are neither employers nor workers.”

Union officials don’t have to live with the deals they negotiate for others. Cliff said, “The union official does not suffer like the mass of workers from low wages, being pushed around by the employers, job insecurity.

“The trade union bureaucracy is a distinct, basically conservative, social formation.” Union leaders exist to negotiate between bosses and workers, so they often agree to deals that fall far short of what could have been won.

They have a vested interest in protecting the union machine. They insist on obeying anti-union laws to avoid facing legal action. And sometimes, union leaders use anti-union laws as their excuse for not leading action.

The conflict between the bureaucracy and ordinary workers is the fundamental division inside the unions.

In the past, workers were more confident to lead strikes opposed by their leaders. Today, there is often an antagonism between rank and file workers and the leaders.

Some socialists see the main division within the unions as a political one between left and right. They argue that socialists should concentrate on getting left wing officials elected.

This strategy focuses on “Broad Left” coalitions that focus on union elections.

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Understandably, rank and file activists, frustrated with right wing officials, can look to electing the left to transform the unions into real fighting organisations. Left officials are more likely to support progressive policies and can give social weight to political movements. Their success can boost confidence. So socialists always support the left against the right.

But that doesn’t mean relying on officials. Despite their political differences, all union officials form a distinct social group. It is the pressure of the rank and file that is decisive. Even right wing leaders can lead victorious strikes.

The miners won their greatest victories in the national strikes of 1972 and 1974 under the leadership of a right wing president, Joe Gormley. And they were defeated in 1985 when they were led by a militant, Arthur Scargill.

Rank and file workers must look to themselves. The organisation and solidarity they build can help them to act independently of their leaders.

In 1915 the Clyde Workers’ Committee argued, “We will support the officials just so long as they rightly represent the workers, but will act independently immediately they misrepresent them.”

Socialists work with trade union leaders where they can.  But no union leader can be allowed to dictate the limits of what the most militant workers demand. And socialists must always stand with that militant minority.

Today, confidence among workers is very low. The union leaders can seem like they’re doing the best they can and defending progressive ideas. But rank and file workers will fight back in the future, so socialists need to build independent organisation now.

One way to do this is to raise political issues at work, to organise the anti-racists, take action for Palestine and defend trans+ rights.

Revolutionaries should identify the best people around, those who can become part of building both economic and political resistance to the system.