Performative stunts don’t achieve much. Unite needs to ramp up the action against austerity, argues John Westmoreland

The suspension of Angela Rayner from Unite is another turning point in the crisis of Labourism. The symbiosis of the Labour Party and the trade unions is under increasing strain as Labour moves further to the right and the trade-union leadership can no longer peddle their age-old mantra that ‘we’ are for the bread and butter issues, while Labour leads on the political front.

Sharon Graham is getting the backing of Unite members who are fed up with Labour-led austerity and their refusal to offer any solution to workers fighting for better pay. The decisive issue is the Birmingham bin strike. But, although the Labour government and Labour-run Birmingham City Council (BCC) should be condemned out of hand for making Birmingham bin workers pay for a crisis they’re not responsible for, Unite have not covered themselves in glory either.

The crisis of Labourism is rooted in the trade unions and the Labour Party.

Rayner and Graham: doom and despair

The Birmingham bin workers could and should have won their demands by now. They have proved their fighting spirit by picketing since March. They have won the support of workers across the country, and especially in their own union. The Mega Picket in May was a big success, with trade unionists from across the country travelling to join the early-morning picket.

However, Unite has largely left the development of solidarity action to external campaign groups like Strike Map and the People’s Assembly, and has sought to contain the demands for solidarity from the bin workers themselves

Although Sharon Graham is right to say that the hard-line attitudes of Labour and BCC have prolonged the strike, that is a narrow analysis that ignores the systemic crisis we are in. The reason for Labour’s determination to see the strike defeated is strongly influenced by the Treasury and the Bank of England, which is forcing austerity on a Prime Minister all too ready to serve their demands.

Labourism works on the premise that the capitalist system is reformable, but as far as ending austerity goes, at least for now, it isn’t. And this is why suspending Rayner from Unite is not going to make much difference. Sharon Graham is trying to boost her own credibility by appearing militant, but her whole strategy, including Rayner’s suspension, is to get Labour ministers and BCC around the negotiating table once more. This strategy has run out of road, leaving the bin workers facing redundancy.

John Cotton, the leader of Birmingham City Council has made it clear that he has finished with negotiations and is now looking to dismiss striking workers. This is fire and rehire, something Rayner has said she opposes. Adding insult to injury, Rayner is claiming that Unite’s actions are threatening equal pay across the council, because BCC has to choose between the costs of increasing women’s pay or the wages of bin workers!

Since when did cutting the family budget bring about gender equality?

Rayner is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Treasury suits who demand low taxation and austerity. Rather than suspend her union membership, why not call her bluff and spread the action? Because if the bin workers are defeated and BCC’s fire-and-rehire plan works, more workers will suffer: in Birmingham and other cash-strapped councils.

Unite’s leadership has to get real. Performative stunts and louder condemnations are no substitute for a winning strategy.

A worker-led strategy

To win the widest solidarity for the bin workers now facing redundancy, we have to start with the anger that fire and rehire stokes in the heart of every decent trade unionist. If the Labour-led BCC, operating with the blessing of a Labour government, get away with sacking strikers, it is a huge defeat for the movement.

Workers will question why they should join a union or maintain their union membership. The bosses will go on the offensive and behind them the bankers, share-holders and privatisers will be rubbing their hands. A weakened union movement will see the move to the right and authoritarianism gather pace too.

We can’t go on letting trade union leaders of every stripe keep on crowing about the trade-union laws and how their hands are tied. If they haven’t noticed, we need to tell them, and not too politely, that the law means nothing to this government or the ruling class it serves. Labour is actively assisting the Israeli government’s genocidal war on the Palestinians. It refuses to call out the genocide and continues to sell weapons to Israel.

Assisting genocide is illegal. And, Labour is prepared to jail people who stand up for legality as terrorists. So why the hell should trade unions obey the anti-trade union laws?

This is, in the current political climate, Labour’s weakest spot. Let’s punch them in it and stop pretending they are too powerful to confront.

Unite can easily ramp up the action we need. They can start to call ballots across BCC and other councils about the need to fight for jobs and pay as councils look for ways to make cuts.

Unite can appeal for joint action with other council unions and demand that the TUC start to lead a campaign against austerity.

We all want to see the bin workers win and lift the gloom. But Sharon Graham and the Unite leadership are not going to be part of it unless they face massive pressure to stop their containment strategy and engage with the wider forces of the movement.

A good starting point is to give full Unite backing for the Mega Picket 2 called for 25 July. Some twenty-five trade union bodies are supporting this picket, and Sharon Graham needs to get on the case now. If she does it will have a much bigger impact on Labour and Birmingham City Council than suspending Rayner’s membership.

The Labour Party conference in Liverpool needs to become the focus for our anger too. But in the meantime, Birmingham bin workers should call a demonstration in Birmingham for which the wider movement can build. Many workers who support the bin workers can’t make an early morning picket, but would come for a Saturday demo. The bin workers have got to act in their own interests and call for the action Sharon Graham is shying away from.

We are at a moment of potential crisis. We need to tell Sharon Graham that anti-government stunts are not enough. We need to hit back hard.