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LSE: Public lectures and events
The Labour Movement and Protest: a working-class politics for the 21st century
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- [00:01]
A
I think it's safe to say that for over a century the labor movement has been at the centre of the hopes of radicals and reformers and also of the fears of conservatives. And so no discussion of social movement can take place without putting the labor movement front and centre. And so it's a great pleasure tonight to be able to introduce Len McCluskey. Len is the General Secretary, as many of you know, of Unite, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom, representing some one and a half million British workers. And he began his working life himself doing clerical work on the Liverpool docks and rapidly became involved in activity in the powerful Transport and General Workers Union. That union, of course, was one of the unions that merged a few years ago to form unite. Now I think it's worth noting that the forces that gave rise to the so called new unionism in the late 19th century, the forces on which the Transport and General Workers Union was built, were similar to those that gave rise to the strengthening and emergence of socialist ideas. Ideas that were central to the people who founded the London School of Economics. And it's appropriate, at least in passing, that we should honour that shared history here tonight. Len, I think it's fair to say, tends to hit the headlines during industrial disputes and goodness knows that British workers need a strong representative to deal with their over mighty employers. But Len's tenure as General Secretary has also been notable for some other things and in particular his interest in renewing progressive ideas and rethinking progressive strategies. And he's been central to the establishment of a new trade union think tank, the Centre for Labour and Social Studies. CLASS is the acronym and he's often spoken of the need for the trade union movement to find common cause with other social movements. That's the theme we've asked him to speak about tonight. So I ask you to join me in giving a warm welcome to Len McClusky.
- [02:23]
B
Well, thank you, Robyn. And just let me start by expressing my gratitude to all of you for being here tonight. I have to say that when I received the invitation, I was privileged to receive it and I feel humbled to make a contribution to such a prestigious lecture series. You know, for me personally, the three strands of this lecture, working class politics, the labour movement and protest, are subjects that have been clear, defining features of my life from my upbringing in Liverpool and throughout my adult social and working life. Indeed, for people of my generation, working class politics was instilled as a birthright. In the same way that birth determines your sex, it determines your class, often your career, your financial prospects, as well as a great many other things. Therefore, politics, protest and the Labour movements were the only vehicles by which you could effect change. Let me congratulate the LSC for their role in remembering Ralph Miliband's work. Ralph Miliband may not have been brought up in the movement in Britain, but he did all his political work here addressing the history and controversies of British Labour. So I think it's fair enough for us to claim him, the more so since his two sons have risen to such eminence in the Labour Party today. Indeed, it is sometimes said that there is a common thread linking the generations of the Milibands. The father spent his life trying to convince our movement that there was no possibility of a parliamentary road to socialism, while his sons have been loyally putting theory into practice and proving Ralph right. So let me start on my subject, working class politics in a contemporary world, with a quote from Ralph Miliband. All concepts of politics, he said, of whatever kind, or about conflict, how to contain it or abolish it. That's how I understand politics, based on my own experiences and my own reading of our history. I say that not to celebrate conflict, still less violence, but merely to state a fact. Politics is about struggle, about the clash of interests, and for me, ultimately, about how to create a society and a world where there really are common interests. So let's take a contemporary example. Straight away, one nation. I applaud Ed Miliband for the way he's raised this idea, or to be correct, perhaps re raised it and for the content he's trying to give it. But let's not pretend for one minute that we are one nation or that we will become one nation without the conflict that Ralph Miliband placed at the heart of politics. Remember, Disraeli talked of one nation to reconcile the working class to empire. And more recently, Tony Blair claimed that New Labour was the political wing of the British people when it all too often was the mouthpiece of the City of London and even the Pentagon. So if we are on a march towards one nation and ultimately one world, it's a road that leads through struggle and conflict. But here's a truism. We can't create common interests across a society that is now more equal than for generations simply by wishing for it. So how do we get to one nation? And what part does working class politics play? One thing that is certain, as the Swedish sociologist Goran Theoborn has written. While there are a number of plausible labels that might be attached to the 20th century in terms of social history, it was clearly the age of the working class. For me, the labour movement has been the backbone to political change and progress for generations. If the 20th century was the century of the working class, it was so because of organised labour and the trade union movement. The trade union movement is the child of conflict, the conflict between wage workers and employers over pay hours, employment conditions, safety in the workplace. In short, over who should benefit and in what proportion from the wealth generated by industrial capitalism. And that's why the ruling class was so keen to keep trade unions in legal shackles for so long. Britain was the first country of trade unionism, a point I was pleased to see reflected in Danny Boyle's inspirational opening ceremony at the Olympics. In the history of trade Unionism, written in 1894 by the founders of Fabianism, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, trade unions were described as a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. And trade unions, this is interesting, were initially opposed to state intervention or interference in their relationship with employers. It was only when the entire existence of trade unions was challenged at the turn of the last century, with adverse decisions in the courts, in particular Taft Vale, that unions found themselves fighting for their survival on the national political stage. Rising out of these turbulent times was a new agenda. Trade unions had to extend their reach into Parliament and government. The Labour movement needed a political voice to fight for the interests of all organized labor. On the national political stage, the Labour movement had to obtain influence on the machinery of government. And the British trade union movement was unique in establishing its own socialist political party. This was a step towards politics in its thinking, but still a long way short of socialism. As Ralph Miliband would certainly point out if he was here today, the limited objective was to protect rights of organized labour and trade union action through legislation, moving beyond this to using legislation to win universal rights for working people and go on to take control of the means of production, distribution and exchange. But this was not a step taken until after capitalism had passed through the great economic crisis of 1910, 1911 and the far, far greater disaster of the First World War. This is a reminder that socialism is placed on the agenda not so much by the admirable work of socialist propaganda groups, but instead by people's actual experience of capitalist society. But working class politics, defined as broadly as it should be, has been more than about politics as conventionally understood. What goes on in Westminster at election time, it's been rooted in a sense of community, too. Prior to the creation of welfare, it was the Labour movement that established the first elements of social provision. No one thought to call it the big society. In those days, whole communities, often established around the sinking of a mine shaft or the building of a mill or a dock, became microcosms of what would later become our nation's welfare state. Before any national government had the foresight to create a national health service or social insurance systems, there was a proud tradition of self reliance and widespread community provision. In mining communities there was socialized medicine and healthcare. Homes were built for retired miners and their widows. Funeral arrangements were made and paid for by trade union committees. And before universal education was secured, trade unions were the bodies that wanted to educate working class communities. The Workers Education association was established in 1903 and provided working men and women with the opportunity to get an education. The slogan educate, agitate, organise encapsulated how workers could improve their lives. If we measure the success of the labour movement as the extent to which it reshaped the behaviour and responsibilities of government, the 20th century saw victories on an unimaginable scale, albeit victories achieved at a price of great suffering and almost exclusively through conflict. It is a remarkable feat. At the height of industrial power, at the time when wealth was accumulated at the top and poverty imposed for working people who lived hand to mouth, the labour movement, the arm of the working classes, was able to secure such radical changes and take control of high office. Influencing government through the Labour Party, the working classes, against all odds, transformed society. If you were to have a Monty Python moment and say, well, what have the trade union movement done for us? Some would of course talk about better pay and improved conditions at work. I would go much further and say that the political activity of the working class has secured or guaranteed almost everything we value today. Let me list some democracy. There has never been any strong democracy based on universal suffrage without a powerful working class movement. And it was the working class which was the backbone of the fight to defeat fascism when much of the European elite was flirting with Hitler, Franco and Mussolini. Peace. The working class has always led the opposition to war time and time again. Equality inside and outside the workplace. It is the working class politics which has established the right of men and women of all races and backgrounds to be treated equally. Welfare, education, the national health service and insurance against hardship in old age or unemployment are products of working class agitation and struggle. The idea that capitalism or the ruling elite would have introduced democracy or social equality or welfare on their own is entirely fanciful. Such civilization as we have today, we owe to generations of working class activists who organise collectively to benefit their own class and thereby society as a whole. And if much of this is under pressure today, it is a consequence of the deliberate drive to destroy the trade union movement and working class politics which the elite has embarked upon over the last generation or so. Eric Hobsbawm makes the great descriptive point that if we had a long 19th century, from the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, then we had a short 20th century, from the First World War to the fall of the Soviet Union. For the working class in the west, the century was even shorter than Hobsbawn's insightful analysis describes. For everything that was achieved in the 20th century, there was to be a radical backlash from the late 1970s onwards. Let's just recall for a moment the situation in the 1970s, that much reviled decade. Trade union membership was at an all time high. Public ownership of major industries and services secured and there was full employment. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it did offer working class people something we had never had before. Security and growing horizons. In the words of my fellow trade union leader in Liverpudley and Billy Hayes, he said the 1960s were great. Everyone in Liverpool was living in a better house at the end of the 1960s and at the beginning. And we had the Beatles on top of it as well. That's what the elite, of course, couldn't abide. Working class people who did not know their place, who interfered with management's sacred right to manage, who assumed the right to the same quality of life at work and in their communities that middle class people had long endured. The neoliberal offensive which began in the late 1970s was not mainly about economics. In fact, the growth rates in BRICs in the 1980s got worse as a result of its imposition. No, it was about restoring what our rulers regarded as the proper social hierarchy, including getting the working class out of politics. The neoliberal attack has lasted until today, and despite the great crash of 2008, it is still undead, as they say, of vampires. And we can see that with the policies and priorities of Cameron and Osborne, its main purpose was, and always has been, attacking trade union power, destroying the main organizations through which the working class has found social expression. If Thatcher held that private companies should operate without any interference from governments, she demonstrated dramatically the extent to which government could obstruct the freedom of workers to organise. The rhetoric of deregulation was reversed when it came to trade unions. Decades on, New Labour did little or nothing to change the situation. And today, of course, we've got some Tories wanting to go still Further, with fresh laws attacking trade unions. It's not just trade unions as collective bodies that have paid a price for this offensive. Society as a whole has suffered. The neoliberal Washington Consensus, on which every government since Thatcher has based its policies requiring trade unions to be shackled, can now clearly be seen to have failed the majority in this country. The downward trend in support for collective bargaining agreements nationally and across sectors has been a key factor in increasing inequality, now a matter of broad concern. Between 1975 and today, the share of our national income used to pay wages of ordinary people fell from 65% to 53%, which is an astonishing figure. Other associated indicators of growing inequality in the Anglo American world have of course been set out in in great detail by the Wilkinson and Pickett in their revealing book, the Spirit Level. Public support for privatization has quickly diminished and individual shareholding, once trumpeted as the great alternative to trade unionism, is now scarcely greater than it was before the whole exercise began. Instead of creating an army of wealth creators across communities, it established enormous private corporations that amassed power and money in rapid time. Instead of creating mass individual share ownership, it handed power to pension funds and insurance companies, all effectively controlled by the city. Instead of creating competition to improve services, it created monopolies which have abused their power, most notably in the energy and rail sectors. Well, so much for the past. When we look to the future, what type of politics can we imagine? First of all, as I've outlined, we desperately need working class politics. Democracy itself dies when it becomes the preserve of a small elite, as we are seeing today in other countries. Working class life and politics were relatively easy to comprehend and defend. When I was growing up, the demarcation lines between them and us, the exploiter and the exploited, was clear for all to see. I grew up in vibrant and politicised communities. Life was centred on the Liverpool docks around work. We formed the circles of working class life, trade unionism, community, the Labour Party. Today, we cannot simply start from there. We can't build a future working class politics on a basis which has long been eroded. Perhaps the more significant change is the decline in secure and stable employment. This, more than anything else, makes today's working class different from when I was young. In many communities, there was once a large industrial working class population that may have existed for a century or more. Today there may exist a new population, descended from the old, but depressed, economically inactive and demonised by the media. And the better off. Take mining communities such as Easington in the Northeast or Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, two of the most economically inactive and poorest communities in the uk. These were once the capitals of British industry in mining, powering the country to over 100 years and through two world wars. Now these are the communities that are economically barren, smashed by the neoliberal experiment that sent old industries elsewhere in the world and offered only a bloated financial sector and a housing bubble as replacements. Not all communities have suffered as much, but none are unchanged. People often have to move to find work and that link between working communities is broken. Communities that were once proud, hard working and thriving have become hit by the scages of unemployment, depression, drug abuse and alcoholism. Research from IPPR tell us that the long term out of work are more often concentrated in the same disadvantaged communities that have weak local economy with little chance of finding work. A working class without any prospect of work. Whilst our communities have changed and the economic model has been transformed, the demarcation lines between them and us remain. The concept of the exploiter and the exploited still exists. And these people share another key attribute in common with their working class predecessors. Both were demonized by press and politicians. This is interesting. Let me read an extract from George Orwell's the Road to Wigan Pierre, 1937. This is what he said in his early boyhood, George Orwell thought that to nearly all children of families like mine, common people seemed almost subhuman. They had coarse faces, hideous accents and gross manners. They hated everyone who was not like themselves and if they get half a chance they would insult you in brutal ways. That was our view of them. And though it was false, it was understandable. For one must remember that before the war there was much more overt class hatred in England that there is now. Today's media hype, demonization of the unemployed and those on benefits bears a stark resemblance. Wayne and Wernetta Slobber, Vicky Pollard and the televised series like Shameless are the fictional portrayals of the feckless, criminalised and ignorant new working class for the Daily Mail. If you're not middle class and if you're not in work, they have the right to demonize you and attack you and your communities. I have a different view. Capitalism. Capitalism is the only system which has normalized unemployment. It is the responsibility of any system to offer work to people. If it fails in this basic obligation, it is the system to blame and not the victims. In the last two weeks 11,000 jobs have been lost at HMV Jessups Honda Civil to name for a Today's hard working people paying taxes are tomorrow's benefit Scroungers if you listen to the right wing press. So how do we reorganize and rebuild in today's environment, with the working class as it is and not as it was? If we consider the condition of the working class improved during the 20th century, it did so because the working class, through the trade union and labour movement, learned and fought together as a class. We must today focus on the starting point of this progress. It was Karl Marx's distinction between a class in itself, which capitalism creates and recreates spontaneously, and a class for itself, which expresses its own interests in the public arena through its organisations and culture is a valid one. Rebuilding a class for itself presents challenges, but they are not entirely new ones. At the turn of the 20th century, the trade unions had to undertake the job of recruiting members from the working men and women of new industries, of building general unions and establishing a Labour Party in parliament and the country. It was a long struggle. Today we must first confront the crisis of confidence born of a generation of defeats and increasing marginalization. We have to say that we speak for the working class, that the working class speaks for a better world for all. And we have to organise and fight on that basis, not as a special interest or as a lobbying group, but as the motivators of the only real alternative to the crisis of capitalism and the multiple failures of the present ruling elite. As unions, our first job is to organise workers and secure a better deal for them at work. Simple objectives, but again fraught with conflict when you face so many exploitative and anti union companies. But working class politics must go further. My Union Unite is leading the way with an ambitious new program to recruit, organise and educate across the whole of our communities, the unemployed, the disabled, carers, the elderly, the voluntary and the charity sector. It is time for these people to be organised and to be given a voice. Who better to do this than the trade union movement? Unions can't continue to watch on idly as successive governments leave so many on the scrappy. A scrappy will grow even larger as the so called welfare reforms kick in. We need to reconnect unions with the wider community and rebuild a bond which has been frayed and as a result of the changing nature of work or its complete absence. Our aim is to get communities to act together. This sits comfortably with our traditions. Trade unions have always provided social spaces. The Working Man's Club is one example where communities got together over a drink and organised social and political events. It is these roots that we must return to in a modernized form. Too many people in our country are being pushed to the margins of society. They deserve to be heard. They too deserve the support to organise collectively. It is with this in mind that UNITE has founded its Community Membership Scheme. Those not in work age 16 to 116 can now join our family. That's why we now have community branches springing up across the country and community organisers working in every part of our nations. We offer training to individuals who want to become community activists. Our activists go into their communities and build groups empowering people to do something for themselves. In Leeds, community groups are campaigning against workfare and organising regular demonstrations against employers like Argos who are using this modern day slavery. In London, they have organised benefit buddying, linking the unemployed with people in work. In Sheffield, they have set up a phone tree to protect their members in case of eviction. In Glasgow, our community members are working with our industrial members to save a much loved community cafe. We have seen community members demonstrating their support for our industrial members in their disputes by supporting pickets and protests. And UNITE is also working to meet the needs of our members through the creation of a new credit union. High street and Internet loan companies say they provide a much needed service which would otherwise be out of reach. My union says they have no place in our society profiting off the misery of people on poverty pay. A trade union cannot stand by as its members are preyed upon by capitalist vultures. So our members will be able to obtain credit without having to resort to the ruinous interest rates of the payday loan companies. You know the people today who say there is nothing left to fight for. That the trade union and labour movement is now irrelevant are the ideological grandchildren and great grandchildren of those that fought against every progressive gain achieved for working people in the last century. This is the reason the right wing seek to divide those in way from those out of work, public sector workers, from private sector workers, those in the north, from those in the South. Their tactics have not changed and neither must ours. The 21st century is not ringing out the death knell of the Labour movement. It is sending out a call to arms. The apparently endless economic crisis which began in 2008 is seeing to that. In 1992, Margaret Thatcher claimed after the election of another Conservative government, It's a great night. It's the end of socialism. A few years later, Tony Blair declared that the class war is over. Well, no doubt from the boardroom of J.P. morgan or wherever he is now, it may have looked that way. And John Prescott claimed we're all middle class now. Well, don't worry the entire evolutionary human history of socialism and class was not eradicated by New Labour. Would anyone two and a half years into this Bullingdon boy club coalition have the pomposity to claim that class has ceased to be an issue in politics today? We know this is not the political reality, it's a tactic. It's political posturing. It's used as false evidence that we have nothing left to fight for. It's part of the rhetoric fed to us that says we should not challenge the decisions taken by our elites. We are taught to believe that democracy is the cornerstone of a modern civilized society. But our lords and masters were want to define democracy as limiting us to an X on a ballot paper once every five years. That's not my definition of democracy. They tell us strike action, civil disobedience, direct action and protest are all somehow unpatriotic. Our history tells us they are not. That's because our rulers are deeply afraid of Ralph Miliband's assertion of that politics is about conflict. They believe, for example, those without hope, without jobs, now looking at cuts in their meagre welfare, their families being shunted out of London because of housing benefit changes, should simply put up with it, wait for the next general election. That's if they're registered to vote. Well, I note that some council leaders from our major cities have warned that people might respond with anger and civil disorder. I would not be surprised. The one thing worse than suffering is suffering alone and in silence. We have seen remarkable local protests in recent months. 20,000 people defending a hospital in Eastbourne. Eastbourne of all places. 15,000 people defending hospitals on the streets in Lewisham to 350 people crammed in a small room in Newcastle protesting against a library closure. Look at the 2011 riots in England. They exposed the growing disconnect in a broken society. But it was not without reason. Young people spoke of their frustration at not being able to find employment. They were excluded from society in the first instance, so what was there to lose? Those events showed that at a certain level of inequality, the whole concept of society starts to be drained of meaning. Be assured, the labour movement, protest and working class politics will continue far beyond the 21st century. Protest against inequality is alive and well. Look at the work done by UK Uncut to challenge outrageous tax avoidance by Vodafone and other giant corporations. Their message is if you want to trade in Britain and benefit from our infrastructure and skilled workforces, then pay your taxes. Last year protests focused on Starbucks. Initially, of course, protesters faced hostility, vilification and attacks by the media. But the truth is, these tactics work. When the right wing media realized that these protesters were onto something, their attention then focused on Starbucks. And what followed has been a remarkable public boycott of that company. It takes courage to risk unpopularity and vilification, but the truth does prevail. The Labour movement's message must be one of hope. It must talk more about its victories and the positive future that it aspires to. Britain is broken, but it is the system that is broken, not the people. Trade unions and the Labour movement must continue to give hope for a better way of doing things. They must work to educate, agitate and organise. I am proud to associate unite with these initiatives and to hope to form a longer lasting alliance between organized labor and radical protest, even if it comes from outside our traditional movement. And as I have made clear before in relation to trade union laws, while I don't ever advocate violence, neither do I preach worship of the law at all costs. So my message to capitalism, if you can send a message to a system, is mend your ways or risk mounting social breakdown and disorder. There'll be people here tonight waiting to hear my message to the Labour Party. Well, I won't disappoint you. Here it is. And I'll keep it brief. People need a political voice now, as the working class reasserts itself. Labor is the natural historic vehicle of for their voice, but not to the exclusion of others in society wanting a better future. Every Labour victory has been based on an alliance and that is the alliance I see delivering a victory for Labour in 2015. But let me make it clear, crystal clear, if in the future there is any return to the discredited recipes of Blairism, the Labour Party will be over for me and I believe millions more besides. Put simply, workers need a voice and they should not be taken for granted. Whatever the upshot of electoral politics, working class politics must grow and develop based on the socialist education that Ralph Miliband called for. In the midst of an unending economic crisis, with what Ralph would have called a discredited ruling class at the helm, it is time for the working class to step forward with its own vision. Our values are eternal. We need to be courageous like those that have gone before us, so that we can seek a better world. Thanks very much for listening.
- [39:11]
A
Thank you very much. We've now got time for some questions, so I'd ask you to signal if you'd like to ask a question and I'll go around the room. So can we start with this gentleman in the grey? Just Wait for the microphone, if you don't mind.
- [39:29]
B
Hello. You talked about a need of a reputable voice, yet there's a TUC for Scotland and a TUC for Wales. Do you not think it's time that England actually is recognised now and given its own tuc? Do you not think that the spending now per head in Scotland, which is 1600 more in England while England suffers and watches its hospitals close while it still pays 33 billion pound every year to Scotland, needs to be, or needs the trade union movement to speak up about? Would you say that the labour movement really needs the trade union movement to recognise England so it can re. Engage with the people of England. One at a time? Okay, well, I mentioned in my contribution there that it's a great tactic of the ruling elite to try and divide people, working people from those in work, those out of work. You've just extended it by a sentence by wanting to divide England from Scotland and Wales. No, I don't. I reject that approach. I genuinely do, because I think what you get involved in is trying to argue over, trying to slice up a cake that frankly is not big enough for workers everywhere. When I go around my union in Scotland and Wales and in England, workers have exactly the same problems. They have problems of job security, they have problems of bad housing, they have problems of poor education. That's being attacked. They're the common values that unite ordinary working people together. In fact, the common values of ordinary British people. And so I don't seek to say that Scotland fares better than Wales, who fare better than England, or the south fares better than the north of England. It's a fact that the system that currently we have and this government that we are currently enduring are attacking working people in all of our nations in an unprecedented fashion. And it's against those attacks that people like ourselves need to stand up and say we're not prepared to accept it. The reality is that everything that we hold dear, everything, the welfare state, universal education, the national health service, everything is being attacked in all of our nations. And we've got to be prepared to stand up. And the way you do that is unite people. You don't try and separate people.
- [42:10]
A
Okay, Okay. I think we've got a lot of questions at the moment, so I think we should. I think we should take a few more. It seems like there's quite a lot of questions, so I'm going to take in clusters. So can I have first that gentleman there and then afterwards the man at the back, and I'm looking for. Well, this gentleman Here.
- [42:33]
B
Hello. I don't know if you've heard that John Steinberg quote where he says socialism never took root in America because the poor saw themselves not as the exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. And I wonder that whilst you say, we know that in the 20th century there was a real strong working class identity which is part of the working class's strength, that my experience of growing up in a working class community in the Northeast in the past kind of 20 years revealed, I've kind of come to the impression that that kind of strength and that identity has been replaced more by a sense of consumerism and a loss of identity. And I wonder how you think we can replace that identity. And because I do believe the working class is still there.
- [43:26]
A
Okay, let's. Yes, could you perhaps say who you are?
- [43:33]
B
Oh, hi. My name's Mark Blake. I'm a Unite member and a Labour Party member. I just wanted to ask Len, what are the three must dos for a Labour government in 2015? Absolutes.
- [43:46]
A
Three must dos.
- [43:49]
C
Hi, my name is Adam Booth. I'm also a Unite member, education section, and a Labour Party member. I also had the pleasure of being at the policy conference as a young observer, which I think is a great policy, and I thank you for opening the conference up to young members. One of the things that was talked about there from the executive and yourself in particular, was the need to, as you say, reclaim the Labour Party with activists going in. And then also on the 20th of October, you talked about the need for a general strike. And I wonder if you can expand on both of those things. What are Unite doing in these areas to concretely make progress and to follow on from the question just asked. At the end of the day, it's not just enough to have these actions. What are the policies we're fighting for? We've talked about socialism, but it's a very vague term. It means a lot of different things to different people. I, as a socialist, think of nationalization of the banks, of the major monopolies, utilities, all these sorts of things under planned democratic control. How do you see that term and therefore what policies are Unite pushing for in the Labour Party?
- [44:50]
B
My best to take those three and I'll try and answer them as quickly as I can. The colleague. I didn't catch your name, sorry. The point you make is a good one and actually it embraces a part of the presentation I made that working class has changed. And you say you come from the Northeast and there's a change in the concept of what was once seen as values drifting more towards consumerism. And that's perhaps understandable as we became a more consumer based nation. You know, people require more and want more and there's nothing wrong with consumers consumerism in that sense. But you also in a sense answered your own question. You do still think there's a working class there. It's about how we define it and how we control it. The media and this was the central theme of my lecture, try to demonize the working class. They don't want us to become. You mentioned John Steinbeck and referred in America, in America, they don't use the terminology working class anymore. Everybody is middle class. And you'll see from some of the quotes I made from Tony Blair, from John Prescott, that was the sense and the move of what Blairism and what Thatcherism was about. And the purpose for that is to take away the identity of working class people and in doing so, take away the values of working class people. And one of the greatest values of working class people for me is that sense of community, that sense of solidarity. Thatcher also said not only she thought it was the end of socialism, but she was the one who famously said, there is no such a thing as society because they don't want there to be a community, they don't want there to be solidarity. That solidarity in working class communities, especially in the face of adversity, is one of its most endearing qualities. And that will never change. And we've got to be proud about our working class values and our working class roots. And we've got to reject the caricature that the right wing media try to portray as the new working class, the Chavs. And if you read Owen Jones's books about the demonization of the working class, it spells it out very clearly. And the way that we try to do that is to talk about our values, to give people power. There's been a recent poll, I figured, just very recently, last few days, people asked what did they regard themselves at the moment? And the vast majority of people regarded themselves as working class because there's a reassertion of the fact that we are being attacked by the ruling elite. We are the ones that are being asked to work and people are the ones that are being asked to shoulder the responsibility for the crisis. And that sense of coming together again, that purpose, that sense of solidarity is something we have to grasp hold of and build on and be proud about and give people confidence to say, yes, I am working class. And the values I believe in of decency, fairness and justice of a decent job, of good education for my kids, of a decent home to live in, of dignity in old age. They're the things that are the core values of ordinary British people. And the more of us that kind of talk about that and reassert those values, the more I believe that we are in a chance of achieving a better society. Mark and Adam, you've talked about the Labour Party. Mark, the three must dos. Where are you? I forget where you were now. Yeah, to be honest with you, I can let you into the a little. Well, it's not a secret. Ed Miliband, when I first met him a couple of years ago, he'd just been elected and I'd just been elected and I met him and he asked me the same question. Lenny, if you had three wishes, three things that you'd like us to do when he got back into power, what would they be? Or do you want to think about them? And I said, no, I don't have to think about them. I'll tell you now. It is trade union freedoms. Trade union freedoms. Trade union freedoms. And the reason I say that is because it is only organised Labour who are capable of defending working class communities. Only organised Labour who can make certain that working people advance in terms of paying conditions. And that's precisely why, of course, the Tories, Thatcher and the establishment have consistently tried to attack us and undermine us. And in that sense we have to recapture that. Of course, there are all kinds of important issues, but without organized labour being free to express itself and being free to represent the aspirations and concerns of ordinary working people, all other reforms, forms will be taken away from us, which is precisely what we're seeing at the moment. So that, for me is a critical red line. And to be honest with you, Adam, that comes to the point that you've raised. I mean, yes, for many, many years the audience may have gathered that I'm no great fan of New Labour or Tony Blair. And for many years we talked about reclaiming Labour. There's a campaign, let's Reclaim Labour, and I was a member of that campaign, but we never did anything, and certainly our unions never did anything to reclaim Labour. I think what we've said now in Unite is we do have to reclaim the Labour Party for our values. And the way to do that is to involve ourselves at the grassroots of the Labour Party. And in Unite, we have a very detailed and sophisticated political strategy to do precisely that, to make certain that we've got people who have our values elected into Parliament so that they can speak with our concerns and they know what we're looking for and what our values are. And that is something that can't be done overnight. I haven't got a magic wand to do it. But we are seeking and beginning to make headway. So much so that the reactionary forces within the Labour Party are beginning to squeal like pigs, because we're suddenly doing the things that they've been doing for a long, long time. And in that sense, we have an opportunity. Whether that opportunity actually results in a radical or a Labour government being returned to office with a radical alternative program, only time will tell. Because what I say to Ed Miliband and, you know, I've met the man a number of times now, he's a decent guy. He has the opportunity to be the next Prime Minister of our nation, but only if he puts forward a radical alternative to the British people. Because if he comes, him and Ed Balls with a watered down version of austerity, then the British electorate will reject him and will stick with the Tories. So we have an opportunity to try and influence the radical nature of that program and we're going to work hard at it and hopefully, and I'm an optimist by nature, we will succeed. As regards the general strike, Adam, as you know, the TUC last September passed overwhelmingly in their Congress. A resolution calling for the TUC leadership to examine the practicalities of a general strike caused a lot of hoo ha at the time, the media. But the importance of that resolution being passed, because a resolution like that had never been passed before in the history of the tuc. And the importance of it was that it demonstrated the anger and the frustration felt by lots of workers across our countries. And that, for me was an important fact. Now, of course, examining the practicalities of a general strike brings with it all kinds of issues. There are lots of unions who are already indicating that, oh, it would be illegal and therefore they're not going to have anything to do with it. And I don't necessarily attack or criticise them, because just because you pass a resolution out of Congress doesn't mean that suddenly, you know, next week we call a general strike and everybody comes flooding out. That won't happen. It wouldn't happen even in Unite, which is a militant union in many ways. But what we're doing is taking the resolution serious and we're going to kind of consult with our members and raise the consciousness of our members as to what their views are. I think there's a number of people have been surprised, including, I remember hearing Mervyn King, the Governor of the bank of England, saying he's surprised that people haven't been out on the streets rioting of what's happening. You know, the National Health Service, which all of us take for granted and is so special to us all, is being privatized before our very eyes. And yet, you know, there doesn't seem to be a response yet from the British people. You pick. Sorry, I didn't hear that. You pick. Well, that's what I'm trying to answer the question on. So the point is that if this was happening, say, in France, you could imagine maybe hundreds of thousands, millions of people out on the streets. So I believe the trade union movement has a role to play. It's no use us just kind of cowering in the corner. We have to raise these issues with our members. And that's precisely what we're doing. We're raising the issues with our members. We are seeking in our consultation and our discussions how to lead towards a position where we get the type of support for mass action. I believe there will be coordinated strike action in the public services, unions overpay and jobs and services this year. I believe there will be more and more issues and strikes within the private sector. And we need to figure out ways and means where we can link together the frustration and anger that is felt both in the public and the private sector. In Unite at the moment, we are talking about a march against poverty from Glasgow to Manchester to Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol and London, we're talking about a rock against poverty. We already have top musicians, top pop artists who are prepared to kind of engage in that so that we can keep the pot boiling and keep the consciousness of working people raised to a level that hopefully will lead us to a situation where we can turf this great out of power and perhaps just as importantly, where we can hopefully influence the Labour leadership to be more courageous in being on the side of ordinary working people. And going back, mark to your three must dos, one of the central things that a Labour leader has to do and the Labour leadership have to do is simply be on the side of ordinary working people. That's not much to ask. You know, as a trade union leader, my members want me to be on their side. They may not always agree with me, but they want me to be on their side fighting for them. And that's all any of us want from our politicians and from our Labour Party. We just want the Labour leadership to be on our side. And that means making certain that when we're demonstrating, when we're raising the consciousness of, of people to the point of a general strike. And I certainly do not rule that out at all. Then we can move the policies of Labour. You talked about nationalisation, Adam. Well, when I was your age, I used to agitate for the nationalization of the banks and a lot of people used. Oh, nutter. Well, lo and behold, here we are. We nationalized the banks. So. And I think if you put it to the British public tomorrow whether they were in favour of taking the rail back into public ownership, there would be a massive. Yes. Now the Labour Party are doing some really interesting work in that Maria Eagle's doing some really good work on rail transport and they're the type of things that we have to build around this radical alternative.
- [58:03]
A
Okay, There's a lot of gentlemen questioners but not very many non gentlemen questioners. So if there are any. Ah, this lady over here. Thank you. And then you. And then this man at the back here.
- [58:19]
D
Thank you.
- [58:20]
A
And if you could just say who you are as well, please.
- [58:25]
D
Roxanne Meshari. I'm a Labour Party and UNITE member. Then we hear David Cameron using Labour's links to the unions as an insult every week at Prime Minister's Questions to discredit us and our party's current relationship with unions I think is awkward at best. My question is, do you think Labour's relationship with the unions needs reform? You've talked about getting more union members standing as candidates, but how else can we make our link and support to the union something that we can be comfortable with and proud of? And my second question is how can unions support and work with Labour councils at a time of almost 40% cuts to local government?
- [59:06]
A
Okay, thank you. And this lady here, please.
- [59:16]
B
Hi, my name is Emily Gordon. I'm a student here at the LSE.
- [59:18]
D
And I'm from the US and worked in the trade union movement there for about a decade before coming here and I appreciated your talk. My question is about the Occupy movement and how you see, when we talk about, when we think about some of the large scale street protest that's happened in the US and here in the last several years and what people have been experiencing. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts about how to bridge what's happened there continuing to happen with activities at strikes and others that the labor movement can take on on behalf of workers.
- [59:51]
A
Thank you.
- [59:54]
B
Hello there, my name's Luke Donnelly. I'm a reader of Socialist Appeal, Labour Party member, and most proudly of all, a community member of unite, which I've recently had the pleasure of joining. But when I got involved in union activity, it was when I came across a picket line at my workplace. And up until that point I was of the understanding that I couldn't join a union. And there's a real problem, particularly for young people, but people all around not knowing how they can get involved, how to get involved. And basically I was wanting to know how are we going to get young people into the union so that they're protected in work and in school and if they're made redundant or fired or whatever happens to them. Right, okay, Roxanne. Yeah, I mean, obviously the attacks that Cameron levels against us, in a way it makes me smile because listening to Cameron and the right wing media and the ruling elites, they often like to tell people that trade unions are irrelevant. Now if that's the case, why do they keep attacking us? Why do they keep raising us? And you're right about Cameron, he raises the link. Part of the problem we've had for a long time, and this is one of the characteristics of New Labour, is.
- [61:22]
D
That.
- [61:24]
B
New Labour did become embarrassed by the link with trade unions. They were happy to take our money but would have preferred to be like the dotty aunt in the attic, locked away, just shove the cheques through the door every now and again. Well, we've got to say that that's not acceptable anymore. And people should be proud of trade unions, should be proud of what we've done. My speech is about the fact that organized labour is responsible for most of the civilized society gains that we have. We've always been on the side of the angels, trade unions and our Labour leaders should be proud of it. Ed Miliband is a member of Unite and he should be proud of that. Now the truth is, of course, Ed doesn't know anything about trade unions, nothing about trade unions. He's never been active or involved in the trade unions. And to be fair to him, when I pointed that out to him, not in a nasty way but because we were having a perfectly good conversation, he said to me, well, you're right, Len, I don't know anything about trade unions, but you need to teach me. And so it's going back to a point that was made about our values, the point that was made about, you know, working class culture. We've got to kind of explain what our values are. And that's precisely what we've set out to do. I think somebody was explaining to me recently that the current parliamentary Labour Party is probably the most right wing we've had for a long while. But I see something different in the PLP. You know, there are more and more trade union MPs who perhaps have felt isolated, who now see that there is something for them to coalesce around. And that's how I believe that we need to reform our association. It's also about. And part of our political strategy is getting our activists to join Labour. Now, why would people want to join Labour? Well, because we have a common narrative that says we are trying to reassert our values of what we stand for. And we're having significant success on that at the moment. Because when ordinary people who want to have a political voice feel that their union has got a purpose, then they join, they take an active role. And we've got a number of people who are coming forward, who are going to be prospective parliamentary candidates, who are from our ranks, who understand our values. And that, I believe, at the next election will dramatically change the complex of working class representation within Parliament. When I say working class, let me just be specific about this. I'm not necessarily saying people who come from the working class. I'm saying people who understand working class values, because, trust me, I could name, and I'm not going to, I could name a number of current Labour MPs who come from the working class but have well since abandoned our values and now only want to attack us. So I'm talking about representatives in Parliament who understand our values and I think we're making successes there. How can we deal and assist Labour councillors? That's a huge, huge question. In fact, I've seen my good comrade, one of our executive members, Kingsley Abrahams here. Kingsley is a councillor who voted against cuts in his local council, as a result, was vilified by the Labour group and expelled. And we as a union are kind of struggling with trying to develop an argument, because as a result of what happened with New Labour, it is endemic in the Labour Party, right the way through to local council, that trade union values don't mean anything. We've got Labour councils who have embraced the cuts with gusto and are implementing them with no difficulty whatsoever. Now, you are absolutely right. The majority of Labour councils who are hit with this massive reduction are struggling. And our message has always been that they should engage with the trade unions at local level and work together to see if cuts can be minimised, to see whether there is an opportunity to build a resistance to what the Tories have imposed upon us. And there are a number of different ways of looking at this. You know, the truth is that I was talking to a friend at the weekend, actually, who was very basic about what he thought of councillors. He had two mates that had been elected local councillors, and he said to them, you best not vote for the 30 million pound cuts. And they said, but, you know, we've got to, because. And he said, well, you. You start voting against closing down nurseries and old people's homes and swimming pools and. And expect me to have a drink with you, I'd do nothing but spit on you. Because you're not there to do that and you should stand up and fight it. And if that means you get debarred or you lose your seat in some way, well, then so be it. And there's a problem here because whilst he shocked me a little bit in his viciousness at what he thought Labour councillors should do, but, you know, when you think back, that's what Labour councillors used to do. The fact that now Labour councillors are paid often, some of them see it as a career and they don't particularly want to rock that career, and therefore their engagement in trying to seek opposition and ways of opposing the cuts becomes minimised. So it's a really big question for us at the moment, if we can. If we've got genuine Labour councils, then we've got to try to assist them in every way we possibly can. But at the same token, we've got to try and see, and we're doing it through our network of councillors, try and see if we can build up a linkage that says, let's do something about this collectively. I'm not suggesting for one second that this would happen, but wouldn't it be incredible if tomorrow all Labour council has decided that they're not going to implement the cuts? Wouldn't that be fantastic? Wouldn't it be incredible if every Labour council in our nation says, we're not implementing your cuts, what would happen? What would happen? Now, the idea of that takes me back to the 1980s in Liverpool and down here in Lambeth and Sheffield, and that whether you can maintain that kind of solidarity, I don't know. But the reality is that we need to engage with our local councillors in a way that assists us in helping them on the one hand, but also makes them understand why they are there and they are there to represent working people in their communities. Emily, your point about the Occupy movement is a good one, let me say. I hope I'm not putting any of my other General Secretary colleagues down here, but I think I was the only General Secretary that went to St. Paul's to address the Occupy movement. I found it incredible that this worldwide phenomena took off and in a sense it demonstrates the period that we're in. These are extraordinary times that we are in. None of us have ever been through these times before. It's not as though some of us, some of us old fogies could say, oh yeah, I remember in the 1960s we did this, or in the 1970s we did this. None of us know what's going to happen. I remember asking me king a question on the General Council, asked him a question about what did he think would happen in six months time. And he said back to me, six months time I couldn't even tell you what's going to happen next week. And that was the governor of the bank of England. And the truth is that they don't know what's going to happen next week. Nobody knows. And therefore when there is a spontaneous reaction like the Occupy movement is, that's something that I want to touch, I want to understand, I want to be part of now the fact that it may have dissipated and you know, in particular it was incredible in the United States it dissipated maybe because the trade unions, organized labor, and that's why organized labor is, is so key. That's what my speech is about, the importance of organised labour, which is a representative of the voice of ordinary working people. Unless organised labour can lock in to these direct action organisations there is a danger that they will dissipate. But I thought it was a very brave thing to do. I applauded them and I wanted to be part of it. And certainly from a financial point of view, we supported in a practical way the occupation movement here in London and it's why organisations like UK Uncut. I had the privilege of meeting these young people. You know, people say, oh, young people aren't interested in politics. There's a load of nonsense. Of course they are. May not be too much interested in the dull politicians and they political class that we have, but I met these young people who said, well to be honest, we were having a pint. A group of us, half a dozen of us were having a pint in the pub and Vodafone who were ripping us all off by not paying their tax. They said we thought that was outrageous and they decided to do something about it. They didn't just whinge and moan about it, they decided to do something about it. Now they punch a few buttons and they can get 10,000 people on the streets because of the power of social media. Now the trade union movement has to be linked into that because for me it's absolutely critical that that is, you know, that is the case. And Luke, I made up. It's good to see you. It's good to have you part of our family as a community member. How do we get young people involved? Well, by being relevant. I mean, the truth is that any organization we belong to, whether it be a trade union, whether it be a political party, whether it be any organization you belong to, it because you think it's relevant to you, you think it's relevant to your life. And we've got to demonstrate to young people that we are relevant to them and that they understand what trade unions are, that they understand what their values are. Like you say, Luke, that they don't think, well, it's not really for me, I don't understand them. We've embarked upon this incredibly ambitious program, but we've embarked upon our schools program. It is my intention that every 15 year old in every school in our nations will be visited by our tutors to explain to them what trade unions are so that when they go out into the world of work or when they go on to further education, they will at least know what trade unions are. When I was growing up as a kid, I knew what trade unions were. You know, my mom and dad, my aunts and uncles, the neighbors, the friends. Trade unionism was an integral part of our life. I knew what trade unions were. Now, if you ask most young people, including from my home city of Liverpool, Warren, trade unions, an awful lot of them would say, I'm not sure, I don't really know. I don't know what they are or what they stand for or what they believe in. So part of our program and everything we do in Unite is linked together. Nothing stands in isolation. So our schools program is designed to tell people to tell young 15 year olds what trade unions are so that at least when they go out they'll say, yeah, I do know what a trade union is. And to explain to them that we want to be relevant. And we have a youth committee, we have our national committees, our regional committee, so that young people can tell us what they want, what are their issues, how can we become more relevant. And of course, social media. I mean, it blows my mind. I can just about switch a computer on and there's people in this room who tell you I can't even do that. But I mean, it does blow my mind and it changes from week to week. Now, fortunately in my union I have people who do understand what it's all about. And we're developing a new E Comm strategy, which is supposed to be, they tell me, you know, the best in our movement. But it is also trying to work out how we can lock into social media so that we can engage in particular with young people and make them feel part of our family.
- [74:26]
A
Okay, well, I think we've just got time for sort of rapid fire questions and rapid fire answers. Just one more round. So can I have this woman here and then the man at the very back and this gentleman here with the pad. But if you could make them all quick. We need to make it a bit quicker.
- [74:47]
D
Hi, I just want to ask.
- [74:49]
A
Sorry, who are you again?
- [74:50]
D
Hi, my name is Mendora Bogbo. I'm a social entrepreneur. Basically, what I wanted to ask was what the union is doing in terms of trying to promote working class candidates. I'm 43 years of age, I'm working class, set up a business in my front room in Peckham. I now train parliamentary staff about casework. I'm politically active, but I'm banging my head on the brick wall trying to get through. Not because I'm not scared, skilled or qualified, but because there is an elite that runs this country, that also runs the media, that trains up their people, that do the PPE at Oxford, that gets them firmed up and gets them into Parliament. When they get into Parliament, they do not articulate policy decisions that actually represent the mass majority of people because they haven't experienced poverty, they haven't had any experience of social mobility. All we have now, as an organized unit, as a working class person, with which I still class myself as being, are the trade unions. So my question to you is, back in the day we had Ruskin College. What is available for people like me who are agitated, annoyed and want to change things? What is available in terms of unions? You need to train us because Progress, the right within the Labour Party is training, they are training middle class, unaffected, entitled candidates who get into Parliament and do nothing. They do not change society. And we need the unions to be a bit more savvy on identifying and training up working class candidates who are confident enough to stand in Parliament and to push through policies that will actually bring about social change.
- [76:28]
A
Okay, thank you.
- [76:36]
D
Hi, thanks very much. I'm Lucy. I'm a UNITE member and I work for the not for profit sector. And my question is, is really about the rhetoric in terms of. I've been following some of the stuff recently with Amnesty International and Amnesty uk and my organisation is a bit similar in terms of knowing and saying the right things. In terms of rights and rights for workers around the world, even as well as in our own backyard. But then when it comes to implementing workplace policies here in London, it's not the same. We're not walking the talk. And so we have a bit of an uphill battle as the union within a human rights, outward facing organization, organisation, to try and make sure it's harmonised, if that makes sense. I just wondered, Len, if you have any suggestions or a tip for what we could do better in terms of internally within our workplace.
- [77:20]
B
All right.
- [77:21]
E
And lastly, this gentleman, yes, Steve Ballard, come from Haringey, by the way. Unite member. And we're seeing Haringey closing down youth clubs, of all places. The Labour Council is closing our youth clubs in Haringey. And indeed, my question is really about the Labour Party, because I can't square why you think that you should be so on board with the Labour Party rather than actually challenging it and saying, we will only give you the money if you commit to certain policies. I agree. The defence, the scrapping of the trade union laws would be a good start. But I do need to take you back. Social democracy starts from the assumption that somehow you're dealing with reasonable people. The people that we're dealing with learnt their trade, you know, by inflicting inhumanity on the rest of the colonies, and they're doing it now still throughout the rest of the world through imperialism. There was this whole banking arrangement whereby basically the imperialist controlled banks say, you all owe us money. Now, unless we have a trade union member or somebody says, hang on, it's our money, why don't we hang onto our money and start organizing our own affairs? And that's the last thing that, sorry, the Labour government, sorry, the Labour Party in its current form is ever likely to do. In other words, the bit that worries me is by pursuing your uncritical support for the Labour Party and not presenting the opportunity to say, but we want a different way of carrying on. Thanks for listening.
- [78:54]
A
Okay, now, the questions have been. The questions have been a little longer than I anticipated. So unfortunately, it falls to you to have one minute answers to each of them.
- [79:05]
B
We've still got ten minutes, haven't we, Ron?
- [79:07]
A
Sort of five. Two.
- [79:08]
B
Okay. Trying to stick me to one minute. It's almost impossible. Of course, we challenge the Labour Party when we're far from uncritical. Let me make something clear. The only money we give to the Labour Party are our affiliation fees, our membership fees. Can't be a member of an organization unless you pay your membership fees. So it isn't a question about, well, we should hold our money back. If we held our money back, we wouldn't be members of the Labour Party. So the only money. And I made it crystal clear to Ed Miliband and the Labour Party when I became General Secretary that previous general secretaries who'd given additional donations to the Labour Party, that wasn't going to happen with me. There was no blank checks. And the only time I would give additional money to the Labour Party is when they started to demonstrate that they were responding to our criticisms. Our internal criticisms and our public criticisms of the Labour Party have been very strong. But here's the truth of the matter. The Labour Party at the moment, in my opinion, is the only game in town. It's the political party that working people actually identify with. Millions have left it because they feel, they feel disillusioned. But millions and millions of ordinary working people still identify with the Labour Party. I believe we have a historic role to make certain that we try and win our party back for our class. But it's not without criticism. It's not without criticism and it's certainly no blank check. So there's an issue there you read in the papers, oh, Unite gave, you know, £6 million in the last few years. That's our membership feature, nothing else. So we are very critical and we're clear that where we are coming from, the sister at the top who made a fabulous contribution, I agree with you 100% about what progress are doing. Right wing Blairite with huge amounts of money who are training up their people to be prospective candidates, we're trying to do the same. I don't know that my political director is in the audience today, but we are definitely putting together our courses and certainly my education director, Jim Mowat is up in the gallery there and he will tell you of the type of educational programs we're putting together to advance and give confidence to our candidates and the system that we're doing now. We're coming from a long way behind, but already we are having success. And of course the success also stems from the fact that if we've got more of our people, actually members of the Labour Party and know that Unite and other unions, we work very closely with our sister unions in Unison and the GMB and the CWU where we work closely with each other and if we get our rank and file activists involved in local Labour parties who know that there's a clear objective, then it's important and it's more likely that they will then choose the type of candidates that have Our values. And so we are working on that. And if you'd like to. Yeah, of course we have, because progress is very. I know. And we've got. I know. We know exactly what progress we're up to and we've got to be as clever as them. And so we're working on that. And just very quickly, Lucy, would you credit this. You've asked me a question about Amnesty International and that. And isn't this fortunate. I visited the international secretariat of Amnesty International today at lunchtime because there is an issue, fantastic organization doing a wonderful, wonderful job that all of us find inspiring. And yet it has management and senior leaders, Secretary General, that have got no idea of how to give respect and dignity to the workforce that actually are Amnesty International. Amnesty International are a fantastic organization because of the workers who work for us. And yet those workers are currently not being shown the type of respect and dignity that the organisation stands for. I've spoken today about things that we should be doing. There's a whole list of things, some very innovative things, I won't say public, in case it gets back to the management's ears, but I can assure you of one thing, that UNITE will be supporting our membership in Amnesty International 100%. And having met a significant number of them today, I'm very, very confident that we will be successful and justice will prevail.
- [83:48]
A
Well, thank you very, very much indeed. I mean, I think it's fair to say we live in plastic times and there's little doubt that powerful social organisations are a prerequisite for making any progressive change possible during these times. And I'm grateful to Len McCluskey for his thoughtful contribution today. I think it's marked by a strong awareness of the history of the labor movement and at the same time, alert to the contemporary changes that people face, and especially, I think, to the potential for. For a powerful alliance between labor and other radical groups. So could you join me now, in conclusion, in thanking Lyn McCluskey?