Wither the TUC

Image By Source, Fair use

Most people failed to notice that the Trade Union Congress held it's annual conference last week. Even fewer probably cared even in the minds of the members of it's constituent unions.  Yet there was a time when the TUC actually meant something. I grew up in the years of Len Murray, the Social Contract and became politically active in the seventies when the unions helped bring down a Labour government and unwittingly laid the foundations for the backlash that led to what became known as "Thatcherism".

Even then the NUM under King Arthur managed to keep the unions marching on until their inevitable defeat after failing to ballot it's members over a strike and dividing their united ranks forever.

Fast forward today and the TUC is a much smaller, much less influential body despite the largest union, UNITE under the leadership of Len McCluskey remains a key player in the eternal machinations of the Labour Party.

The New Statesman decided to look at what the brothers had to say about Brexit and were not impressed:

It starts out well enough, with a perfectly coherent statement about the TUC’s opposition to a no-deal Brexit. But it quickly collapses into a mishmash of incoherent paragraphs, in which a cogent and clear position becomes increasingly hard to make out. It reads as if every trades union involved has agreed to compromise by each writing a different clause of each sentence – and the result is a statement that leaves the reader none the wiser as to what the TUC wants to happen instead of no-deal Brexit.

In other words the divisions with the TUC reflect that in wider society and it should be noted their leaders know a high percentage of their members voted to leave the EU. A fudge is all they could manage despite the bluster spouted at the podium all week.

It's unlikely that most trade union members will ever read the full statement issued by their collective representatives let alone care. For most people the unions have become an insurance policy against bad management and only call on their services when (or if) they get into trouble. Even the most radical of unions, the PCS has spent more time on inane internal power battles over who hold which comrade holds which plum well paid post in the hierarchy.

Meanwhile the comrades have decided that despite everything that's going on in this country and the threats to it's members it's going to up the campaign to boycott the world's sole Jewish state. And the comrades wonder why the Labour Party and  the left are seen as a source of racism against Jews these days.

The comrades do not recognise Jews as an oppressed group. If you read the memes shared by many so-called lefties you'll be left in no doubt as the their "Strasserite" streak. The TUC ceased representing it's members like so many of it's constituent unions in the form of UNITE and PCS. Political posturing and ideological warfare before members needs.

Sad but true. No wonder the TUC is withering away.