wsws.org
How did Ward, Furey and the CWU Postal Executive get away
with imposing their hated pro-company agreement against Royal Mail workers?
This question cannot be answered outside of the role played by "pseudo-left"
groups who posed as workers friends, but who protected the bureaucracy from a
rank-and-file rebellion. This is an an Important article.
One month has passed since the Communication Workers Union
(CWU) led by Dave Ward and Andy Furey succeeded in pushing through their
pro-company “Business Recovery, Growth and Transformation Agreement” in a
ballot whose results were announced July 11.
The impact of the CWU’s agreement is already being felt by
tens of thousands of Royal Mail workers: punitive new attendance procedures and
reduced sick pay; the shuttering of parcel collection offices; cuts to indoor
sorting time forcing delivery workers to pound the streets for longer with
impossible workloads; unknown numbers earmarked for redeployment and redundancy
as automated super hubs come into operation.
Ward and Furey are despised figures among militant postal
workers. Thousands have resigned from the union, while discussions are underway
at delivery offices and mail centres on the lessons of the year-long dispute.
The struggle at Royal Mail has exposed the unbridgeable gulf
between the privileged bureaucracy serving as an arm of corporate management,
and the membership.
Rank-and-file opposition erupted —just four months into the
dispute—after the CWU’s cancellation of strikes following legal threats from
the company. Workers began denouncing Ward and Furey, demanding action to
defeat the company’s aggressive “revisions” to terms and conditions. But the
CWU stared this down, entering talks at conciliation service ACAS and allowing
the company to impose its workplace agenda through bullying and coercion.
From October through March, the World Socialist Web
Site’s coverage of
the dispute won a growing audience among Royal Mail workers. Its exposure of
the CWU’s pro-company agenda chimed with the sentiments of thousands of workers
who were determined to fight.
This led to the formation of the Postal Workers
Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) on April 2, 2023. The committee advocated a
path of independent struggle against the CWU bureaucracy. Affiliated to the
International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), it forged
links with postal workers in Belgium, Germany, Australia and the United States.
The committee’s statements circulated widely at Royal Mail, especially after
the CWU’s pro-company agreement was published in April.
Between April and June, the CWU bureaucracy was plunged into
crisis, terrified that workers’ anger would coalesce into organised mass
resistance, breaking its stranglehold over the dispute.
The rank-and-file committee won a sympathetic hearing among
postal workers, but Ward and Furey maintained control and were able to ram
through the company’s attacks. Their ability to do so was made possible by
Britain’s pseudo-left organisations. Groups such as the Socialist Workers
Party, Socialist Party and Workers Power intervened throughout the dispute to
promote illusions that the CWU bureaucracy could be pressured to fight for
workers’ interests, concealing its fundamental role as an arm of corporate
management and the state.
These groups, representing sections of the upper middle
class including those with lucrative positions in the apparatus of the trade
unions, formed the “left” flank of efforts by the Stalinist Morning
Star, the pro-Corbyn Canary and newly formed campaign
group Enough
is Enough to protect the labour and trade union bureaucracy from a
rank-and-file insurgency, block the fight for socialism and channel workers
behind a future Labour government.
Dave Ward’s political backers
In April, Ward addressed an online meeting of CWU reps,
attacking “extreme political groups who sometimes look to infiltrate trade
unions” and who have “no interest in you and the future of this company”.
Acknowledging widespread opposition to the CWU’s pro-company agreement, he
declared, “What I don’t accept is that they [political groups] should
over-influence our members in this particular dispute.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with Dave Ward (right),
General Secretary of the CWU, August 1, 2016. [Photo by Anthony Devlin, PA
Images / Alamy Stock Photo]
Ward’s attack was a pathetic attempt to whip-up prejudices
against socialism and Marxism while he and the CWU sought to “over-influence”
workers on behalf of Royal Mail shareholders. In his 1998 essay, “Why are trade
unions hostile to socialism?”, David North reviewed the historical
development of trade unions from the mid-19th century, showing their universal
tendency to suppress the class struggle, which finds its most conscious
expression in the union bureaucracy’s hostility to socialism: “Standing on the
basis of capitalist production relations, the trade unions are, by their very
nature, compelled to adopt a hostile attitude toward the class struggle.
Directing their efforts toward securing agreements with employers that fix the
price of labor-power and determine the general conditions in which
surplus-value will be pumped out of the workers, the trade unions are obligated
to guarantee that their members supply their labor-power in accordance with the
terms of the negotiated contracts. As Gramsci noted, ‘The union represents
legality, and must aim to make its members respect that legality.’ The defense
of legality means the suppression of the class struggle.”
While Ward and the bureaucracy repeatedly attacked the
WSWS, they promoted the Labour Party and its right-wing politics. Labour MP
Darren Jones was invited by the CWU to its national briefing of reps on April
21, presented as the saviour of postal workers and given a standing ovation.
Jones publicly supported the CWU’s surrender document.
The Socialist Workers Party are expert at providing tame
“left-wing” criticisms of the labour and trade union bureaucracy, while serving
to politically block any independent movement of the working class.
The SWP’s long-established theory of the trade unions is one
that justifies the bureaucracy’s domination over the working class. According
to the SWP, “the bureaucracy play a contradictory role within capitalism. On
the one hand, their role is to fight for the interests of workers. On the
other, their function is to resolve the tensions between workers and bosses…
But it is more complex than simply saying that trade union leaders’ role and
experience mean that they will always mechanically sell out”. This is because,
“Even only at the level of the bureaucracy, there is a range of different
pressures interacting and shaping the development of any dispute… The
combination of these pressures in particular moments in a dispute can tip the
balance in one direction. The dynamic is not black and white.”
The “dynamic” being described is that of the SWP’s slavish
defence of the bureaucracy. This was on full display at Royal Mail. While the
Socialist Equality Party and the WSWS called for the formation of rank-and-file
committees to draw up strike demands and seize control of the dispute from the
CWU bureaucracy, the SWP disarmed postal workers in the face of an impending
betrayal. Less than three weeks before the CWU unveiled its pro-company
agreement, it posted an article, “CWU union leaders could call new Royal Mail
strikes,” urging them to launch “hard hitting action to bring Thompson and the
board to their knees.”
Socialist Worker March 24 article, "CWU union leaders
could call new Royal Mail strikes" [Photo: screenshot: socialist
worker]
The CWU bureaucracy were then deep in talks with Royal Mail
at ACAS, facilitated by former Trades Union Congress president Sir Brendan
Barber, aimed at retaining their long-standing partnership with the company.
Its only disagreement with workplace revisions was that they were being
implemented unilaterally, instead of via agreement with CWU national officials.
After the negotiators’ agreement was published, the SWP
adapted to workers’ angry denunciations of Ward and Furey. An April 21 article,
“It will take organisation to stop this deal”, presented the fight entirely in
organisational terms, urging only that “Workers should vote to reject the deal
when it is put to a ballot—and demand more, harder-hitting strikes
immediately.” But who was going to organise such strikes? The SWP’s suggestion
that a “No” vote would pressure the bureaucracy to escalate the struggle was
pure fantasy. Most workers who later voted for the agreement did so because
they recognised a “no” vote by itself would not defeat the surrender document
under conditions where the CWU executive was already implementing the company’s
savage assault.
Spooked by the prominence of the WSWS and the Postal Workers
Rank-and-File Committee, the SWP rushed to promote a series of bogus
“rank-and-file” initiatives, including Postal Workers Say Vote No, NHS Workers
Say Vote No and Strike Map. These united the SWP with sections of the trade
union bureaucracy, Corbynites and other pseudo-left groups such as Counterfire
and Workers Power to direct rank-and-file opposition back behind the
bureaucracy.
On April 25, the Socialist Worker reported
one such event, “Build the strikes, link the fights, reject bad deals”. It
cited a key participant from the National Education Union (NEU) who explained
the group’s purpose was to “push trade union leaders to move forward”. The SWP
urged support for a model resolution by Strike Map’s steering group (aligned
politically to Corbyn) calling on the “leading bodies” of the NEU, Royal
College of Nursing, and British Medical Association to “coordinate future
strike dates” and “force action from the government”. The unions’ “leading
bodies” took no notice of such appeals. Both the NEU and RCN cancelled
industrial action to ram through below-inflation pay deals negotiated with the
Sunak government.
Workers Power
Workers Power, a splinter group from the SWP buried in the
Labour Party, played a critical role for the CWU bureaucracy in heading off a
genuine rank-and-file rebellion.
On April 21, Workers Power member Andy Young, a CWU rep from
Leeds sacked during the dispute, wrote to the Postal Workers Rank-and-File
Committee (PWRFC) asking to join. He was invited to attend its Zoom meeting on
April 23, where he opposed the committee’s formation, claiming it was
“premature”. He then voted to abstain on the committee’s resolution adopted by
postal workers in attendance, “Organise to
defeat CWU-Royal Mail agreement: Vote NO! Reinstate all victimised workers!
Build the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee!”
The next day, Young set up “Postal Workers Say Vote No”, a
Facebook group which attracted hundreds of postal workers based on its
purported opposition to the CWU’s surrender document.
On May 3, Young wrote again to the PWRFC, asking it to
support the “no” campaign initiated by Workers Power, including financial help
to distribute a “model motion” drafted for CWU branches. The model motion
typified the two-faced character of Young’s group. It began with the claim
that, “The Business, Recovery, Growth and Transformation Agreement has blocked
a few of the worst policies Royal Mail tried to impose on workers and our
union, but it has conceded on others and is a big step back in terms of pay,
terms and conditions, and guarantees.”
The PWRFC replied to Young:
“Your opposition to the Postal Workers Rank-and-File
Committee reflects your defence of the bureaucracy. That is why you refused to
endorse the committee’s resolution. You cited at our meeting the 2007 ‘vote no’
initiative by you and other activists as a model for the ‘open campaign’ you
are proposing—based on its endorsement by a lone member of CWU’s postal
executive which supposedly ‘allowed us to launch it on a much larger scale’.
This is a rebellion on one’s knees. It ended in defeat and blocked a genuine
fight by postal workers.
“Your real aim is an alliance with a faction of the
bureaucracy against the workers. At our meeting, you stated that a ‘no’ campaign
must be based on a ‘united front’ with workers, reps and CWU ‘officials that
want to reject the deal, as long as they put no conditions on that’. But where
are these phantom officials? You have invented an opposition from CWU officials
so that you can rule out a struggle against this bureaucracy.
“The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee is open to all
workers who want to defeat the CWU’s sell-out deal. We will not allow the
committee’s freedom of action to be compromised by the types of alliances and
backroom manoeuvres that typify the efforts of your Workers Power group, the
SWP and similar outfits that function as ‘left’ advisors to the trade union
bureaucracy.”
Statement by Postal Workers Say No, July 27, 2023. [Photo:
Screenshot]
Workers Power used the Postal Workers Say Vote No group to
promote fruitless appeals to the CWU national officials and reps who were busy
enforcing Royal Mail’s dictates. After the CWU pushed through its sellout deal,
the group announced a name change to Postal Workers Say No (PWSN), explaining
their aims as follows: “We are not a genuine rank and file network much less
movement yet, but aim to build for one”.
This “aim” cannot even be regarded as aspirational. PWSN’s
July 27 statement outlined the group’s support for the bureaucracy in
unmistakeable terms: “We will support all positive efforts by the union leaders
eg [sic] organising drives to rebuild membership, but oppose them whenever they
fail to defend workers interests or move against them.”
It stated that PWSN would also, “Expose backsliding from the
deal” [!] adding, “We can critically support opposition candidates that gain
members’ support by promising a more fighting policy (even if they called for a
yes vote).”
Conclusion
The 2022-23 Royal Mail dispute was part of a developing wave
of class struggle across the UK and worldwide driven by the deepest
cost-of-living crisis in decades. Workers set out to defeat savage demands for
corporate restructuring by shareholders and investors dictated by the
capitalist market. All over the world, the working class is coming into head-on
conflict with the bureaucracy of the trade unions, which have transformed over
the past four decades from defensive organisations of the working class into
arms of corporate management and the state.
The growth of corporatism in the trade unions was analysed
by Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian Revolution and founder of the Fourth
International, more than 80 years ago. He wrote: “There is one common feature
in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade union
organizations in the entire world: it is their drawing closely to and growing
together with the state power.” He explained, “Monopoly capitalism is less and
less willing to reconcile itself to the independence of the trade unions. It
demands of the reformist bureaucracy and the labour aristocracy who pick the
crumbs from its banquet table, that they become transformed into its political
police before the eyes of the working class.”
Corporatism has since become fully entrenched in the trade
unions of all countries; a process accelerated over the past four decades by
the globalisation of capitalist production. Digital communications technology
has enabled the capitalist class to scour the globe, locate production wherever
labour costs are lowest and integrate the production process across national
borders. The nationally based trade union and labour bureaucracies, defending
capitalism as the source of their privileges, have responded by repudiating
their old reformist programs, insisting that workers must accept the destruction
of their wages, conditions and living standards so that the corporations can be
“globally competitive.” Hence the CWU’s demand that postal workers “sacrifice”
to save Royal Mail from bankruptcy, i.e., protect shareholder profit. No matter
how much workers give up today, it will never be enough, as “the market”
demands an increased return on investment each year. Failure to deliver is
punished in the form of credit downgrades and the withdrawal of funds as
billionaires like Daniel Kretinsky move vulture-like to find new sources of
profit.
These facts of modern-day capitalism dictate the political
tasks before the working class, showing the necessity for an international
socialist strategy. The overthrow of the capitalist oligarchy and the
reorganisation of global economy to meet human need not private profit is posed
as an urgent task.
The determined, year-long battle at Royal Mail has provided
an object lesson in the pro-capitalist politics of the pseudo-left. The SWP, SP
and Workers Power emerged historically from petty-bourgeois tendencies which
broke from Trotskyism and the Fourth International in the post-World War II
period. Adapting themselves to the temporary stabilisation of capitalism, they
rejected the struggle to build an international revolutionary party of the
working class. All that could be accomplished, they insisted, was to place
pressure in the existing Stalinist and reformist leaderships to fight for
reforms, through strikes and other forms of protest.
The restoration of capitalism by the Stalinist bureaucracy
in the former Soviet Union, the abandonment of reformism by the Labour Party
and their naked embrace of capitalism, and the corporatist degeneration of the
trade unions has blown this perspective apart. It has seen the pseudo-left tendencies
lurch ever further to the right in their role as the last line of defence for
the bureaucracy.
The PWRFC and the IWA-RFC provides the vehicle for
organizing the struggles of the working class and the political strategy this
demands:
1) Complete independence from the trade
union bureaucracy and the Labour Party. Not the futile perspective of
stiffening the spine of Ward and company, but the building of an insurgent
movement of the rank-and-file to break their stranglehold and drive them from
office.
2) For an international struggle by the
working class against the common enemy. Instead of a fratricidal contest over
who will sacrifice most in the interest of the corporations and shareholders,
unity with all workers throughout the UK and internationally who are fighting
in defence of their jobs, wages and conditions.
To take this fight forward means building a new socialist
leadership in the working class. This is the most important lesson from the
struggle at Royal Mail.
Royal Mail workers confronted a political struggle from the start against a Tory government rushing through essential services legislation to break the strike and a Labour opposition whose leader Sir Keir Starmer threatened to sack any shadow cabinet MP who visited a picket line. Their vicious response to the strike was part of efforts to suppress a growing strike wave they feared could bring down the government, jeopardising NATO’s proxy-war in Ukraine against Russia. In October, with Truss’s premiership in meltdown, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was summoned to the White House for urgent discussions that were later described as “beyond belief”.
If thousands of Royal Mail workers were blindsided by Ward’s
betrayal of the strike, this was above all the responsibility of the Socialist
Party, SWP and similar petty-bourgeois groups which built him up for years as a
“left”. After Ward became general secretary in 2015, defeating incumbent Billy
Hayes, the SP urged delegates to the CWU’s conference to “let Ward know they
expect him to deliver on the more assertive stance that his election campaign
indicated.” Despite Ward having worked with Hayes to ensure smooth passage of
Royal Mail’s privatisation in 2013, the SP wrote, “Socialists in the union
should demand that Dave Ward campaigns on the union’s progressive policies and
gives members and reps the confidence to stand up to management.”
The backing of Ward by Britain’s pseudo-left was
consolidated through their joint support for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who
spent his five years in power suppressing the class struggle and capitulating
to the Blairites on every front.
In 2016, SWP National Secretary Charlie Kimber interviewed
Ward in Socialist Worker under the headline, “CWU leader Dave
Ward says, ‘We need a strategy to beat the Tories’”. Kimber gushed, “Like us,
you’ve been enthusiastic about Jeremy Corbyn’s election”. Ward responded by
saying Labour had to be “prepared to say it will shift wealth to workers.” But
he cautioned, “we have to be patient. If Corbyn is elected saying he will
renationalise three industries and he manages one, that’s still an improvement,
still a success.” Kimber then politely alluded to “the difficulties Corbyn is
facing over an issue like Trident,” i.e., the Parliamentary Labour Party’s
insistence that Trident nuclear weapons would remain Labour policy. Ward
replied, “I think saying we’re all against nuclear weapons is the wrong
starting point.” Ward’s de facto endorsement of nuclear weapons passed without
comment by the SWP. Corbyn retained support for Trident—alongside NATO—in
Labour’s election manifesto.
Socialist Party
Aside from the Morning Star, published by the
Stalinist Communist Party of Britain, the most naked defender of Ward and Furey
during the dispute was the Socialist Party. With thousands of postal workers
denouncing the CWU’s surrender document, the SP was plunged into crisis. It was
a full five days before the SP could bring itself to comment on one of the most
savage betrayals by the union bureaucracy in recent history.
On April 26, a statement by “Socialist Party members in the
CWU” appeared in The Socialist. It claimed the negotiators’
agreement had “forced Royal Mail back on a number of issues”, before noting
regretfully that this was “not enough” and calling for a “no” vote by members.
The SP claimed the agreement was the outcome of “anti-trade union management,
hell-bent on smashing our union”. This was a political cover for the CWU
national executive, which co-authored the agreement with Royal Mail’s board.
The SP portrayed the bureaucracy’s actions as a “mistake” which could be
rectified through friendly advice: “The CWU leadership was unprepared for the
type of battle this has turned into… The union’s leadership should have
prepared, through discussion at all levels of the union, for escalating
action.”
While the CWU executive was being denounced by workers as
company stooges, the SP was calling on the executive to fight for Royal Mail’s
renationalisation, “particularly when CEO Simon Thompson and co threatened
administration.” But it was Ward and Furey threatening financial “Armageddon”
against CWU members if they failed to endorse the union-company agreement. The
SP’s absurd appeals served definite political ends, subordinating the working
class to the Labour Party and to the Sunak government. It even suggested that
both Starmer and the Tories could be pressured to oppose Royal Mail’s attacks:
“The CWU leadership should have demanded that Keir Starmer publicly commit to
the policy passed at last autumn’s Labour Party conference, of taking Royal
Mail back into public ownership. That could have put real pressure on Sunak’s
Tory government who have backed Royal Mail bosses.”
