The Convention of the Trade Union Left, which has been initiated by the Socialist Alliance, on the theme of the crisis of trade union representation, has the potential to be an event of some importance in the trade union movement.
Already it has been sponsored by the London Region FBU and London Region UNISON. The conference will be different from the previous one on the political fund 15 months ago - which itself made an important impact on that debate in the unions. This conference has been initiatLed by the SA but is to be built around a wide base of sponsorship from trade union
organisations, which will give it
much stronger authority in
the debate. The plan is to
/take the debate head-on
around "reclaim Labour", and to invite the proponents of that proposal onto the platform to argue their position.
This debate is an important component of the Alliance's project of forming a broad socialist platform for the various elections next yea including the London Assembly and the European elections, both
of which take place in JUNE The need now is to campaign for sponsorsh at every level of the trad union movement. Download the letter of invi tation to trade union organ sations from www.socialistalliance.net, and take it to your nex union branch meeting!
page 4 of the scan
4 soclalistr Crisis of Blairism ance October 2003