starts from the presumption that the government and employers are people of goodwill who genuinely wish to achieve equal pay. In fact, the employers are dangling the carrot of equal pay in order to achieve their bargaining agenda on pay at minimal cost. SR: UNISON is due to ballot the membership to renew its political fund arrangements, which includes affiliation to the Labour Party. Is there a problem calling for a YES vote when the government has attacked public services, and is deeply unpopular over Iraq? What sort of political representation should Unison have? JR: The YES vote is a vote for political trade unionism, so socialists should have no difficulty with campaigning for this, whatever attitude we take to the Labour Party.
As a socialist and a Labour Party member, I would like to see UNISON working much more closely with the minority of socialists in the Parliamentary Labour Party -that's why I am involved with the Labour Representation Committee, which is trying to build across the unions, constituencies and with socialists in Parliament.
We should support those MPs who back us on the crucial questions defence of pensions, rather than pursuing the bankrupt and discredited approach of TULO (The Trade Union Labour Organisation) which wants to shovel cash and resources into marginal conUNISON stituencies whether the sitting MP is a good trade unionist or a Blairite clone.
I fully support democratising the political fund. I don't think it is acceptable that we are not allowed to even consider supporting candidates who are not in the Labour Party. Even as a Labour Party member, I think this is undemocratic.
The bottom line is that the trade unions need socialist political representation. would like that to be through the Labour Party, but if that becomes impossible - and I understand that some comrades, with whom I disagree, believe that it has - then we would still need socialist representation. SR: UNISON is now ten years old. Although it is the largest union with 1.3 million members, the average age of the membership is 47. This is a problem for the future of unions. What sort of strategies and policies should the union adopt to "rejuvenate" itself, recruit young workers and develop new stewards? JR: In fact our recruitment of young workers has begun to pick up quite significantly in the last couple of years. My experience is that young workers join trade unions for the same reasons that workers of all ages do.
The increased focus on recruitment and organization by the Union does seem to be paying some (limited) dividends, including amongst young workers.
There is another dimension to the "rejuvenation" of the trade union movement. The largest gathering of young UNISON members at an event supported by the union was on February 15 2003.
The mass movement against the war is one dimension of the anti-globalisation movement which has also found expression in the social forums. It is from this movement that I believe that the politics that will guide the trade unions in the twenty first century will emerge.