After eight years in office, it is not so much Tony Blair's insistence that his "historic third term" will be "unremittingly New Labour" that is surprising, but the unremittingly feeble response from the trade union leaders who have again been kicked in the teeth. They obediently and loyally pay the piper, but show no real inclination to call the tune.
Take UNISON for examDIe uc country's largest union, which committed itself LETOULOUL Blair's second term to campaigning ог a tara term, dcspite d suc cession of policy clashes on a wide range of issues at home and abroad, from the war in Iraq and the government's war on retugees and asylum seekers, Foundation Hospitals, PFI, the attack on public sector pensions, the use of private sector providers in the NHS, and much, much LIULC.
Instead UNISON boss Dave Prentis gamely clung on To a Tew soreds or concessions - the minimum wage, pledges on the two-tier workforce, the "Warwick agreement", and the last-ditch climbdown by Blair which averted a massive public sector strike over pensions on March 23.
And, arguing that the key issue was to keep out the Tories', rather than promote its own political agenda to reflect the interests of union members, UNISON ignored the misgivings of many of its rank and file members, and pumped an unconditional £1 million into New Labour's
UNISON officials around the country were scrambled in battle formation to make up the depleted numbers of local Labour campaigners after Bomber Blair's war policy and anti-union stance had cheesed off thousands of party activists.
What did they in return? A third term Labour government with a majority of 67, secured with just 22 percent of the electorate, and 36 percent of those voting -but showing that Blair has learned nothing, heard nothing and forgotten nothing of his neoliberal policies during the election.
But instead of angrily demanding UNISON's money back, while voices from the Labour left and the backbenches immediately called for Blair to move aside and open up a leadership election, Prentis denounce any suggestion of a change.
The Queen's Speech containing 45 bills, sets out an agenda offering little or nothing to the trade unions - but Inreatening rurner privausd tion in education, and attacks on benefits for people with disabilities, and on housing DenenT
Here, too, the unions have been strangely silent: if only this reflected a period of intense preparation for a igntbackınme montas ahead.
A new Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was appointed, and within hours of taking office unveiled plans to double the numbers of NHS-funded operations to be purchased from the private sector.
UNISON duly went through the WOLLOUS of attacking the proposal, but made it quite clear that the If we are not to endure another five years even Harder Labour, a fightback has to begin in the trade unions as well as on the electoral arena. union will maintain its policy of doing nothing more than talk, taking no action to challenge the growing privatisation of our most popular public service.
We can point to Blair as the driving force of New Labour: but to explain the terrible quiescence of a labour movement that has sat back and watched as each attack has been pressed through, the finger must point fairly and squarely at union leaders like Prentis, and many more who have not even gone through the motions of opposing the "modernisation" offensive.
The exception that proves the rule was the threatened public sector strike in defence of pension rights, in which the unions gave a lead, secured solid support, and forced a climbdown by government. The BBC strikers, too, showed that a firm lead can unite broad sections of the workforce and force a change.
By contrast the wave of job losses and plant closures in the private sector seem to underline the fact that the manufacturing and service sector unions have offered no fighting perspective whatever.
If we are not to endure another five years even Harder Labour, a fightback has to begin in the trade unions as well as on the electoral arena. We need action on the ground as well as at the ballot box to build a real alternative.
Respect has emerged most effectively an electoral challenge where it has been able to tap in to the dynamics of the most deprived and radicalised sections of the local community, and the energy of the anti-war movement: the task ahead is to find ways of reaching new layers of union activists who agree with us that it is high time Blair was confronted on each and every one of New Labour's attacks.
got SOme Respect in the unions! Andrew Wiard