"Fat Cats"? Hardly - more like stalking lions

I’m getting a little tired of the current trend amongst bloggers to go union bashing and in particular to attack the supposedly huge salaries their leaders earn. They do a superb job and, unlike those who write in the blogosphere, they were elected to the post and only stay there if they receive sufficient approval from their members.

It is true many of them do receive substantial incomes for their services. Bob Crow is reputed to earn over £133,000 per annum, but this is not exceptional for a union leader. Dave Prentis of Unison earns over £127,000, whilst the leader of USDAW earns about £105,000.

Compare this with the average earnings of a chief executive of a large company and it rather contextualises it. At a political level, a Minister of State earns substantially more and the director general of the BBC earns 4 times as much as the average union leader.

Even many executives working for local councils earn as much, if not more than the average union leader. The difference is that union leaders must face re-election and if the members are unhappy with their leader they can call for their resignation. Far from giving themselves “huge” salaries, these figures are agreed and ratified by the membership.

Noticeably, most of these criticisms are coming from the political right, who seem to be far les vocal about the salary earned by Boris Johnson last year - £143, 911. Nor did they starting screaming “fat cat” when Andrew Pierce, the Tory party chairman was awarded £120,000 a year.

The same bloggers who attack Bob Crow were far less angry about the £475,000 awarded to Andy Coulson whilst he was Director of Communications at Number 10.

Given this, one has to ask why bloggers like Guido Fawkes are so enthusiastic in their condemnation of union leaders. The answer is simple – they are scared. Until recently, the government were largely having things all their own way. Then last Saturday things changed. Suddenly, Cameron was being held to account and found to be failing.

In an interview with the BBC, Vince Cable arrogantly stated the government would not be thrown off course because of the demonstration. Fair enough – now we know where we stand with the Lib Dems – as if we didn’t know before. If Clegg and Cable want to tie themselves to the Tory banner, the left are quite happy to take them on too.

What we saw last Saturday was only the beginning and those union leaders that the right enjoy condemning will be at the heart of a campaign to oppose every aspect of Tory cuts. Over the coming months Cameron can look forward to opposition at a level that hasn’t been seen since the days of Maggie – in fact, he has helped achieve something that his predecessor helped to destroy – he has reunified the left.

Now Labour party members are standing shoulder to shoulder with trade unionists, Socialist party, SWP, Communist and Respect party members in unified opposition to what Cameron is trying to achieve.

Bloggers grumbling about union salaries will not be enough to stop us. Indeed, I was once told when I was much younger that sarcasm is the lowest kind of wit and their attempts to ridicule our union leaders are a perfect example of how true the statement remains.

My message to those bloggers is simple – carry on with your griping if you will, but you will not stop us. We will strike, we will march and we will occupy premises. Soon the government will see they cannot subjugate an entire country. Those who oppose Cameron will be watching to see those who are our friends and those who are not.

When I was a young man, we used to march against Maggie and in those days we would shout a very simple slogan. Twenty years on and it remains as relevant today as it was then:

The Workers united will never be defeated.

Are the left so 'loony'? - A response to Guido Fawkes

In an attempt to be controversial, but more likely done to retain his readership, Guido Fawkes has condemned the suggestion by Bob Crow that trade unionists and activists should engage in direct action to oppose this government (see http://order-order.com/ - “The Loony Left is back”).

In a rather feeble attempt at humour, he accuses Crow of calling for a general strike – an interesting idea, but what Bob was arguing for was something far more necessary – the engagement of all workers within the political system. Now surely, if Fawkes is the democrat he purports to be, he will not object to the politicisation of the masses?

Admittedly one of Crows’ suggestions did include the notion of general strikes, but realistically that cannot happen until the majority of working people have combined under the banners of the trade union movement. So Fawkes can at least relax over his blueberry muffin, the revolution isn’t going to start outside Woolworth’s at 3pm this afternoon!

Membership of trade unions was at its highest in the 1970s when it reached over half the workforce, but post-Thatcher this has declined to approximately 25%.
A number of reasons explain this level of apathy/ disenchantment:

• There has been a general decline in manufacturing industry in the UK. Most union organisers would agree that trade union activity is often easier in factories where there are large numbers of people on one site compared to retailing. In any one store there may be relatively few staff – a factor that has made arranging meetings of employees more difficult.
• Over the last thirty years there has been an increased trend by managers to deal with employees on an individual basis and move away from collective bargaining.
• Since Thatcher there has been an increased participation of women in the economy due, in part, to the growth of the service sector as well as the growth of part time and temporary employment opportunities; these are not traditionally strongly unionised sectors and unions have found it hard to recruit within them.
• Courtesy of Thatcher, legislation in the 1980s reduced union power.

So, if the working class are to ‘man the barricades’ as Fawkes fears, the first job will to be educate and inform them about the key issues. Some will be immediately obvious – rising unemployment, higher levels of poverty and increased homelessness. But what many will not recognise is the link between these scourges on our society and the actions of the Tories and their Liberal lapdogs.

Crow was right when he spoke to the RMT union congress and said, “We cannot sit back and wait while a generation is consigned to the scrap heap and made to pay the price for the mess left behind by the zombie capitalists who dragged the country over the cliff”. He may not like the term ‘zombie’ but what are they, if not a rabid, blood-sucking curse on modern society.

Perhaps Fawkes would prefer it if members of the left gather around in polite little circles, gently applauding the more moderate aspects of new policy emerging from the coalition. Maybe then he would not be so offended when David Miliband stands up and demands a 50% tax rate for the higher paid. Fawkes had better start facing facts – the ‘Loony’ left as he calls them not only are back, they never went away ... and now that the New Labour project is history we will continue to grow.

If this is the best Fawkes can do, he might find himself better suited amongst the Liberal Democrats.