It
becomes sickening, to see the ordinary workers being attacked by
right-wing ideology, come out fighting with tremendous solidarity and
then be “sold-out” by the well paid union bosses. Time and time
again we have seen the workers come out prepared to fight for their
conditions and time and time again the union bosses have done a
“deal” where the workers get nothing or at most a pittance. This
latest “deal” over pensions means that the workers, who came out
in their hundreds of thousands on Nov 30 to show their resistance to
the government's pension plans, will now be forced to accept what the
government wanted in the first place. Pay more into your pension,
work longer to get it and end up with less. Unless of course the
workers ignore their unions, organise and continue the fight. The
grass roots are against this pension “deal” and it will be up to
them to continue the fight. They could take a few lessons from The Clyde Workers Committee and keep control of the situation by means of
grass roots organisation.
History tells us that the workers cannot
rely on the well paid union bosses when it looks like a real fight,
the union bosses have too much to lose, fat salaries and perks, which
no doubt will include a decent pension. When ever there is a ground
swell from the ordinary people the unions do the governments bidding,
they don't want to upset the apple cart. We can go back over the
history of the working class struggles and see the pattern. One of
the most galling examples of workers eager to continue the fight but
being “sold-out” by the union bosses was of course the 1926 General Strike. As far as the union bosses are concerned, it seems
that nothing has changed since then.
