I just heard recently about a break though in the left movement in Northern Ireland. There has been a coming together of a number of left groups and individuals to build a united front to take on the cuts of the Tory government. A similar break through has taken place in the South of Ireland. This brought back some memories. With this information and these memories here are a few thoughts I sent to my activist friends there. I am originally from Ireland.
Union and labor leaders cowardly bootlicking of the system and betrayal.
"Sisters and Brothers in Northern Ireland, since I have been working here in the past years I have been thinking of a few things. Why has there not been a more serious movement against the offensive of capitalism not only internationally but also in Ireland. Why have there not been movements which have been able to halt, throw back and defeat the capitalist offensive and open up an offensive of the working class in its place? I feel this is the most important question facing the working class and activist movement. I will make a few points here exclusively about Northern Ireland but the general points about the role of the union and labor leaders apply internationally.
The reason there have not been great successful movements that have defeated and thrown back the bosses and capitalism's offensive against working people is clear. It has been and is because the union and labor leaders have capitulated to this offensive, more than that, they are collaborating with this offensive. Seeing no alternative to capitalism they have decided resistance is useless, in fact worse than useless, it would in their opinion only bring chaos and even worse still, would threaten their privileges and power as new fighting forces would arise in the movement and threaten to push them aside. Yes there is no doubt. It is the union and labor leaders who are the main culprits for the working class movement being thrown back in the face by the capitalist offensive.
I believe we must never fail to point this out and to do so in a concrete way. By in a concrete way, I mean concretely building opposition caucuses in the unions, the workplaces, the neighborhoods, the mass political organizations where they exist, to organize and fight against these policies of the leaders which hold the workers movement down. We activists have to organize and build an alternative leadership. It is no good just complaining about the union leaders concrete organizational steps have to be taken against their policies and to build an alternative.
I am writing my second book at the moment. As some background I read the biography of Paisley, the Northern Ireland right wing religious sectarian bigot and thug. In the early sixties he had only a little runt of a church.
At that same time the union leaders had tens upon tens of thousands of members in the North, and around a million in Ireland over all. And these workers were organized and united across religious lines in workplaces, union locals, trades councils and with a full time apparatus.
But Paisley was not daunted. The right wing religious sectarian ranting thug went on the offensive. Basing himself on fear amongst sections of the middle class and working class, and with connections in the upper class and state apparatus to shield and help him he poured out his propaganda. His argument was that the civil rights movement would take away some of the marginal privileges of some of the Protestant workers and the more than marginal privileges of the Protestant middle and upper class. He also hammered away on the fear that the Catholic sectarian South would take over the Protestant sectarian North. On these most backward of emotions, fear and greed, he organized bunches of people and took to the streets to attack the civil rights movement. He also demanded that his followers shell out the cash to build his church and political party. And where did he end up? With a massive chain of churches and first minister in the Northern Irish government. With his backers in London he was basically running the show. And where are the union and labor leaders? The NILP no longer exists in any real way. The unions do but are afraid to open their mouthes.
I am sitting over here in Chicago, and I had to go outside there for a minute to spit on the ground as I think about the staggering cowardliness and betrayal of these union and labor leaders. There were many tens of thousands of workers, Protestant and Catholic, who would have taken a stand and opposed sectarianism at that time. In fact many actually did precisely that, going on to the streets to try and stop the sectarian violence and setting up workers committees to try and stop it in the workplaces.
If the union leaders had coordinated and led this through the unions, the union locals, the trades councils, the then existing and influential Northern Ireland Labor Party (NILP) branches and Young Socialists, linking it to the issues workers Protestant and Catholic, had in common, wages jobs, conditions etc, this could have been developed into the most powerful and vibrant force in the North. This movement could have determined events in the area. The catastrophe of the last forty years of war could have been avoided. Instead sectarianism ruled and decades of war developed, many youth and workers died. And for what?
But not only did these union and labor leaders do nothing to take on and defeat sectarianism. It was even worse. They promoted sectarianism in their own sneaky and not so sneaky way. Counting heads and seeing how many votes were here and how many there, and how many possible union dues here and how many there and then making their own dirty sectarian calculations. These people are shame and disgrace to the union and labor movement. they have forfeited all right to lead.
I remember the secretary of the NILP coming to Strabane where I had helped build a build a Labor Party branch and organized a meeting for him to speak. Up to a hundred turned up to hear him. When he was finished nobody could figure out what he had said. Including myself who had the misfortune to bring him. He asked me outside afterwards and all became clear. His party did not want this branch as the members were mostly from a Catholic background. His way of making sure this did not happen was by asking me to be the west of the Bann organizer for the NILP. But on one condition. I would have to openly oppose Bernadette Devlin the then Member of Parliament for the area who was a socialist. I suppose he thought that in spite of me being an atheist that because I was from a Protestant background and with the help of the male ego I would go along. No problem. He was badly mistaken.
It was another case of having to find someplace to spit. I was in the company of something that was unclean. He and the NILP had decided to go for the Protestant vote. To split the working class even more than it was already split. Where are they now these criminal f....s, these union and NILP leaders who at the very least went along with and in many cases promoted sectarianism? These people have blood on their hands. I can tell you where they are now. They are sitting in comfortable leafy suburbs with comfortable pensions, their golf clubs in the exercise room and tut tutting about how could people have been so stupid as to have taken part in all that sectarian violence over the years, or how they could vote for Paisley's Party or Sinn Fein. Feeling so superior. They had nothing to do with it of course.
Sean.
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