Workers Charter: a New-New-Labour party?

Workers Charter had its founding conference in October. CWG members went along to offer some advice. Here is a report of how we saw it.

We stand by our critique of the Workers Charter (printed in Class Struggle 62) and its parent movement the World Social Forum (critiqued in Class Struggle 59). We wish to continue to engage in critical support of the Workers Charter (WC). Communist Workers Group does not wish to build another parliamentary-type of workers party and will criticise unreservedly any movement the WC makes in that direction. We are keen to support the building of a revolutionary party, unfortunately the origins of the WC indicate that it will mislead workers.

Members of Communist Workers Group decided to test the un-democratic (Stalinist) methods of Workers Charter, which had said they were going to exclude us (and ACA) from the conference.  We considered it important to challenge the internet noise of SWO / Unity, on NZ activism, in reality. (The Socialist Workers Organisation has renamed itself “Unity”, it was previously the Communist Party of New Zealand – a Stalinist group). Unity members were the gatekeepers on the front desk and did interview us on how critical we were going to be, to which we wished to maintain our rights to speak critically, while giving a positive direction for the workers movement. This could have gone either way, however, the appearance of democracy was maintained.

The meeting rules were set out from the start, we had to leave if we thought the Charter was useless. This does not allow for overall discussion of the weaknesses of the Charter. Unfortunately the Charter may be worse than useless, it may suck working people into a dead end road, which does not challenge capitalism. It is urgent to pose the question of how to avoid this Charter becoming a bureaucratic parliamentary vehicle for the likes of Matt McCarten.

The speakers to introduce the Charter were a SWO leader followed by Matt McCarten. It wasn’t what was said but what wasn’t, that is notable: I failed to get a clear understanding of what the purpose of the Charter was from either speaker, and neither made distinct their own politics from that of the charter, or declared their own intentions. No history of the Charter, or connection with the World Social Forum was declared.

It was a milestone for the writer to be allowed into a Unity dominated meeting, and to speak. Our opportunity for contribution was time limited. The writer put about 5 amendments or additions within 2 minutes speaking time. This limited my ability to argue for the amendments and additions that were put to the charter itself.

Many others raised their criticisms and suggested improvement to the Charter –which created a squeeze on time, with numbers of amendments and additions put. Many of these were put to vote and successfully added, for the next rounds of discussion. And have improved this minimal program of rights. Some amendments were left as contentious issues for further discussion. I will leave much of the detail of the Charter and its ongoing discussion for Workers Charter to run with, and discus a couple of additions we put to the conference.

We asked for the addition of the word capitalism to describe current social system. This charter was so minimal in its approach that it did not even include the word capitalism or describe capitalists as the ruling class. While the WC is appealing to workers, the level of class consciousness in its program is minimal. To fight for workers rights is to take on the capitalist system, unless the charter is clear about that, then it is likely to end up like the current Labour Party, negotiating with and ruling on behalf of the capitalist class.

This sort of vagueness about class leads to a Labour Party outright attacking workers, to maintain profits for the capitalist. The NZ Labour Party clearly did that in 1984 – 1990 when it cut services to workers (health, social welfare, education) and sold socially owned assets or restructured them into capitalist ‘for profit’ SOEs (State Owned Enterprises). A very current example of this was discussed at the conference. Air New Zealand has just announced its attack on workers of the Engineering services by its proposed redundancies and closing of a whole branch of service. Air NZ is part owned by the state. We argued that the WC needed include nationalising assets (even the Alliance Party program already includes this in their program). To re-nationalise Air NZ fully could then be used in order to maintain those jobs. Pressure needs to be applied to the current Labour Government by picket line defence of the engineering facilities. If this Labour government allows Air NZ engineers to be sold down the road, that is another betrayal of workers interests. Communist Workers Group is for the expropriation without compensation of Air New Zealand, to be run under workers control. It would take a working class pickets and engineering workers occupation of the engineering facilities to achieve this.

Interestingly ‘Unity’ / Socialist Workers voted against an addition we put up of “for socialist revolution”. To us this indicates they continue a Stalinist tradition of running with minimal programs and mass parties, while hiding their “revolutionary” beliefs until the ‘critical’ moment. Even the pre-Blairite British Labour Party had a clause for “socialism” (also known as clause 4). So this WC is in great danger of becoming just another parliamentary party, sucking workers into sell-outs and a dead-end.

Communist Workers Group fully support building a party on a rank & file trade union basis. We were successful arguing for rank & file run, democratic fighting unions, to be included as part of the charter. Only a strong rank & file driven union can avoid being sold out by bureaucratic deals between misleading paid officials and the employer or government. Those sort of sell outs are rife, for example where union officials just argue about how many redundancies, and how much redundancy pay. Officials can give false hope of stopping redundancies, when they are up against the capitalist system.

Organising workers into picket lines and strike committees is the localised strength of the workers movement. The extent that Workers Charter members can build a fight back around existing struggles, can organise workers in on-the-ground fight backs, will be the real test. It is heartening to hear that WC members have supported pickets of striking workers. However it is also frightening that the WC steering committee (leadership) could have left out basic trade union rights from its Charter.

Communist Workers Group looks forward to working with any activist or group committed to the overthrow of capitalism. And we will criticise any movement that is vague about that!


Chavez’ ‘21st century socialism’ not good enough for Workers Charter

From a discussion on Aotearoa Indymedia
 
Unity Reader defended the SW’s ‘turn to social democracy’ and the expulsion of the CWG from the Alliance in 1989 and its exclusion from Workers Charter. A member of CWG replied:

“Someone called Unity Reader says that the SWO is justified in taking a turn to social democracy because socialist revolution is not on the agenda in NZ right now.

. . .There has never been a revolutionary situation in NZ in the nearly two centuries of its capitalist existence. And that is because the working class has never been independent of parliament or the bourgeoisie. The first step out of a non-revolutionary situation is to assert the class independence of workers from the bosses!

What Unity Reader fails to understand is that there is a difference between united fronts and revolutionary programs. In non-revolutionary times workers should join forces in united fronts that advance their interests as a class, but not by suspending their revolutionary program and making a 'turn' to social democracy - the bosses program! Revolutionaries are obliged to fight inside united fronts to prove that it is their program that will advance the interests of workers.

What Workers Charter is a reduction of the political program of the working class to a minimal program that does not even MENTION socialism. If this was just a loose network to organise in the unions and fight in united fronts, this would not be so bad. But WC presents itself as the embryo of a new mass workers party, on a social democratic program of the bosses

This takes us to Unity Reader’s 'study' of the history of the New Labour Party. The CWG entered the NLP because it its leaders claimed to be forming a new workers party. We were obliged as revolutionaries to fight for a revolutionary workers party, not meekly sit around while Anderton and McCarten betrayed the workers who had broken with Labour and took the NLP back into parliament as part of a middle class' Alliance, which then propped up another Labour Government.

Workers Charter is headed down the same road, but this time it’s not a tragedy; it’s a farce. Its a farce because it has already been rejected by a large number of militants as too little, too late, based on manifestly dead-end reformist politics, and at a time when its own international allies, the militant workers of Latin America, Asia etc are moving rapidly towards socialist politics under a reborn 'socialism of the 21st century' championed by Chavez in the spirit of Che, Castro etc.

When the militant masses are moving in the direction of socialism, WC moves backward. This is not the 'backwardness' given by NZ's particular place in the world, because in itself that's deceptive and open to rapid changes, but the backward political perspective of those who have given up on socialist revolution in order to build another parliamentary party.

From Class Struggle 64 Nov 05/Jan 06 

Alliance search for workers ends in split

Break the unions from the state

Matt McCarten's move to the Maori Party is the last act in the sorry decline of the Alliance Party. Here we argue that the remaining ‘left’ of the Alliance needs to draw the obvious conclusion from more than a decade trying to influence the Labour Party in office, turn away from the electoral road and rebuild itself as a new workers party with a revolutionary socialist program.

New Labour, ‘old’ labour recycled

When the New Labour Party was formed in 1989 it held out the promise of uniting the left against the anti-worker policies of the Fourth Labour Government. But workers failed to follow it and Jim Anderton and Matt McCarten turned the NLP into their own voting machine to piss on Labour from outside the tent. They forgot that they were also pissing on Labour's worker supporters who came back to Labour in large numbers in 1993 to almost secure a Labour victory.

Anderton and McCarten antagonised these workers big time when they refused to support Mike Moore's push to form a minority government in 1993. Instead of drawing the obvious conclusion to go back into the Labour Party it was as if Anderton saw himself as the messiah and that only he could save Labour.

Had Anderton backed Moore to form a minority government there was a fighting chance that it could have won the numbers and put a stop to National's anti-worker agenda in 1993.This would have given the left the chance of exposing Labour in office. The militants in the NLP could have pissed on Labour from the inside. We could have rallied the unions to repeal the ECA and restore the benefit cuts. That could have led to a fight for renationalisation of the privatized state assets under workers’ control. But the leadership of Anderton and McCarten was never going to submit to the Labour Party bureacracy except on their terms.

Anderton shacks up with middle class

Failing to act on this lesson the NLP and Mana Motuhake rank and file got dragged after Anderton looking for any political partners that could give him more seats. They took on board the Greens, a middle class outfit, the remnants of the old Social Credit movement in the Democrats, and populist Gilbert Myles personal vehicle, the Liberals, to form the Alliance. They buried whatever small worker support there was for the NLP along with Maori support for its sister party, Mana Motuhake, in this populist pot of stew.

Breaking up Labour's constituency left the field open to that other populist Winston Peters to campaign for the Maori vote. Leading up to the 1996 election Peter's conned Maori into deserting Labour on the promise that he would never go into government with National. He then exercised the 'balance of power' under the new MMP system to put National back into office. This was the first time a party abused Maori voters to split them away from their Labour base since Ratana made its historic alliance with Labour in the 1930s. Maori learned the hard way as Peters and the Tau Henare rat pack grandstanded at the expense of their jobs and welfare.

Having helped the Nationals use the 1990s to attack workers, the Alliance actually made it into government in 1999 and formed a coalition with the Labour Party. But by this time the Labour Party was not only locked into the neo-liberal reforms of the 1980s but most of the 1990s economic reforms as well. Cullen swore by a balanced budget and an independent Reserve Bank. Rogernomics plus Ruthonomics added up to one hell of a 'social deficit'.

So Labour, as a capitalist government elected to manage kiwi capitalism, had to deliver growth in profits before it could try to make up the 'social deficit’ to its supporters. This forced it into a Blairite position where it made huge concessions to business in order to pursue its modest social agenda. The Alliance for the most part had to tag along.

When Labour went too far and supported the US invasion of Afghanistan, most of the Alliance split from Anderton. Without his seat, and failing to hit the 5% threshold in the 1992 election, the Alliance was out of parliament and questioning its future.

Radical stocktaking shows bankruptcy

Surely the time was overdue for a radical stocktaking. Sticking with Anderton had drawn a blank. Worse, the balance sheet of those 13 years was almost totally negative. Anderton's split in 1989 was too little and too late. When the NLP failed to win significant sections of union support in 1990 it should have seen the light and moved back into the Labour Party. Whatever the Alliance won for workers in government with Labour from 1999 it 2002 it lost a lot more by default in the previous decade.

The NLP stalwarts believed in the mission to replace Labour from the outside. They did not understand that the Labour Party will not be removed as a roadblock to the workers movement except as a result of an internal class struggle.

In NZ the history of the labour movement for nearly 100 years has been tied to the life of the Labour Party. It was formed in 1916 after the experience of bloody defeats in strikes to take the fight for socialism into parliament. It was the main vehicle for the rising prosperity of NZ workers after the war. Its shift to the right was dictated by the weakness of the NZ economy and the weakness of organised labour. Yet for most workers it’s still the only game in town.

This means that the working class will not develop any real independence until it stages a fight to the death to revive and split the Labour Party from inside the Labourite unions. And it can only do this by first rebuilding the unions under rank and file control. Trying to push Labour left from the outside without a base in the unions is a futile exercise that further weakens the labour movement and sets back the day of reckoning for Labour.

But instead of learning this lesson, what was left of the Alliance followed Anderton's main bother boy McCarten into his scheme for building a personal army of workers to get him elected in Auckland Central. This was a sort of caricature of Anderton's electorate machine in Riccarton.

Tragedy becomes comedy Central

McCarten took over the shell of UNITE! a tiny, almost stillborn union, founded by Alliance unionists including Robert Reid back in the mid 90s. UNITE! was set up to be a union of lowpaid workers, unemployed and beneficiaries. McCarten rebranded it as lowercase Unite without the emphatic (!), formed an ‘workers’ branch in Auckland and did his best to keep unemployed and beneficiaries out. McCarten and his left handyman, Mike Treen, ex-Socialist Action activist, set about recruiting show dancers, fast food workers and English language teachers.

The intention to build a union of the low paid (even without the unemployed and beneficiaries) is good and necessary. (See UNITE! report in this issue). To his credit, McCarten instinctively saw the need to unionise the thousands of casualised service workers left alone by the established unions. But he didn’t want to the burden of organising the unemployed and beneficiaries. He picked the eyes out of sites that could get him the numbers and financial backing to build his electoral machine.

Instead of creating a democratic union that could be a model for rebuilding the rest of the unions, McCarten created separate branches for each worksite where only he as the 'secretary' of all these 'unions' could control them. Not until this method of union building came into conflict with other Alliance members working in unions whose members were being poached, did McCarten come under fire. And even then it wasn’t McCarten's strategy but his poaching that raised the ire of other Alliance unionists. But by then McCarten was already preparing to take the Alliance and his 'Unite' into the Maori Party.

When Anderton supported the Labour Government in sending troops to Afghanistan, the stand taken by other Alliance MPs and the party against this was principled. The problem, however, was that the Alliance had no union base to mobilise against the war. McCarten's new union was not built on a political program but his personal patronage. Unite lite was no base to oppose the war.

Unite lite and Alliance left back cops

In fact Unite lite couldnt even oppose the cops. McCarten proved this when he crossed the picket line formed by UNITE! members of the UNITE! West Auckland, against his partner, Alliance member Kathy Caseys exhibition 'Comrades and Cossacks' that was co-sponsored by the NZ Police and publically opened by high-ranked police officers. As he crossed this picket line opposing NZ working class history being funded by policewho had played a key role in smashing the 1913 general strike, McCarten challeged the picketers to attend one of his recruitment rallies!

While McCarten got some internal criticism from other Alliance members for his fraternatisation with the cops, other Alliance ‘lefts’ also crossed the picket line relegating class struggle to academic ‘history’. Then McCarten was re-elected leader shortly afterwards. At the same time the Alliance left was regrouping around a new Manifesto in which the Alliance was identified as a 'socialist party' based on 'working people'. Yet nowhere in this Manifesto was there any serious orientation to the unions as the base of any 'socialist' party. Class struggle had been relegated to the history of ‘Comrades and Cossacks’ and Parliament remained the holy grail.

But the Alliance was still outside the Labour Party and with no prospect of getting a base in the wider labour movement. McCarten's search for an 'army' of workers to get him elected in Auckland Central was more like pissing in the wind. The demise of the Alliance looked certain when the political shit hit the Foreshore and Seabed fan.

Along Comes Tariana

At first the Alliance backed Labour's decision to block the Appeal Court's decision and turn the F&S into 'public domain'. But the Hikoi changed that when McCarten and Treen found a few thousand potential voters marching to Wellington. Never mind that the Hikoi was against putting the F&S into 'public domain' the Alliance turned on its toes and next thing we know is McCarten is offering to run Turia's election campaign in Te Tai Hauauru. The Alliance Council came out in support of the new Maori Party without any idea what its program would be.

With Turia's overwhelming by-election victory the Maori Party seems set to challenge Labour for all the Maori seats. The scene is also set for a deal between the Alliance and the MP to campaign against Labour. But while the Anderton split with Labour damaged the Labour movement by pissing into Labour's tent, the Maori Party looks like splitting the labour movement and pissing into its own tend somewhere in 'middle ground' of parliament. The Maori Party has made it clear that it is organised on an ethnic basis and will canvass support for 'Maori' interests from both Labour and National.

Matt backs Turia, left splits?

By backing this move by the MP and taking his workersinto this party McCarten is creating a potentially more damaging split with the labour movement than Anderton did 15 years ago. While Anderton's Alliance spent a decade in the wilderness failing to renew the fight inside the Labour Party, McCarten's propospal for a Maori Party/Alliance shackup looks like taking Maori workers out of an already weakened labour movement into tribal politics where they will be abused as electoral fodder for a bunch of iwi bureaucrats, politicos and capitalists.

This is dragging the best working class fighters, who can revive the labour movement and lead the fight against imperialism and kiwi crony capitalism, into the arms of their class enemies – Bush and Brash. The corporate ‘warriors’ in the Maori Party who have benefited from the Treaty settlement process will try to use the 'balance of power' to pressure the bosses to get a larger share of the profits of kiwi capitalism distributed into their pockets.

But they will be even less successful than they were under the Treaty settlements that funded the birth of small-scale Maori capitalism over the last 20 years. The imperialist ruling class and its kiwi cronies will use MMP to buy off the Maori bosses at the expense of the vast majority of Maori who are members of the casualised working class.

What to do?

Those few hundred members of the Alliance who are serious about building a 'socialist party' based upon working people,who are for 'democratic socialism' in practice, must turn their backs on their attempts to rebuild the Labour Party from the outside.

The debates taking place inside the Alliance are still dominated by electoral strategy and tactics to recruit members (See Jill Ovens ‘Strange saga of the Alliance’ Red &Green No 3, 2004 p.75). Liquidating into the Maori Party or the Greens abandons the real fight inside the labour movement to build united democratic unions. But building an independent party of the left without a base in the unions also avoids the basic issue. The way to remove the Labour roadblock is to fight for a new workers party by smashing the labour bureaucracy’s hold over workers in the the unions.

Leon Trotsky writing just before he was killed in 1940 on: “Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay” says that because the unions have become “semi-state institutions” it is necessary to “struggle to turn the trade unions into the organs of the broad exploited masses and not the organs of the labor aristocracy…The primary slogan for this struggle is: complete and unconditional independence of the trade unions in relation to the capitalist state.” http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1940/1940-tu.htm

Workers will remain trapped inside Labour until they begin to rebuild their unions under rank and file control and break from the bureaucracy and the state. Those Alliance members who are serious about socialism should dedicate themselves to the task of workers democracy and repudiate McCarten's sell-out into a Maori Party splitting the labour movement and diverting workers into 'cargo cult' deals with Brash or Clark and away from united working class struggle.

Communist Workers Group has made clear its stand on the necessity and urgency of mobilising a united working class to fight the sell-out of the F&S against the dead end of the parliamentary road. Equally we have insisted that such mobilisations will not happen unless all socialists put their practice where their rhetoric is and fight to rebuild the labour movement to break from the labour bureaucracy of the 'big three' unions and the Blairite ideology of the Labour Government.

Finally, none of this will happen if NZ workers remain trapped in patriotic alliances with any bourgeois party trying to negotiate deals with Australian, US or other imperialist interests to defend our jobs and freedoms. We have to build internationalist unions capable of defending the jobs and freedoms of workers everywhere. CWG pledges to play its part in all united fronts where socialists unite to “strike together, but march separately.”

Unite to Occupy the Foreshore and Seabed!

Build Fighting, Democratic Unions!

Solidarity campaign for Iraqi workers!

Endorse the Abdul Raheem Appeal! 

From Class Struggle 57 August-September 2004