UNITE's Executive Council has an excellent paper policy
against the cuts:
- It rejects the "too far, too fast" approach in favour of opposing all cuts
- It says "councillors must know they will receive the full support of this union if they face disciplinary or other action for supporting union policy. We must ensure Unite fully supports councillors who oppose cuts to local services"
The reality is that when the Labour Party hasn't hesitated
to discipline UNITE councillors who have voted against the cuts, or even just
abstained. Kingsley Abrams is a councillor in Lambeth and a UNITE
Executive Council member. Kingsley was suspended by the Labour group, but
our union raised barely a whimper. Kevin Bennett is a councillor in
Warrington and a former UNITE Executive Council member. He was
suspended from the Labour group indefinitely last month for voting against
cuts. UNITE's response to this has been a bit better. There's a "Why Councillors Should Oppose Cuts" public meeting at 7pm on Wednesday 22nd May at the UNITE office in Liverpool - with Kevin speaking. Everyone should support this.
But as long as the unions leave it to the consciences of
individual councillors as to whether to "oppose the cuts" by voting
for or against them, we're hardly likely to see enough taking a stand to give a
real boost to the anti-cuts movement.
A group of councillors opposed to the cuts have set up
"Councillors Against Cuts"
to support those councillors who do vote against cuts and to campaign for more
to do so. If Len McCluskey is serious about opposing the cuts he needs to
throw his weight behind this initiative and stop sitting on the fence.
The March 2013 Executive Council meeting discussed
Councillors Against Cuts, with an EC member from the Local Authorities sector
arguing that UNITE should support it. Steve Hart, UNITE's Political
Director, argued that urging all councillors to vote against cuts without
qualification would be "problematic".
Len McCluskey argued that UNITE had to be
"careful" and claimed that there was a conflict between Councillors
Against Cuts and UNITE's policy on the successor to Trident was an issue.
The campaign group's statement includes the sentence "Taxing the rich and
business, taking the wealth of the banks and cutting Trident are all rich
sources of funds". If this really was an insurmountable problem,
why not just ask them to amend the statement so that UNITE could back them?
UNITE's policy on Trident is a fudge promoted by McCluskey
and the Executive Council at the 2012 Policy Conference. But even this
statement says "It cannot be right to spend large sums on weapons of
mass destruction when essential services are facing cuts". What's the difference between this and the Councillors Against Cuts statement? Is
McCluskey really going to use the minute difference between these statements as
an excuse to avoid campaigning for councillors to vote against cuts?
No vote was taken on Councillors Against Cuts at the March
Executive Council in order to delay a decision until after the General Secretary
election.
The excuses have run out - it's time for Len McCluskey to
get off the fence and argue for UNITE to affiliate to Councillors Against
Cuts. UNITE should only be supporting MPs and councillors who stand up
for our policies and for working class people. If a policy of opposing
cuts doesn't mean voting against them it isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Why not send a motion from your branch demanding that UNITE
affiliates to Councillors Against Cuts?
