Red Len will break the law to take us back to the 70s
THE late 1970s are generally remembered as a grim period for this country, dominated by economic stagnation and trade union strikes. Yet to Len McCluskey, the hardLeft leader of the Unite union, this was a golden age. He recalls with nostalgia how the unions wielded enormous political power by the ruthless use of their industrial muscle.
Now the socialist Merseysider is seeking to recapture the spirit of that era. At the TUC conference in Brighton this week, he predicted that mass co-ordinated strikes are “very much on the cards” in the coming months. This new mood of militancy has been stoked by the current febrile political climate, in which union bosses are seeking to exploit grievances over public sector pay and the vulnerability of the Tory Government without a Commons majority.
The trade union bullishness has been further fuelled by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership, which glories in extremist rhetoric and street protests.
It is no coincidence that the unions have been among Corbyn’s biggest backers since he rose to the top, giving him £27million over the past two years. McCluskey himself has presided over support of £11million from his union to the Labour leader’s machine.
SO EXCITED is Red Len by the prospect of a Left-wing revolt that he even talks openly of breaking the law on industrial relations, particularly the 2016 Trade Union Act. This stipulates that a strike is legal only if at least 50 per cent of the eligible membership vote participates in the ballot, while in vital public services at least 40 per cent of members have to back the industrial action.
With typical ideological arrogance, McCluskey this week described such thresholds as “artificial”. Contemplating illegal strikes, he went on: “The reality is that the law is wrong and it has to be resisted.”
In his pose as the champion of resistance against injustice, McCluskey even compared himself to the anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela and the campaigner for Indian independence Mahatma Gandhi. The Unite leader has always suffered delusions of grandeur but this is laughable. Mandela and Gandhi were fighting for genuine democratic freedoms. McCluskey is doing the exact opposite. He aims to subvert parliamentary democracy by encouraging the unaccountable, irresponsible bullies of the trade union movement to hold the British public to ransom.
The 2016 Act is not an instrument of oppression as he pretends. It ensures that any strike has widespread support from union members, thereby preventing the abuse of power by a narrow cadre of political ideologues like McCluskey.
The legislation featured in the Tories’ election-winning manifesto in 2015. By expressing his willingness to ignore the law, McCluskey is once more showing his contempt for democracy.
In every other respect, his eagerness to compare himself with Gandhi and Mandela is ridiculous. Gandhi was famous for his rigorous asceticism, Mandela for his long years of incarceration on Robben Island, whereas McCluskey, now aged 65, enjoys a lucrative £96,000 annual salary from his union, plus a generous pension. In addition, Unite controversially paid £417,000 towards the purchase of his luxurious £700,000 London flat.
Gandhi and Mandela spoke for their peoples. McCluskey represents hardly anyone beyond the hard Left and his union apparatchiks.
When he was narrowly reelected Unite general secretary this summer against his moderate rival Gerard Coyne, the turnout in the contest was a pathetic 12.2 per cent. McCluskey squeaked home with just 59,067 votes, 5.6 per cent of Unite’s eligible membership. Yet he has the nerve to pontificate about the democratic credentials of the Government, which received 13.6 million votes at this year’s general election, almost one million more than Labour.
McCluskey showed not a shred of tolerance in victory. In fact, Gerard Coyne found himself forced out as Unite’s regional organiser in the West Midlands, a job he had held for 17 years, on what he says was a “preposterous, trumped up charge”. After his dismissal in June, Coyne said bitterly, “political dissent is not tolerated inside Unite”.
BULLYING, political extremism, and grievance-mongering run right through the trade union movement. The union bosses are not even in touch with their own members, never mind the wider public. When Kevin Courtney was elected general secretary of the National Union of Teachers last July, the turnout was a dismal 10.7 per cent.
Preening and prattling this week at the TUC, the comrades like to regard themselves as the authentic voice of working people. But in truth they are just the mouthpiece of narrow public sector vested interests. They have no relationship to the modern British workforce.
While 54 per cent of public employees are unionised, that falls to just 13.4 per cent in the private sector. That is why the unions are so focused on public pay, even though state workers generally enjoy higher earnings, better conditions, shorter hours and longer holidays. Union bias also explains why strikes overwhelmingly occur in the public sector, with state workers 15 times more likely to take action than their private sector counterparts.
The Government should not surrender to McCluskey and his mob. The hard Left will be the only winner. Democracy and the British public will be the losers.
‘Compares himself to Mandela and Gandhi’