Much sound and fury signifying… betrayal.

21 April 2009

John McAnulty

Bombast and incoherence from the local trade union leadership were the main factors in the Belfast trade union  demonstration around the Visteon occupation at lunchtime on Friday 17th April .

Jimmy Kelly, secretary of UNITE, the main union involved, vowed to occupy every Ford boardroom in the quest for justice. John Corey of NIPSA indicated that any attempt to force the workers out the factory would lead to a mass mobilization and thousands marching from across Belfast to the factory.

This bombast raises more questions than answers. Why did Jimmy threaten to occupy boardrooms? UNITE organizes a large numbers of Ford workers in Britain - are they being asked to take action? Why were UNITE a major force in ending the occupation of the English factories? If mass mobilization is the way forward, why is the current level of mobilization so poor? 

In reality the role of the bureaucracy seems to be to hamstring the occupation and keep the workers isolated from the working class at large. When you consider that at least half of the 500 strong crowd were Visteon workers and their immediate supporters, the demonstration ranks as one of the smallest trade Union demonstrations for some time - especially shocking when you consider also the level of spontaneous support for the workers that could yet be mobilized and that this was the first ICTU demonstration since the occupation began in March!

In fact very little postering or leafleting took place. The announcement of the demonstration was not widely available even on the internal email services of a number of unions and it was not posted on the ICTU website. And this was the first demonstration by the trade Union leadership since the occupation began! No formal appeal for support has been made to the union movement generally and offers of support by militants from other unions have gone unanswered.

The lack of energy was accompanied by terminal political confusion. Peter Bunting of ICTU called on the government to set up a special fund to guarantee redundancy payments. This seems a strange demand. Would the local administration not be better employed in ensuing that Ford met its obligations? What about the broader issue of jobs?

Patricia McKeown of UNISON denounced the collapse of elements of  the Good Friday Agreement involving a bill of rights, claiming that these would have guaranteed workers rights. She threatened to lead a campaign in the next election against opponents of the bill. This is most unlikely as the unionist parties are the opponents of the bill and the history of local trade unionism is to run a mile from any political conflict with the loyalists

All in all the trade union leadership displayed a great deal of confusion alongside inaction. This is because their political and economic strategy lies in ruins and they have no alternative.  Their economic strategy was to woo transnational companies. The Visteon occupation shows that the transnationals are moving in the wrong direction and in any case part of the conditions they impose is an absolute denial of workers rights. 

On the political front the trade union leadership were the most rabid supporters of the Good Friday Agreement, claiming that it would guarantee workers rights. Now that this has failed plan B is to repeat plan A!

In these circumstances the Visteon convener, John Maguire, compared Ford to a schoolyard bully. The answer was your big brother. Significantly he saw the workers big brother as being the local community rather than the trade unions.

While this is very understandable given the behavior of the union leadership and spontaneous solidarity locally, the truth is that community structures in West Belfast are dominated by a grantocracy paid by the state and dominated by a party, Sinn Fein, that is part of the local administration and committed to the strategy of winning over companies like Ford to further investment on terms written by the transnationals.

The tempo of events is increasing with the Visteon decision to go to court and seek the workers expulsion. All the potential of resistance remains, but it falls to the workers themselves to bring together and lead such a movement.