[Media-watch] How Britain’s trade unions support occupation of Iraq

[Cem Ertur]

http://www.globalecho.org/view_article.php?aid=2351



How Britain’s trade unions support occupation of Iraq


A row between leaders of several trade unions and the Stop the War Coalition
(StWC)—the organisation led by the Socialist Workers Party that came to the
head of last year’s anti-war movement—sheds light on the criminal role
being played by Britain’s trade unions in the neo-colonial take-over of
Iraq.

by: Julie Hyland on: 25th Nov, 04


On October 20, Mick Rix, former general secretary of the rail union ASLEF and
an ostensible “left,” resigned from the StWC’s steering committee,
accusing the organisation of making “stupid and wild accusations” against
representatives of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) of being
“collaborators” with the British government and the US-led occupation of
Iraq. 
One day later, the public sector union Unison threatened to sever its
relations with the StWC, condemning its “campaign of vilification against
representatives of the IFTU.” A Trades Union Congress statement also
attacked “the attempts of a few to prevent the views of Iraqi trade
unionists from being heard.”

The unions’ complaints centre on the supposed mistreatment of an IFTU
representative at the Third Annual European Social Forum (ESF) meeting in
London, October 15-17, when some delegates protested at the inclusion of the
IFTU’s Subji al Mashadani on the platform, causing the meeting to be
abandoned.

According to the trade unions, Mashadani’s treatment was indicative of the
StWC’s sectarianism that has led it to oppose the building of independent
trade unions in Iraq.

But any objective appraisal of the IFTU’s role over the last period proves
that the charges made against it of collaborating with the occupation are
entirely valid and that Mashadani’s appearance at what was billed as an
anti-war debate had the character of a deliberate provocation.


Who is the IFTU?

The IFTU is led by the Iraqi Communist Party, which participates in the puppet
administration set up by the US in Iraq. As the World Socialist Web Site has
explained, the ICP has nothing to do with genuine socialism. As an adherent of
the Stalinist theory of “socialism in one country” and the so-called
“two-stage” theory of revolution in the backward and semi-colonial
countries—one bourgeois democratic prior to socialism—the ICP has opposed
a revolutionary internationalist perspective based on the independent
mobilisation of the working class in favour of accommodation to one or another
faction of the national bourgeoisie.

Despite repeated Baathist persecution, the ICP clung to this strategy,
participating in the Baathist Party-dominated National Progressive Front (NFP)
between 1972 and 1979, when it was involved in repressing the working class
and the Kurdish and Shiite population.

Politically compromised by its support for the Ba’athist dictatorship, and
subject to persecutions at its hands, the ICP was eventually forced out of
power in 1979.

For the ICP, the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime has provided an
opportunity for it to reestablish its position in the corridors of power. The
fact that “regime change” was achieved by US imperialism, as part of its
efforts to re-subjugate the Iraqi people and seize the country’s oil
reserves, count for little in the ICP’s calculations.

Even as US-led forces lay waste to Iraq, wiping out towns and cities and
killing countless civilians, the ICP and the IFTU that it heads seek to
legitimise the puppet government of Iyad Allawi. Whilst formally opposing the
occupation, the ICP/IFTU claim that January’s elections are vital in
establishing “democracy” in Iraq and nothing must be done to jeopardise
them. In this deliberately distorted presentation, US and British troops are
the guarantors of “national sovereignty” and even of workers’ rights,
and those opposing their efforts to impose colonial style rule are the enemies
of the Iraqi people.

There is nothing original in the ICP/IFTU claims, which merely repeat the
propaganda of the Bush and Blair administrations. And they have been rewarded
for their efforts—the ICP holds several posts in the Allawi government, and
the IFTU has been recognised as its house trade union.


The TUC legitimises occupation

The trade unions are well aware of the IFTU’s unhealthy pedigree. Indeed,
they have elected to work with it for precisely this reason. Their objections
to Mashadani’s treatment are nothing but a smokescreen behind which they are
accommodating themselves to a new wave of neo-colonial aggression.

Before the US-led attack on Iraq, the TUC and its left representatives in
particular had sought to walk a tightrope between popular opposition to war at
home and abroad and its desire to support the government. It issued statements
opposing military intervention without United Nations backing, but as soon as
the war began, it showed where it true priorities lay—refusing to back the
mass anti-war protest on February 15, stating that it would not be part of a
movement that it claimed was seeking to drive Prime Minister Tony Blair from
office.

Once the occupying forces were in place, the TUC’s concern was twofold: to
try to dilute public opposition to the US-led takeover, and to ensure that the
Blair government was able to use its position as America’s ally to ensure
British imperialism received a fair share of the spoils of war. The IFTU has
become a useful conduit towards both ends.

The TUC web site reports the outcome of a “fact-finding visit” to Iraq
between February 14 and 25, 2004, aimed at identifying “developments in the
Iraqi labour movement, and to assess what practical support the world trade
union movement could provide.”

The TUC report states that the British trade unions and their US counterparts
in the AFL-CIO had “resisted suggestions that they should intervene in Iraq
unilaterally” on the grounds that this might jeopardise international
support for their claims to be acting in the interests of Iraqi workers. But
only an appearance to the contrary was created. Their visit was conducted
under the auspices of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
(ICFTU), but the fact that this organisation functioned as a CIA-backed front
during the Cold War makes the TUC and AFL-CIO’s attempt to distance
themselves from any predatory imperialist designs in Iraq threadbare.

And the TUC makes no effort to conceal that its visit was made with the
blessing and assistance of the occupying powers. “The UK and USA governments
provided useful support and assistance for the delegation, including setting
up meetings—the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] and the future British
Ambassador to Iraq were particularly helpful,” it reports.

The small number of workplace visits it conducted were mainly in those areas
directly controlled by, and vital to, the occupation—including an oil
refinery, two railway depots and the port at Um Qasr. The delegation was
involved in talks with what it euphemistically describes as “government
organisations”—most notably “Sir Jeremy Greenstock ([Blair’s] special
envoy to Iraq); Coalition Provisional Authority officials in Baghdad (Scott
Carpenter, an assistance to Ambassador Bremer, and representatives of the USA
International Development Department).”

The section dealing with the “current state of the Iraqi labour movement”
in the report makes clear that the trade union visit was not in response to
any popular demand within Iraq, but as a result of the machinations of US and
British imperialism and its stooges within the puppet regime.

It notes that the Baathist regime stamped out any trace of independent working
class organisation and that, as a result, the General Federation of Trade
Unions that existed under Saddam Hussein was nothing but a front for the
dictatorship. “The unions which remained under the GFTU were provided with
substantial incomes from compulsory subscriptions deducted from workers’
pay, and developed a large asset base (mostly buildings) in return for which
the GFTU acted as a transmission belt to workplaces and workers for Ba’ath
Party policies, also acting as ambassadors for the regime globally,” the
report states.

As a result, the TUC meeting with “Iraqi trade unionists” consisted of
talks with people who, in the main, had been working abroad but returned to
the country after the invasion, including the Workers’ Democratic Trade
Union Movement, which “initially and sometimes since calling themselves the
GFTU...is now generally referred to as the IFTU.”

At the time of its February visit, the TUC reported, “The Iraqi
organisations (GFTU, IFTU, FWCTU [Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in
Iraq]) are all attempting to take over the financial assets, buildings and
membership lists of the old GFTU (this is one reason why the IFTU sometimes
characterises itself as the GFTU).”

Subsequent events seem to have ensured that it is the IFTU that will gain the
lion’s share of any assets to be had. With the FWCTU refusing to work with
the Allawi administration, the IFTU has been recognised as the sole national
trade union federation in Iraq, and moves are afoot for the IFTU and GFTU to
formally merge.

The IFTU claims that its participation in the government will ensure Iraqi
workers’ rights. Just how these are to be squared with the military takeover
of the country by foreign troops, and with elections instituted entirely at
the behest of the occupying powers and preceded by the violent suppression of
any resistance in cities such as Fallujah and Mosul, the IFTU does not even
attempt to explain.

Rather, much of its attention is focused on the drafting of a new labour code
that the IFTU claims will enshrine the right to independent workers’
organisations in Iraq. However, in May, the Coalition Provisional Authority
set out that the purpose of the new code was to ensure Iraq’s “transition
from a non-transparent centrally planned economy to a free market economy
characterised by sustainable economic growth through the establishment of a
dynamic private sector, and the need to enact institutional and legal reforms
to give it effect.” In short, by revising the 1987 labor code enacted by
Saddam Hussein to suppress any form of independent working class organisation,
the imperialist powers hope to adapt the structures of dictatorship to further
the penetration and takeover of economic life by Western capital.

For its part, the TUC has embraced the IFTU as a means of lending credence to
the so-called transition to democracy—for which read “untrammeled free
market capitalism”—so preparing the way for it to end even the pretence of
opposition to the imperialist takeover of Iraq. By supporting the IFTU in its
lobbying for a revised labour code, the TUC hopes to ensure its own place as
an adjunct and advisor to Washington and London as they seek to establish the
legal framework to legitimise US and British de facto control over Iraq’s
industry and resources.

To this end, the TUC played a leading role in ensuring that the IFTU’s
London-based representative Abdullah Muhsin appeared at the Labour Party
conference in October to argue in favour of Blair’s insistence that British
troops must remain in Iraq.

In an open letter to trade union delegates, Muhsin warned against supporting
calls for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq, arguing that
this “would be bad for my country, and would play into the hands of
extremists.”

The trade unions utilised this intervention as an excuse to abandon all
opposition to Blair, dressing up the conference decision to back the
US/British occupation as a victory for the Iraqi working class. In reality,
trade union support for the motion was a means of junking its pretence of
opposition and calls for an “early withdrawal” of troops, thus signaling
to the government and big business that they could rely on the TUC to smooth
the way for its neo-colonial ventures.

On October 19, the TUC launched its “Appeal for Iraq,” headed by Labour MP
Hilary Benn, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber and Mashadani. Its appeal
for “solidarity” funds states that the monies raised will “help pay for
organisers to spread the word that unions are no longer an arm of the
state.”

This is clearly an expensive campaign to mount, with a large number of
organisers.

On October 27, the Guardian newspaper reported that the IFTU had approached
the British Council for funding from the Department for International
Development’s £5 million fund.


What price the StWC?

The real issue is not that Mushandani received a hostile reception from some
of those attending the European Social Forum, but why it ever gave him a
platform in the first place.

That it did is the outcome of the ESF and its affiliates’ political
prostration before the Labour and trade union bureaucracy.

The IFTU’s role as an adjunct of the Allawi government had created a dilemma
for the StWC, as association with it threatened to discredit its own claim to
be opposed to the occupation. Just days before the ESF opened, in an October
11 statement on its web site, the StWC had condemned the IFTU “as the direct
instrument of the government and the Labour Party apparatus” for its role in
providing a figleaf of credibility to Blair’s claims that the occupation had
the endorsement of Iraqi workers.

But whilst the StWC was issuing this condemnation, the ESF, in which the
Socialist Workers Party was playing a leading role, had conceded to TUC
demands that Mushandani be included on its anti-war platform. This was not
only a matter of ensuring TUC funding for the event, but because many of the
organisations within the ESF umbrella also support the occupation of Iraq. And
for the SWP a conflict with the trade unions was unthinkable—firstly,
because of its insistence that the trade unions constitute the foundations for
a socialist renewal of the workers’ movement and, secondly, for the more
prosaic reason that it would cut across its ongoing efforts to secure a niche
for itself as trusted allies of the left flank of the trade union bureaucracy
and the numerous social democratic and Stalinist groupings and NGOs that
gravitate around the ESF.

Therefore, rather than exposing the criminal character of the TUC’s rush to
embrace the IFTU, the StWC statement went on to suggest that the trade
unions’ understandable desire “to express their support to the working
class of Iraq in its extremely difficult struggles” had made them the
unwitting dupes of the IFTU, which was abusing the unions’ “goodwill” to
further its own ends.

It is the StWC that is attempting to hoodwink workers as to the real aims and
objectives of the trade unions. The record shows that it is the TUC and its US
allies who are the major players in Iraq and who have adopted the IFTU
precisely because they understand its political intentions very well.
Moreover, there is no difference between what the TUC is doing in Iraq and the
role it plays in Britain. Its legitimising of colonial conquest is just the
flip side of its efforts to enforce the dictates of government and the major
corporations at home that have resulted in a precipitous decline in the living
standards of the working class and an ongoing erosion of democratic rights.

Despite the trade unions’ accusations, the StWC in fact did its best to
comply with their wishes, with StWC and SWP leader Lindsey German taking her
seat alongside Mushandani on the platform at the ESF.

The StWC’s subsequent response to the attack unleashed upon it by the unions
has further underscored the opportunist character of its politics—placing
its relations with the trade union bureaucracy above all considerations of
principle.

Andrew Murray, the StWC chairman and member of the Stalinist Communist Party
of Britain, has spoken of his “regret” at Rix’s decision to resign from
the coalition, especially as he had “played an important part in winning
unions to oppose the war.”

“British politics is in uproar over the redeployment and impending assault
on Fallujah,” he said. “It would be dismaying if any affiliates should
choose to disengage now because of secondary differences which could easily be
resolved” (emphasis added).

The relegating of the fundamental question of whether you are for or against
the occupation of Iraq to a “secondary” difference prepared the way for a
significant shift by the StWC.

In a letter to the Guardian newspaper on October 25, Lindsey German wrote of
the StWC, “Our position, which is the same as that adopted at the TUC
conference, is that an early date be set for the withdrawal of British troops
from Iraq.”

The SWP-led StWC is looking to resolve its differences with the TUC by
adapting to the latter and rejecting calls for an immediate withdrawal of
occupying troops in favour of setting an unspecified “early date.” Having
thus effectively abandoned what had been the raison d’etre of the anti-war
movement, one is entitled to ask; Just how much further is the StWC prepared
to go to maintain its relations with the union bureaucracy?

source: http://www.wsws.org/