Two risks facing the labour movement
Matt Wrack on rebuilding power in the workplace
The following is the speech given by the General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, Matt Wrack, at the eve-of-Gala rally in Durham, 13/7/24.
Matt Wrack’s speech is published here because its description of the ‘two risks’ facing the labour movement is an extremely useful contribution to debate about the labour movement’s orientation towards the new Labour government. Addressing the New Deal for Working People, Matt Wrack outlines a perspective that is completely sober about the character of Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party whilst simultaneously speaking to the need to identify opportunities in order to rebuild power in the workplace.
Matt Wrack, who is the current President of the TUC, was among the speakers at the annual Institute for Employment Rights/Campaign For Trade Union Freedom rally, the focus of which was principally around the new government’s package of workplace reforms.
Two risks facing the labour movement
Speech by Matt Wrack, FBU General Secretary
We've had an election where we have driven out the spivs, the con men, and the clowns out of government, with a well-deserved eviction notice, and we should be celebrating that. I'm sure everyone had your own individual moments.
I know that firefighters had a particular dislike of Penny Mordaunt, who lied in Parliament about our pensions, with two hundred firefighters watching her in their smart uniforms, and she would not look them in the eye as she gave her comments to the House of Commons. So, we're very pleased to see the back of her and the rest of them.
The risk for our movement, I think, is two-fold. The first one is complacency and the second one is dismissiveness.
Complacency, because if we think the job has been done by voting Labour into office, we are making a big mistake.
There will be huge pressures put on this government to water down the legislation that we want to see in place. The job of all of us, in the friendliest way we can by the way - I'm not talking about slagging people off - but in a firm determined organised way: you've been elected on the pledge of delivering on workers' rights. Your job is now to deliver on workers' rights, and we will be watching you every step of the way.
But there's another risk, and that risk is dismissiveness. I understand the frustrations that people have with the Labour leadership. My union did not vote for Keir Starmer. I've been very forthright in a polite way about the disagreements we have with Keir Starmer on Gaza and other issues - but it would be remiss of us if we didn't see the opportunities that open up before us with the kicking out of a Tory government and the bringing in of a Labour government which will be the first in more than a generation to start with rolling back seriously some, not enough, but some, of the anti-union legislation.
The MSL [minimum service level] for my industry is a fundamental threat to our right to operate, to our right to take industrial action, and even the repeal of that will give confidence to Fire Brigades Union members. And we can then say we've done that, we now need to go further, and we need to demand more.
So, it's that risk of simply dismissing it as not going far enough, it’s been watered down. We're talking about the Labour party here for God's sake. It's inevitable that there is a battle about what is delivered and what's put in manifestos and some of us were part and parcel of that. But the question is, can we use the opportunity now to rebuild our movement? To build a movement fit for the 21st century, for the new world of work, for the millions of people who aren't even in trade unions, who frankly don't know what a trade union is.
That's the task in front of us and we have to face reality hard in its face. We used to have twelve million plus people in trade unions in 1979. We now have around six million people in trade unions with a much bigger workforce. That is a significant and historic setback, and we need to face up to it and say we're going to use this opportunity to rebuild organisation fit for fighting back against the employers today. And that means the Amazon workers, the Uber workers, the so-called gig economy. And some people say it can't be done.
I always point to the example of the East London women workers in the Bryant & May factory in Bow, who were some of the most downtrodden migrant workers, young women looked down on including by trade unionists. And yet they lit a spark. Permit the pun. They lit the spark by taking strike action. These people that people thought would never join a union. They lit a spark which the following year led to the dock strike and to the beginnings of mass trade unionism at the end of 19th century and into the early years of 20th century.
That's the sort of vision we need to put before people today. You can change the world of work and think about how much time we spend in work during the course of a lifetime. We can make work better by being organised.
The miners’ strike has been mentioned. Let's remember that was a class offensive by the British ruling class against the most determined organised and one of the most militant sections of the trade union movements. They did it for a reason, because they wanted to send a message to the entire class. You step out of line, we will come after you, and we will destroy you, and destroy your lives, and lock you up. And we need the same level of determination in our movements as she had for her class, frankly, as Thatcher had for her class.
We need fighters on our side prepared to struggle, prepared to organise, prepared to think about the challenges that we face. And the key thing for me, the key task: rebuilding workers’ power in the workplace. That's what we have to seize, the opportunity that this election and the platform of workers’ rights and legislation, that's what it offers us.
Rebuild workers’ power in the workplace - that's the challenge before all of us.
Thanks to Matt Wrack for his permission to publish his speech, and to the FBU for assistance with the transcript. The text is slightly edited for the change of format.