Unite! The Power of Unions and the Way Forward

The Unite trade union is New Zealand’s fastest growing union gaining 600 new members every month and 25000 in the last five years. It has successfully organised groups of workers that until recently were viewed as un-organisable working in often short-term employment in hotels, restaurants, casinos, cinemas, call centres, security, malls andlanguage schools. Workers from every sector are now joining because they want a union that will work positively with their employer but will also fight for them. When Unite started a campaign in 2005 to win union contracts most members had no breaks and earned less than $10 an hour. Unite was the first union to win 15 minute rest breaks for 90% of members and won wage rises of up to $6 an hour.

Unite protests in West Aukland!

Unite fights to improve workers wages and work conditions through negations to dynamics strikes that range from lively picket lines to “Tea-ins” where workers don’t work but instead drink tea in the staffroom. Unites red flags can been seen at the forefront of any protest, marches, pickets or strikes. These are not just about workers rights but also environmental movements and anti-war movements. It has run may successful campaigns including the “supersize my pay” campaign which after a year of campaigning got the minimum wage pushed up from $9 an hour to $12; a campaign to get security hours for part time workers; and a campaign that banished workers. They are now working to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and are planning action during the Rugby World Cup. Experts have predicted the event will pump as much as $1.15 billion into the economy and Unite union national secretary Matt McCarten said workers should share that. He was quoted in the New Zealand Herald as saying "We don't want to disrupt the games, but we have a job to get some of that wealth and share it around a bit." Hospitality workers will be required to work longer and harder than ever during the world cup and as it stands, while their bosses reap the benefits of the extra cash, they, who ensure this event can happen, gain nothing more than fatigue. Room rates in many hotels are set to go up tenfold. The wages of workers not at all.

In any employment relationship there is always more power with an employer. When workers join together it can take some of that power back. Workers create society’s wealth, but have no control over its production and distribution. A socialist society can only be built when workers collectively take control of that wealth and democratically plan its production and distribution according to human needs instead of profit. This is the first step to creating global equality. The working class is the vast majority of society and is the key to the fight for socialism. Workers’ central role in production gives them a social power to paralyze the system like no other social force: the strike. It is therefore the only part of society that can overthrow the current system and lead the struggle to end oppression for all people.

Unite is an example of what trade unions across the country and the world should look like but unfortunately many unions no longer work like this. Trade union officials often pay themselves salaries closer to the employers they negotiate with than the workers they are meant to represent and workers no longer feel that unions really represents their interests -or, perhaps more importantly, that they have any organizational input or say as to what the union does or does not do. Unite union works with a grassroots democratic model where its members have a say in how the organisation is run unlike the top-down pyramid systems inherent in capitalist society that are seen in most unions today. Union bureaucracy is inherently conservative, and therefore, as a social layer, resists not only true and large progressions for workers but ultimately, revolution. The consciousness and activeness of the working class however, can and does change very dramatically from period to period, but as a class, workers are capable of overcoming the “ruling ideas” of society and, through their own activity, becoming capable of fundamentally reshaping society.

This cannot be achieved without organisation which cannot happen without unions. The increase of membership in unions and the creation of new unions is the first thing that must happen with rising class consciousness to transform consciousness into action to create social change. This on its own cannot completely change society - to move beyond the limits of unions, the working class must build organizations—preferably organizations of workplace delegates—that overcome the sectional divisions unions take for granted (between workplaces, between different skills and between different industries).  And it must build rank-and-file organizations inside the union movement that guide the struggle forward when the union officials act as a block to further struggle.

According to the British Socialist and Trade unionist Tom Mann, “The object of the unions is to wage the class war and take every opportunity of scoring against the enemy.” One cannot imagine such a statement passing the lips of a single trade union leader today although Unite certainly comes closer than any other. Unions of the past held in common the idea that socialism must come from below as a product of working class self-activity. That commitment meant a determination to organise the unorganised. For example, the Massachusetts textile workers’ strike of 1912 involved some 23,000 strikers who spoke at least 14 different languages. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organised them all using mass pickets and 10000 strong daily protests to win. This is what Unite is starting to do today- however class and political consciousness in New Zealand and many western countries is at an all time low. This means that is a slow struggle, however, as history has shown many times, this could change quickly at any moment.

Socialism is working-class self-emancipation. Only mass struggles of the workers themselves can put an end to the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation. We support trade unions as essential to the gain for workers’ economic and political rights. To make the unions fight for workers’ interests, rank-and-file workers must organize themselves independent of the union officials. Organisations that will fight for the rights of the oppressed are dedicated to non-violent action and are needed to lead the struggle for equality and it is vital that their members are involved unions in their work places in order to create change.

Unite is by far the most promising union in New Zealand and is an example to follow. They are now campaigning to raise the legal minimum wage to $15 an hour. If they win, then all workers will get a pay rise – making lives for the majority that little bit easier.

J. Llewellyn