A trades council in the shadow of Grenfell Tower

By Theo Russell

Matt Wrack calls for support at the meeting

 

Local trade unionists in West London are mobilising to build support for the first AGM of a new trades union council that kicked off with a meeting in June.

Local union and community activists came together on 27^th June at the Maxilla Social Club, in the shadow of Grenfell Tower, to mobilise support for the relaunch of the Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea Trades Council.

They were addressed by Matt Wrack, Fire Brigades Union (FBU) general secretary, on the latest developments in the public inquiry, alongside Merril Hammer, Chair of Save Charing Cross Hospital, Christine Blower, former General Secretary of the NUT, and Liane Groves, Unite Community National Coordinator. The meeting was chaired by Roger Sutton from the Greater London Association of Trades Union Councils.

Veterans of the old local trades councils along with local trade union and Labour Party activists discussed how to obtain sufficient affiliations to ensure the new combined trades council, which will launch formally at the AGM on 23^rd October, can survive as a viable organisation.

Matt Wrack told the meeting that: “Trades councils are at the heart of local communities, and with the fall in trade union membership are needed more than ever to build the links in order to improve peoples’ live.”

“Trade unionism is not just a top-down process, we need them to engage with local disputes and with the wider community who are not in trade unions.”

Wrack spoke at length about the impact of the fire on his members and major problems with the Grenfell Inquiry. He said that about 1,000 firefighters, almost all FBU members, had been questioned by the Metropolitan Police, some for as long as six hours.

With an FBU rep attending each interview, this had been a huge organisational challenge for the union.

He said that London Fire Brigade members were “disgusted” by the treatment of the Grenfell incident commander, Michael Dowden, and said the inquiry was starting in the wrong place by focusing on the fire itself rather than on the long list of bodies responsible for the disaster.

“Those people responsible for the tower’s cladding, the contractors and businesses who sold the materials, are not the ones being asked difficult questions, it’s the people who turned up on the night.”

Wrack said the disaster was caused not just by austerity but by the attacks on public services that began with the 1979 Thatcher government.

“Housing and safety regulations were weakened, building controls part privatised and cut to pieces, and fire regulations fragmented, with firefighters having died as a result. Since 2005, 50 per cent of fire safety officers have been lost and local government budgets have been hardest hit by austerity since 2010.

“The inquiry should look into the past cuts to council housing, public services and local authority resourcing, and the deregulation of the building industry and fire safety testing regimes.”

He added that there was “utter complacency from central government” since the fire, saying: “I have no confidence that the inquiry will bring change. The only way to do that is to organise a huge community movement – that is the only way we will get change, that is the only way we will get justice.

“The UK is the fourth richest country in the world but no longer conducts any fire safety research, and ranks 34th in fire resilience. Eleven thousand firefighters and 40 fire stations have been lost, and there are not enough crews to man the remaining fire engines.”

The struggle for Momentum

by New Worker correspondent

 ON SATURDAY 29th October, at the conference of the Labour Representation Committee in London, Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union delivered a passionate attack on elements within the steering committee of Momentum who are using very underhand methods to prevent a planned founding conference for Momentum that would give it a constitution and democratic internal structures.

Wrack is a member of the Momentum steering committee – a body that was meant to be a temporary structure until Momentum acquired a proper structure. Currently it has a national committee which created the smaller steering committee.

He began with a warning that at the Labour Party conference the old right-wing leadership had organisationally “run rings round” the left-wing Corbyn supporters, stitching up the agenda, who was to be allowed to speak and so on in advance to prevent Corbyn supporters getting a word in.

He warned that Momentum and the Left needed to improve their organisation – just having the support of the vast majority of Labour members is not enough and that those who wish to destroy Corbyn are not going to accept his re-election but will continue to fight at every level.

Wrack continued with an account of how Momentum sacked its vice-chair, Jackie Walker, for alleged anti-Semitism because she rightly refused to accept that anti-Zionism equates with anti-Semitism.

“What took place immediately after the Labour Party conference was an organised attempt by people with key access to the Momentum office to lobby in advance of any discussion to make sure that when the steering committee met it was already a foregone conclusion that Jackie would be removed a vice-chair,” said Wrack.

“It shook me that when people talk about the ‘new politics’ what we are seeing is exactly the replica of the old ‘machine politics’ that we want to see the back of.

“John Lansman [the leader of Momentum] has questions to answer about the conduct of the organisation of Momentum.”

He went on to give an account of the debate about what sort of founding conference they want: “First of all some don’t want a conference in the first place. Some of us have been arguing for eight months or more that we should have a conference at the earliest opportunity. How can you possibly defend rules and structure without some form of founding conference?

“Then there is the debate about what sort of conference it should be. To me the logical basis of the conference is the local groups….” “And yet it strikes me that in the Momentum office that from John [Lansman] there is a great resistance to have any trust or confidence in the local Momentum groups.”

Wrack reported that at a steering committee just a week previously two proposals had been made about the form the founding conference should take: firstly a conference of delegates from local groups and secondly an online conference with online debate and online voting.

The audience at the LRC conference reacted strongly, appalled by the second suggestion.

Matt Wrack continued: “My concern was what would be the point of anyone actually going to the conference if everyone simply sits behind a computer screen clicking the button. Who would propose things? The truth is a self-selected group of people would propose things.”

The steering committee agreed to circulate both proposals but then circulated only the second suggestion.

Then an emergency meeting of the steering committee was called with less than 24 hours’ notice – at which many members were unable to attend. That meeting cancelled the national committee meeting due to take place the following week. In doing that, it exceeded its powers because it is only a sub-committee of the national committee. “This is quite a serious matter as far as I’m concerned,” said Wrack.

John Lansman, who was due to speak at the LRC conference and could have used the opportunity to defend himself, withdrew, and decided not to speak.

But the LRC itself is also affected by “the old machine politics”. It has, without warning or giving any reasons, disaffiliated some of its affiliated groups.

 Andy Brooks represented the NCP at the conference and other comrades also attended.