Unions reverse policy on Iraq
The occupying powers in Iraq
received a significant boost at the Labour Party Conference on 30 September,
when a withdrawal resolution (Composite 6) was defeated. And they have the Iraqi Communist Party to
thank for it.
The operative part of that
resolution was:
“This conference now calls
on the British Government to recognise that the continuing occupation of Iraq
is unjustifiably destructive of both lives and resources and calls on the Prime
Minister to name an early date for withdrawal of British forces.”
It was defeated because the four
big trades unions – UNISON, AMICUS, TGWU and GMB – voted against it, despite
the fact that, broadly speaking, it reflected the agreed policy of each
union. With the support of these unions,
Conference went on to support a National Executive Committee (NEC) statement
endorsing continued occupation.
These unions opposed the
withdrawal resolution, despite having supported a much more forthright
withdrawal resolution at the TUC Congress on 15 September, a fortnight
earlier. This resolution reaffirmed the
TUC’s “opposition to the occupation of Iraq”, adopted last year, and made the
following demand:
“Congress thus calls for
the speedy withdrawal of the coalition forces and the dismantling of their
military bases in favour of the Iraqi people being left free to build their
country’s infrastructure, public services and education system, with assistance
from international agencies if required.”
Speaking
for the resolution, UNISON Deputy General Secretary, Keith Sonnet, was unequivocal:
“Congress, each day we watch with
horror the continuing carnage in Iraq. We must remember who is to blame for the
chaos - George Bloody Bush and Tony Blair. Just as we know that there will
never be peace in the Middle East until Israel stops occupying Gaza and the
West Bank, and an independent viable Palestinian State created, so we know that
there will never be peace in Iraq until the occupying British and American
troops leave.
“We demand in the motion that our
Government take immediate steps to end its occupation of Iraq and to return
Iraqi assets back to the Iraqi people. The war was illegal, based upon lies and
deceit, and it has spawned continued human rights abuses by occupying forces
and now by the so-called interim government headed by a former US intelligence
agent. …
“Congress,
we have no moral right to be in Iraq or to remain there, and we must leave
completely. There must be no bases left behind to guard the oil fields.”
The resolution was supported by
the TUC General Council. No union spoke
against it and it was passed unanimously.
What happened?
So what happened between 15 and 30
September to make the unions move from a position of demanding “immediate
steps” to end occupation to one of supporting the continued occupation? What happened to make the unions move from
complete opposition to Government policy on Iraq to one of complete support?
The background to this is that,
with a General Election reckoned to be a matter of months away, there was
pressure on trade union leaders not to rock the boat at Conference this
year. To keep them sweet, at a meeting
at Warwick University in July the party leadership had promised them that a few
items from their wish list would be included in the election manifesto. So, the unions were predisposed not to have
a major row with the party leadership at Conference.
It is true that they helped pass
resolutions contrary to Government policy on rail nationalisation and council
housing, but the Government could easily brush those aside, and did. The big
issue was Iraq: had they taken the lead in getting the party to endorse the
sentiments they supported unanimously at the TUC, there would have been headlines
around the world proclaiming that Blair had lost the support of his party on
Iraq. Of course, he would have shrugged
it off in his usual manner, but he would have suffered further damage on Iraq.
Happily, for the trade union leaders,
there was a mechanism whereby they could move from complete opposition to
Blair’s Iraq policy at the TUC conference to complete support for it at the
Labour Party conference – and salve their conscience at the same time. This was provided by Abdullah Muhsin, the
Foreign representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), an Iraqi
who has been an exile in Britain since 1978.
On behalf of the IFTU, he issued
an open letter to trade union delegates to the Labour Party Conference,
advising support for the party leadership:
“You have two options before you this week.
“One would give hope to all
those in Iraq who want to see free trade unions and political organisation grow
and thrive. In line with UN Security Council resolution 1546 it says that the
multinational force is thereto help our democracy.
“The alternative asks for an
early date for the unilateral withdrawal of troops which would be bad for my
country, bad for the emerging progressive forces, a terrible blow for free
trade unionism, and would play into the hands of extremists and terrorists.”
(See, for example, report to UNISON members
from Steve Warwick, the chair of the UNISON delegation to Conference. All the documents before the Conference on
Iraq – the NEC statement, Muhsin’s letter, and Composite 6 – are reproduced in
it.)
The advice is plain: vote for the
continued occupation of Iraq as defined in the NEC statement, and the advice
was snapped up by trade union leaders anxious not to have a row with Blair on
Iraq.
Steve Warwick of UNISON wrote in
his report:
“The views of the IFTU had, quite naturally, a powerful
effect as we dealt with the issues.”
And Tony
Woodley of the TGWU wrote in the Morning Star on 26 October:
“I make no apology for listening
to the representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Brighton. Our
traditions of solidarity and internationalism could not let us do
otherwise. And let me make it clear that,
as far as the T&G was concerned, it was clear advice from Abdullah Muhsin
which tipped the balance.”
(Strangely,
after his role at Conference became public, Muhsin wrote in the Guardian on 23
October: “I did not offer voting advice to trade unions on Labour's Iraq
motions and confined my remarks to urging solidarity with Iraqi workers”.)
Why does
IFTU support occupation?
Why should
the IFTU be so anxious to maintain the US/UK occupation of Iraq? Last summer, in a letter in the Guardian (18
August), writing on behalf of the IFTU, Abdullah Muhsin supported the
suggestion that the US-appointed interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, be
invited to address the Labour Party Conference. Why?
On the
face of it, none of this makes sense.
But there is a simple explanation: the IFTU is led by the Iraqi
Communist Party and the Iraqi Communist Party has co-operated with the
occupation from the outset. Its
Secretary-General, Hamid Majid Musa, was a member of the 25-member Iraqi
Governing Council, appointed by the US in July 2003, and it has a minister, and
two deputies, in the Interim Government, appointed by the US last June. (The minister is Mufid Muhammad Jawad
al-Jaza'iri – he is Minister of Culture.)
The future
of the Iraqi Communist Party is therefore intimately bound up with the future
of Ayad Allawi and his Interim Government, so it hardly surprising that the
IFTU is doing its best to promote Allawi and his Government, and defending the
continuation of occupation. Neither is
it surprising that on 12 August the Financial Times described its
Secretary-General, Hamid Majid Musa, as “aside from his communist label, in
many ways the US’s ideal partner”.
(The IFTU
itself openly defends the occupation – see, for example, an article by
Abdullah Muhsin on the IFTU website.
There, he writes that the US had to appoint the Iraqi Governing Council
in July last year because of “the failure of Iraqi parties to agree on holding
a national conference April 2003 to elect a transitional government”. Apparently, the US wanted an elected Iraqi
government 18 months ago, but was somehow thwarted by Iraqis.)
IFTU
recognised
The IFTU
has used its connections with the Governing Council and the Interim Government
to get itself recognised by the occupation authorities in Iraq. By Decree No 16 of the Governing Council issued on
28 January 2004, the IFTU and its President, Rasem Hussein Abdullah, were declared as “the
legitimate and legal representatives of the labour movement in Iraq”. This was confirmed by the Interim Government
on 10 July 2004.
The IFTU is attempting to get its
hands on the assets of the old Ba’athist General Federation of Workers’ Trade
Unions in Iraq. For that reason, the
IFTU uses that name inside Iraq. But,
as yet, it doesn’t seem to have been successful in persuading the Interim
Government to give it access to these assets.
The IFTU is not the only trade union
federation or group in Iraq. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
(ICFTU) sent a fact finding mission to Iraq in
February 2004. Owen Tudor of the TUC
was a member of that delegation and a report written by him (available on the
TUC website) gives a flavour the embryonic nature of trade unionism in Iraq,
and the variety of groups that exist.
The IFTU is but one of them, with the distinguishing mark that it is
prepared to deal with the occupying authorities and has been singled out by the
occupying authorities for recognition.
(Two groups, the Federation of Workers Councils and
Trade Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) and the Union of Unemployed in Iraq (UUI), have
lodged a complaint with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that this
singling out the IFTU for recognition is contrary to ILO Conventions on freedom
of association. On 2 June, the ILO accepted this complaint for consideration
as Case No 2348.)
Unions’
excuse
The
leaders of UNISON and the TGWU, who say they took the IFTU’s advice at
the Labour Party Conference, could not have been ignorant of the fact that it
is but one element of the trade union movement, such as it is, in Iraq, and
that it had its own political agenda of support for the status quo, determined
by its Iraqi Communist Party leadership.
All of this is in Owen Tudor’s report.
The only
reasonable conclusion is that they took the IFTU advice, not because that they
believed it to be the authentic voice of Iraqi trade unionism, but because they
needed an excuse to give to their members for reversing their union policy on
Iraq.
Steve
Warwick’s account of the UNISON delegation’s action on the Iraq issue at
Conference is difficult to square with reality. He writes:
“Direct
talks took place during the week between the four unions and government
ministers, with the support of our delegations. Our aim was to commit the
government to a timetable for troops to leave Iraq. …
“Our pressure forced the
government to acknowledge, for the first time, that there is now a timetable to
which they must adhere to end the occupation. …
“We firmly believed that
getting the government to commit to a timetable for British troops to leave was
the most effective way of achieving UNISON’s policy.
“Getting a government
commitment to a date as expressed in the NEC statement was preferable to a
vague call in a conference motion for the Government to consider setting a date
in the future.”
A reasonable conclusion from
this is that, thanks to union pressure, the government is now committed to a
timetable for withdrawal, which it wasn’t prior to the application of that
pressure. That is simply untrue: before
the Labour Party Conference, there was no timetable for withdrawal, and there
is none now. The Government didn’t give
one inch of ground to the trade unions on Iraq at Conference.
The Prime Minister has said
time without number that we are going to stay in Iraq for as long as it takes
to do the job, and he doesn’t specify the job.
That was his position before the Conference and it is his position now.
Steve Warwick makes much of
the fact that the “UN mandate [in Security Council resolution 1546] for multinational
troops to remain in Iraq ends in 15 months time – December 2005”, as if that
were a firm date for withdrawal. It
isn’t: the mandate can be extended ad infinitum.
The Government tells us that
foreign troops have to stay in Iraq “to help the Iraqis build a free, stable
and democratic future”, to quote from the NEC statement, and that those Iraqis
who engage in military action against occupation forces, and Iraqis
co-operating with them, are driven by a perverse desire to prevent this idyllic
future arriving. They are not: they are
driven primarily by a desire to end the occupation, and see the occupation
forces go home.
So, the best hope of reducing
the present carnage is for the occupation forces to go home, or at least to
give a clear indication that they are about to do so. Sooner or later, that will have to happen, so better sooner than
later, because that way fewer people get killed.
It would be useful if, at
that juncture, there was an institution available to assist Iraq in
constructing a system of government, perhaps backed up by troops from the
Muslim world.
Unfortunately, the UN cannot
fill that role because since 1990 it has acted as an instrument of the West in
oppressing Iraq through economic sanctions of unprecedented severity, and
latterly by blessing the occupation of Iraq.
On Iraq, the UN is badly tarnished.
It is true that the UN
Security Council didn’t back the invasion, but it made no attempt to indict the
aggressors either, as Iraq was indicted in 1990 for invading Kuwait (having
sought and got permission from the US for doing so).
And a few months later, in
resolution 1511
(and later in 1546),
it authorised the occupying forces (renamed the multinational force) under the
command of the US “to take all necessary measures to
contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq”: in other
words, it gave the US carte blanche to take military action to suppress those
people who took up arms against the occupation.
Every single military action by the occupation forces since
16 October 2003, when 1511 was passed, has been duly authorised by the Security
Council. The slaughter of civilians in Falluja last April was authorised
by 1511 and carried out in the name of the UN.
1511 allows the US to be the judge of what measures are necessary in any
circumstance. Likewise, the continual
pounding of Falluja today is being carried out in the name of the UN,
authorised by 1546 passed on 8 June this year.
If you support 1546, you have no grounds for complaint when F16s and
helicopter gunships pound Fallujah: under 1546, the US is acting within the UN
Charter in doing so.
The UN is on the side of the occupiers, and against
the occupied, which means that it can no longer play a useful role in Iraq, and
means that UN personnel in Iraq get killed.
* * * *
The Stop the War Coalition issued a statement
on the IFTU’s activity at the Labour Party Conference, which has provoked a
degree of dissent from trade unionists.
The statement, which is reproduced below, gives a measured and
reasonable statement of what the IFTU stands for and of its activity at the
Labour Party Conference. (There is one
factual error as regards the latter: the IFTU shared a platform with Foreign
Office Minister, Bill Rammell, not with the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw).
Understandably, since the Coalition has trade union
affiliates, its statement is very kind to the trade union leaders who used the
IFTU representations as an excuse for reversing their policy on Iraq and
conforming to the official line.
A Kurdish woman called Shanaz Rashid delivered a
near-hysterical appeal to the Labour Party Conference for British troops not to
be withdrawn, singling out the Prime Minister for praise for having “stood up
to Saddam and freed my people”. The
Conference wasn’t told that she is the partner of Abdul Latif Rashid, a member
of the PUK and US-appointed Minister of Water Resources in Iraq’s Interim
Government.
Labour & Trade Union Review