If you think Alastair Campbell has been in hot water this summer because of Labour Party affairs, you should try being on BECTU's executive committee.
Our response to this year's union conference decision to review our Labour affiliation has provoked some of the loudest-ever reactions from branches, and not all of them have been complimentary by any means.
For the benefit of the vast majority of members who don't attend conference each year, here's the situation: the union's executive is meant to be looking for alternative parliamentary representatives before reporting its findings to members, and giving them an opportunity to vote on whether we stick with Labour, or give money to other organisations and individuals.
Although the executive advised conference to reject the motion calling for this process, it is the body that has to implement the decision, and it's this that has caused all the excitement.
In fact, the whole issue has become such a hot potato that my one sentence paraphrase of the position might be provocative enough to fill half the letters page of SSR next month. Let's see.
The fuss has focused on the executive's anticipation that: a) there will be a ballot of members on the Labour link, and b) when it happens members will be advised to vote in favour of retaining it.
Whatever findings are produced by the research into "alternative" representation, which is currently underway, the first assumption must be reasonable - there has to be a ballot. No one on the executive has suggested otherwise, even though the initial trawl of non-Labour organisations already indicates that it is difficult to have the kind of organic relationship with other parliamentary parties that unions have with the people who used to sing the Red Flag with pride at the end of their conferences.
To tango with the Tories we would have to buy into a raft of policies which are a hundred times more devastatingly bad than anything that New Labour has done. If IDS wasn't invisible we'd all see clearly that he hasn't changed his spots.
More surprisingly, the Liberal Democrats, with whom we have had a good working relationship in recent years, have no provision for organisations like unions to affiliate to them. Anecdotally, they "don't want to be run by unions" - an reminder that Labour was set up by the union movement, and a sign that the political classes can't really conceive of unions joining anyone except the party they founded, even if they frequently work with others.
But it would be too easy to duck a ballot on the grounds that Labour is the only game in town, even though our vote later this autumn will attract the full glare of press publicity now that all - yes all - the other unions who previously huffed and puffed about Labour have now decided to stay with the party. When it comes to Labour ballots, BECTU will be the only game in town.
As for the union's recommendation when the ballot does take place, there may have been a degree of haste in declaring that members will be urged to keep the link, but this simply reflects the position taken, not just by the current executive, but by every NEC since we were founded in 1991. If nothing else we were honest in putting our views on the table early in the debate, although with hindsight it might have been better to wait until the "alternative" research had reached its conclusion - even if it is almost inevitable.
There is though one constructive thing that has come out of the recent rumpus - it is now certain that the union will broaden its relationship with non-Labour politicians, at least at Westminster, and probably in Edinburgh and Cardiff as well. Looking thoughtfully at "alternatives" has shown just how many contacts we have with parties or individuals who don't necessarily march under the red flag. At some times we are in day-to-day contact with non-Labour politicians in our efforts to protect members' interests, and one of the messages the NEC ought to be sending to members when the time comes is that a vote FOR Labour is not a vote AGAINST everyone else.
Already there has been discussion about creating cross-party panels of MPs who would be encouraged to take particular interest in our areas of work.
This summer, as you have probably detected, was as hot for members of the union's inner circle as it was elsewhere for Labour's Spin Maestro. But at least no one one BECTU's executive has yet resorted to sticking pins into themselves whenever they are asked a question...not yet anyway.
Tony Lennon
September 2003
