Socialism 2009
I attended Socialism 2009 this weekend, my second time going. Was a lot of fun. On the saturday I attended the talk on “Fighting for Democratic Unions” with the speaker Rob William’s and Linda Taaffe. Then in the evening I went to the Rally. On Sunday I went to a discussion on the defence of Trotsky BY Peter Taaffe and in the afternoon on a talk on what now for the Left in Germany, the weekend was capped off with a Rally.
Fighting for Democratic Unions
Was a very good talk from Rob Williams who, most in the movement will know well. If not, check out his background here. Also Linda Taffee Spoke. The talk was a good one and outlined the outrageous actions of certain trade union leaders in the movement, the more I hear the more I can’t believe it. It makes you wodner why they joined the movement in the first place. The problem is bad trade union leadership tends to raise in dark days, which the 90s certainly was for socialism as well as trade unions. However we are now enetering a time that if we hope to stay above water, we need a fighting trade union leadership! The role of a leadership is to communicate to workers why action is important. No one wants to take action, strikes mean a loss of pay and a risk of losing. But, the bosses will forever come back at you so if you don’t fight you will lose, if you do fight you might win! You might not want anything to do with poltics but it’ll take a big chunk out of you if you like it or not!
The amazing thing is that in so many cases it’s the workers saying to leaderships we want to take action while the leaderships try to talk workers out of it, quite rediclious. Of course there are exceptions, the Prison Officers Association (POA), Fire Brigade Union (FBU) and the RMT are three examples of good unions, and by the way seeing massive growth in membership while the Unite and Unison Dinosaurs leadership fading away, and if we’re not careful taking the movement with them!
Saturday Rally
The rally on Saturday evening was good. It included three trade union leaders. The head of the POA and member of the Socialist Party, Brian Caton. The General Secretary of the FBU, Matt Wrack. Bob Crow, General secretary of the RMT. Peter Taaffe, General Secrtary of the Socialist Party as well as Irish Socialist Party Member of the European Parliament Joe Higgins spoke.
All very good, passaniate speaches, esspially from the trade union leaders. Which, is always good! Bob used the S word too! That being socialism, I believe for the first time! Also he seemed pretty sure that the Union and Left Party Collation that started with the No2EU Campaign (under a new name of course, thank god!!!) will be seeding candiates in the General Election next year!
In Defence of Trotsky
On Sunday morning I went to a talk on Trotsky by Peter Taaffe. This was a very interesting talk, the Russian Revolution is a partcilar interest for me. Robert Service, a British Historian on Russia at Oxford University recently brought out a book on the life of Trotsky. Which is hard to find a truthful line inside it! It is nothing more then an ideological attack. Totaly indefensible, which has been proven. He refuses to engage the Party in any sort of debate on the accuracy of his book, and recently when he found out General Secretary of the Socialist Party Peter Taaffe was going to be speaking at the same conference as him in Russia, Mr Service pulled out! Another example of how we as Socialists have the truth on our side. We maybe small but we do have that! Our opponents refuse to engage us in debate and rather use their power and resources to rubbish us instead. You can crush a man but you can’t crush an idea!
What now for the German Left
Ok, I probably shouldn’t say this but… by the time I got to this talk I was very tired as I hadnt slept much the night before, coupled with drinking much more then I thought I had… I really couldn’t take anything in from this talk, so errm, yeah. I’m sure it was good though 
…
Final Rally
Had woken up a bit by this time, some good speeches from mostly Union representives including Rob Williams, Janice Godrich President of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). John Denton, Regional Secretary of Communication Workers Union (CWU), London. Mark Smith from the Vestas Struggle. Sean Figg from Youth Fight for Job Campaign and finally Hannah Sell the General Secreary of the Socialist Party.
All good, I was esspially interested to hear what John Denton from the CWU had to say with the recent call off of strikes for the time being. He seemed to be saying that the managers of Royal Mail have learnt their lessons and expected major victories for the Union when they go to negotiate again. I’m a little concerned though if calling off the strikes was a good idea, even if it might just be for a short period. I think these strikes poteitally could have been as major as the Miners Strikes in the 80s. You had a work force who were willing to do whatever it took, if the CWU don’t win everything they demanded then I worry what this could mean in the future, but we will see, I guess!
All round fun weekend, looking forward to Socialism 2010!
