Unions and Politics (22/04/15)

Ed Miliband's working class credentials are wafer thin to non-existent if you ask me, but that didn't stop the Labour leader from making the usual pitch for the votes of Scotland's trade union members courtesy of the annual conference of the Scottish TUC, as reported in this article from The Scotsman.

Now the real question for Scotland's trade unions, the big affiliated ones, is this:

"How can Unite, Unison and GMB possibly call themselves 'representative' organisations when their political interests are still so dominated by the Labour Party?"

Because far more trade union members vote for the SNP these days than the Scottish Labour Party whose standing in the opinion polls is at an all time low of around 25%.  

Seems to me that union bosses are now facing a challenge to their own democratic credentials when a minority viewpoint within their organisations is being allowed to dominate union policy and thinking.    

Ed Miliband vows to fight for working class Scots

Labour leader Ed Miliband addresses the STUC conference in Ayr. Picture: Getty

By ANDREW WHITAKER - The Scotsman

ED Miliband said Labour was on course to win next month’s General Election and promised that his party would fight for the “working people” of Scotland in a speech to the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) yesterday.

Mr Miliband said a Labour victory in the General Election was “within grasp” as he issued a rallying call to the annual congress of the STUC in Ayr, where he failed to mention the SNP by name.

The STUC, the umbrella organisation of the trade union movement, is not directly affiliated to Labour, although some of the largest unions such as Unite, Unison and the GMB are in the party.

However, Mr Miliband’s speech will be widely seen as a pitch to union members tempted to vote for the Nationalists, with the SNP trade union group now growing in influence. 

Mr Miliband instead chose to focus on his party’s message to “working people” and accused David Cameron of “double deceit” on the NHS, in his address to delegates yesterday.

He said: “Change hasn’t happened because leaders made it happen – it’s because you in this room and the people who went before you made it happen.

“So, today, I call on you, I call on you to put an end to this government; I call on you, on the people of Scotland and, yes, on behalf of the people of Wales and England and the whole of the United Kingdom, to fight as you have always done for working people.

“I call on you to work with me to end the old ways of running the country because it is within our grasp.

“Together we can write a new chapter, for Scotland and the United Kingdom. This is the chance we have in just 17 days. Today, I call on you and then in 17 days, for five years, you can call on me to fight for the working people of this country.

“Let’s make it happen, let’s change our country to work for working people of Scotland and the whole of the United Kingdom.”

With opinion polls showing the SNP poised to make sweeping gains, Mr Miliband said he would take inspiration from the trade union movement over the last days of the campaign, as he appealed to Scottish voters to help his party defeat the Conservatives.

He said: “The battle to build a country that works for working people is the story of our movement.