Socialist Party Wales Socialism In Wales
By Mark Evans Branch Secretary Carmarthenshire County Unison (in a personal capacity)
Workplace report published by the Labour Research department in its March 2020 edition published a two page article with the headline ‘Social Partnership approach is way forward in Wales’. It claimed that the devolved (Labour) Welsh Government working closely with the Wales TUC “has developed a social partnership approach that” (and this will come as news to public sector workers in Wales) “is starting to really pay off at workplace level-at least in the devolved public sector”.
It further claims this approach “reflects common understanding that trade unions are more integral to workplace and community culture in Wales than the UK as a whole”. The approach will now be enshrined in law through the Social Partnership Bill, but this is only formalising what the tops of the major unions like Unison, Unite and GMB (all affiliated to the Labour Party) and the Wales TUC approach has been engaged in for many years. They jump through hoops to shield the Labour Welsh Government (WG) from criticism from their members, but this is becoming an increasingly impossible task particularly given the performance of the WG during the Coronavirus crisis.
While some of the aims of the social partnership are laudable they will not be achieved through partnership we have no common goals with the employers or a Welsh Government that is a conveyor belt for Tory cuts.
This social partnership is an attempt to shackle the trade unions from taking industrial action in defence of their members interests and will have the same result as for Sisyphus in Greek mythology who was punished for his deceitfulness by having to push a rock up to the top of the hill only to have it roll back down when the near the top.
Rank and file trade unionists and the public in Wales will question why we are in partnership with a WG that has underfunded the NHS in Wales by £1 billion and passed on devastating cuts to councils in Wales. The article lets the cat out of the bag when it says “The Welsh Government adds that social partnership has helped avoid some of the strike action that has taken place in England-on firefighters’ pensions, junior doctors’ contracts, NHS pay and teachers workload”.
The performance of the WG in tackling Covid-19 has been woefully inadequate and has no doubt cost the unnecessary loss of life of frontline staff . The WG have tail-ended the Tories in their failure to provide sufficient PPE and testing.
A number of full-time union officials including Bethan Thomas of Unison are quoted to support this policy. She claimed the proposals to extend collective bargaining are “exciting and have the potential to transform the lively hoods of thousands of Welsh workers and their families”. But these claims have no basis in reality if the Labour WG were going to transform the lives of working class people why haven’t they done it already- they have been in power for over twenty years.
If the Labour WG does not adopt socialist policies and continues to work within the confines of capitalism and the inadequate funding it gets from Tories it will continue to fail working class people. Wales will remain a low wage economy with high levels of poverty.
Grasping at straws, the article and those that support the Labour WG at all costs cite that the WG did not apply all the Tory anti-trade union legislation. But why would they seek conflict when they believe they can control the trade unions through ‘partnership’?
The mists of partnership will dissipate soon under the heat of the class struggle that is impending. Public Sector and other workers in Wales will be forced into struggle due to being forced to pay for the corona crisis and the crisis of capitalism. It will become clear that what is in place is not a partnership but an abusive relationship that exploits workers. What will become clearer is that we need a mass party of the working class to implement socialist policies if we are to meet our needs.
