Alan Johnson’s Weekly Column

The Respect Coalition versus Trade Unionism

Consider these two statements:

The first statement was issued to Respect members this week by Jonathan Walker (Press Officer, Cambridge Respect), Tom Woodcock (Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Cambridge Respect) and Jo Robbins (Chair, Cambridge Respect). “The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions can not be regarded as a legitimate trade union movement… it is our job to call for an end to the occupation, and to support the right of Iraqis to resist. At the Labour Party Conference, Muhsin of IFTU, always referred to the "so-called Iraqi resistance". We can only ask Campeace members to repudiate the so-called Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions… it has effectively transferred its loyalty from one murderous tyrant to another, from Saddam Hussein to George W. Bush.”

The second statement is Faleh A. Jabar writing on the torture and murder of his friend and comrade Hadi Saleh, IFTU leader, by the ‘resistance’. “A group of five, most probably, ex-security men, broke into his house in Baghdad, waited for him in the dark and preyed on him the moment he stepped in. They killed three times: first they strangled him with a wire; second they riddled his body with bullets; lastly they burnt him. This was not an ordinary killing. Unlike show beheadings that mark ‘resistance’ in Iraq, this was a triple vengeance: in the 1970s Saleh was condemned to death for clandestine unionism, he was amnestied years later, now the Ba’ath security men working in clandestine for restoration reneged on their amnesty. They also took vengeance for the successes Saleh achieved in rebuilding trade unions (The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, IFTU) that stand now at some 200,000 membership, a formidable democratic social movement defying all sorts of fundamentalist, communal or other parochial identities. Lastly, they wanted to hush him and his colleagues who pursue a twin line of peaceful action for the restitution of Iraq’s sovereignty and building an all-inclusive, federal democracy”.

Trade unionists in Respect think of themselves as democratic socialist, defenders of union rights, and fearless in the protection of workers’ interests against governments and employers. So some questions seem to be begged by the extraordinary statement of Cambridge Respect:

Do you also ‘repudiate’ the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions like your comrade Tom Woodcock, the Respect Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge? Or do you repudiate Tom Woodcock and Respect?

Do you believe that the IFTU has “transferred its loyalty to George W. Bush”? Or do you understand that Respect have made a foul smear on the free trade unionists of Iraq? (And do you understand the import of this smear? Do you know of the wave of murders of IFTU members by the ‘resistance’, of the RPG attacks on IFTU headquarters, of the murder of rail workers in Basra?)

Do you defend the charge by Respect National Council Member George Galloway that the IFTU are ‘quislings’?

Do you defend the charge by Respect National Council Member Lindsey German’s newspaper that the IFTU are a ‘fake union’?

Do you defend Respect member Alex Callinicos who sneered at the international labour movement outcry against the murder of Hadi Saleh as a ‘hullabaloo’ about a ‘communist’?

Do you feel no responsibility at all as Respect trade unionists to speak out loud and clear against these attacks by leading Respect members on your brother and sister trade unionists in Iraq? None at all?

Do you agree with your Respect comrades in Cambridge that the IFTU militants are people who were ‘loyal to Saddam’? Or are you , like us, aghast that heroic trade unionists who were jailed and tortured under Saddam, who kept the flame of trade unionism alight in exile and in the underground, at tremendous personal risk in the face of the violence of Saddam’s Ba’ath Party thugs, have been slandered by the Cambridge Respect Parliamentary candidate in this way?

Will you demand the Cambridge Respect Parliamentary candidate issue a retraction?

Do you not see the black humour involved in this? Your own party leader, George Galloway, travelled to Baghdad and hailed Saddam Hussein’s courage, strength and indefatigability”, standing inside his palace. Militants who later formed the IFTU were fighting for trade union rights outside the palace in the then clandestine Workers’ Democratic Trade Union Movement. Yet the political party you have chosen to support, Respect, is led by Galloway and has set itself up as the tormentors of the IFTU!

Is this the ‘political voice’ you hoped Respect would become?

And then there is the question of how all this stacks up alongside your official union policy towards the IFTU! For instance, Respect claims solid support in the Public and Commercial Services Union. The leader of the PCS, Mark Serwotka has long been identified as a supporter of Respect. How on earth do PCS members square their support for Respect and their silence toward the Respect leaders who slander and vilify and finger the IFTU, with their own trade union’s official policy toward the IFTU? But at the PCS conference several motions were passed pledging PCS support for the IFTU! According to the IFTU’s own website, “The outgoing assistant general secretary of the PCS presented the executive's agreed position on the motion on Iraq and referred to a meeting that took place in May 2004 between the PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, himself and Abdullah Muhsin of the IFTU in which the Union pledged practical support for the IFTU”.

Enough is enough. As trade unionists in Respect you have a moral duty to challenge the tormenters of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions who sit in the leadership of his own party. Your silence acts as a green light to those tormentors. You have a unique moral authority within Respect and can take a stand against this disgraceful activity if you will act.

Stand up for your own union’s policy towards the IFTU. Stand up for the trade unionists of Iraq under assault from the ‘resistance’ and from the Respect leaders. Time to act.

Cambridge Respect members were refusing to sign a petition expressing support for Nozad Ismail the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk who has survived two assassination attempts by the ‘resistance’.

Over 500 trade unionists from all around the globe have signed so far. See Global Appeal on left of this web site.

Vanessa Yardley, Australian Services Union Delegate told LFIQ, “I note that Nozad Ismail, has twice survived assassination attempts by the so-called resistance and is subject to daily death threats. I call upon the international labour movement to extend solidarity to Nozad in the hope that these acts of solidarity and resulting publicity may make the cost of murdering him too high. We believe that increased solidarity with Iraqi democrats like Nozad will also contribute to the success of the forthcoming elections which can secure a sovereign and democratic Iraqi government, which can best tackle the so-called resistance, from which these threats emanate.”

That is the voice of internationalist trade unionism. Will you add your own voice to it, joining a chorus of over 500 trade unionists (and counting) from all over the globe? Or will you echo the slanders of Mr Tom Woodcock of Cambridge? Or will you just stay quiet?