Len McCluskey’s of UNITE’s finest speech
The Ralph Miliband Lecture London School of Economics
Jan 16th 2013
“Unions cannot continue to watch on idly as successive governments leave so many on the scrapheap – a scrapheap which will grow ever larger as the so-called “welfare reforms” kick in.
We need to reconnect unions with the wider community, and rebuild a bond which has been frayed as a result of the changing nature of work – or its complete absence. Our aim is to get communities to act together. This sits comfortably within our traditions.”
“My union Unite is leading the way with an ambitious new programme to recruit, organise and educate across the whole of our communities: the unemployed, the disabled, carers, the elderly, the voluntary and charity sector – it is time for these people to be organised and to be given a voice. Who better to do this than the trade union movement?”
“Trade unions have always provided social spaces (the working man’s clubs is one example) where communities got together over a drink and organised social and political events. It is these roots we must return to, in a modernised form. Too many people in our country are being pushed to the margins of society. They deserve to be heard; they too deserve the support to organise collectively.”
“It is with this in mind that Unite has founded its community membership scheme. Those not in work aged 16 to 116 can join our family for 50 pence a week. That is why we now have community branches springing up across the country, and community organisers working in every part of the country. We offer training to individuals who want to become community activists. Our activists go into their communities and build groups, empowering people to do something for themselves.”
“They tell us strike action, civil disobedience, direct action and protest are all somehow unpatriotic. Our history tells us they are not. That is because our rulers are deeply afraid of Ralph Miliband’s assertion that politics is about conflict. They believe that, for example, those without hope, without jobs, now looking at cuts in their meagre welfare, that families being shunted out of London because of housing benefit changes should simply out up with it.”
“I am proud to associate Unite with these initiatives, and to hope to form a longer-lasting alliance between organised labour and radical protest, even if it comes from outside our traditional movement. And, as I have made clear before in relation to the trade union laws, while I do not ever advocate violence, nor do I preach worship of the law at all costs.”
“So my message to capitalism – if you can send a message to a system – is this: Mend your ways or risk mounting social breakdown and disorder.”
~ Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey
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