NSSN - CONFERENCE REPORT
Over on the website of the South West region of the National Shop Stewards Network there is a report of the recent NSSN conference by Dave Osborne, who is a Senior Amicus rep at Augusta Westland at Yeovil.
I think this is an assessment well worth looking at because Dave is a solid trade union activist from an important engineering factory in small working class town, and he has no connection with any of the far left groups - he represents exactly the sort of people the NSSN needs to be reaching out to.
As Dave describes his reasons for going to the NSSN conference:
“I don’t consider myself a militant but I think it is important to support any organisation that could offer support to the members I represent (whether in the workplace, at Branch, or at Trades Council) when they are in dispute with their employers. On that basis I felt obliged to attend the meeting “
That’s a good point Andy, the NSSN should be for shop stewards in that capacity, no doubt many behind it will be in left groups but if it is to grow, those should be left at the door when taking part in this initiative.
The stance taken by Richie Venton of the SSP at the Glasgow conference was that political parties should be invited. I disagree, people who are in political parties should be involved in this through their position as an elected union representative. Venton also listed the parties that he said hadn’t been invited and that should have, coveniently missing Solidarity from the list.
He made the mistake of seeing a lot of participants being Solidarity members and thinking that meant that solidarity had been invited, we hadn’t, we simply have a lot more shop stewards and active trade unionists than most left parties and many of them are involved in NSSN.
Comment by Jim Monaghan — 17 July, 2008 @ 10:19 am
I agree, Jim. As long as someone is a bona fide representative of their own union branch/workplace that’s fine. Perhaps if the SSP gave more priority to workers organisations they wouldn’t be left out in the cold as much.
Comment by Doug — 17 July, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
Well I am quite happy for people who are members of the left groups to be taking part, my point is that the left activists provide too narrow and small a constituency to base the NSSN on over the long term.
The long term suscess and relevence if the network will be in terms of building vialble regional networks, and of widening participation to less political lay union activists.
Comment by Andy Newman — 17 July, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
Totally agree Andy. It will be members of left groups that initially come together in these groups, obviously they are the most politicised of the trade union representatives, in the main. But the success of the NSSN depends on it growing in the manner that you outline.
Comment by Jim Monaghan — 17 July, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
“The long term suscess and relevence if the network will be in terms of building viable regional networks, and of widening participation to less political lay union activists” (Comment 3)
Good point. I think participation also needs to be widened to non-traditional sectors of the economy and the workforce too: so it was good to see the call centre rep and the voluntary sector rep involved at the conference.
But - and maybe someone can answer this - what about the groups of workers who are informally organized but dont have recognition? They have informal reps and activists but not shop stewards as such. Often they are unlikely to get recognition and a formal structure in the short term - either because of the employers attitude and/or because union organizers or officers consider them not a priority typically because the workplace isnt big enough, or else because its not a target company or geographical district etc. So not much help there.
How can we involve such groups of workers more in sth like the NSSN? Maybe by them getting involved in a branch and then being nominated by the branch to attend - but they still won’t have voting rights despite being workplace reps, albeit not ones recognised formally.
I say all this because it is these groups of workers I have been most involved with myself in supporting, and in theory given the lack of official union support they get plus non-recognition, the Network would be a great place for them to come and exchange ideas and get solidarity. I am talking agency workers, catering, domestic, cleaners etc etc. Peole who are active but for whom traditonal union activist speak is often a foreign language in more ways than one.
Comment by Jake — 17 July, 2008 @ 6:22 pm