Unite workers and jobless
Socialist Organiser1981 1981-08-20Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 13 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 13
John McHeath [SO 46] claims that the term unemployed workers union is misleading and can confuse and alienate workers.
Unemployed workers unions have never claimed to be an alternative to the trade unions, but have seen the need for dual membership of both trade unions and unemployed workers Encouraged Locally we have found that far from confusing workers, through the unemployed workers union we have encouraged those who have never been in a trade union before to become members of one.
A central aim of all unemployed workers unions is to unite the employed and the unemployed to defend the interests of all workers and not, as is suggested separate the unemployed from the trade union movement.
Even though it is TUC policy for all member unions to retain their unemployed members and recruit the unemployed, the current rules of the unions do not allow this, and it will take a number of years for the rule changes to be achieved even if the individual unions themselves are willing.
How long can the unemployed wait for the trade union bureaucracy to move?
I feel that it would have been more honest if the writer of the letter had opposed the principle of unempioyed workers unions in favour of an unemployed workers council, and not deliberately distorted the current role of unemployed workers unions to justify the alternative proposal for unemployed workers councils.
MICK JARMAINE Leicester Unemployed Workers Union.