Over 14 national trade unions and 120 union branches and trades councils backed the incredible International Anti-War conference in Westminster Central Hall in June. Several union general secretaries spoke at the conference, their support underlining what most labour leaders know and understand – that war and peace are trade union issues.
Which is why, ahead of next week’s TUC congress we’ve been urging all trade unionists to get behind the UCU’s campaign for wages not weapons by signing the union’s petition and calling on delegations to back the motion Building Real Security.
The motion builds on last year’s historic motion in demand of greater investment in education, decent public sector wages, a fairer, properly-funded welfare system and manufacturing for a greener future, not militarism and war – reversing the TUC’s long standing policy of prioritising increased defence spending.
With the current drive across Europe towards massive rearmament and moves towards conscription, the importance of the trade union movement in campaigning against these spending hikes and the inevitable welfare and other cuts to pay for them cannot be overstated.
But while it is clear that working-class people have no interest in supporting the imperialist wars that enrich only the arms manufacturers and the brass hats that advocate for them, the two heavyweight manufacturing unions, the GMB and Unite, still refuse to see it.
Despite the empirical evidence that building more munitions factories and submarines does not create more British jobs, those union’s leaders cling to their line that their members’ jobs are at risk without substantial increases in arms spending.
Never mind that the vast majority of their members aren’t in well paid jobs with the likes of BAE systems and Leonardo, but work in precisely the sectors, particularly the public sector, hit hardest by cuts.
Or that military spending actually generates a smaller economic multiplier than any other public investments, meaning it produces less overall economic activity and fewer secondary benefits than spending on essential services and infrastructure, as the Alternative Defence Review explained.
The UCU motion gets to the nub of the matter and what we have long said – that real security is built through decent work, strong public services, social protection, democratic institutions, environmental sustainability and international cooperation.
Build new hospitals, schools and homes, not new Typhoons and military helicopters. Protect people at home with a roof over their heads, decent education and access to good healthcare, not by creating an ever more dangerous world through this drive to war.
We’ve had a summer of record temperatures and terrifying wildfires. Homes burned down in the West Midlands. As my Stop the War colleague John Rees wrote for Middle East Eye: “Preparations for war, and war itself, are killing the planet faster than practically any other single factor. The military-industrial complex causes more environmental damage than either the civilian aviation industry or the global shipping industry; in fact, its carbon footprint is close to both combined, according to a recent report.”
What we learned from the wildfires that burned in the UK, as they did across the continent and elsewhere, is just how poorly equipped our fire services are to tackle them. Shockingly, the UK does not own or operate any dedicated firefighting helicopters or aircraft within its fire and rescue services. So where are the calls from the defence sector unions for the industry to switch to making aircraft that put out rather than starting fires?
Where are the calls to transition to making the resources needed for renewable power including electricity grids, green public transport, heat pumps, battery production and climate control measures, all of which would provide the well paid jobs for their members that they appear to believe can only be provided by manufacturing still more weapons of war.
Stop the War will be in Brighton backing the UCU and its sister unions in their demand that Congress supports the Wages not Weapons campaign and urging delegates to help us to also build for the 10 October national and international demonstration for Palestine, the days of action agreed at the International Conference, including the weekend against militarism and conscription, starting with the Youth Strike on Friday 20 November, which includes a demand for an end to the Defence Universities Alliance UK which is is turning cash-strapped universities and colleges into hubs for the military-industrial complex.
We also urge as many people as possible to come along to the Welfare not Warfare international movement against war national tour in October. See our events page for details.
Source: Labour Outlook