COMMUNISTS committed to work to build a militant shop stewards’ movement at their 57th Congress today, resolving that “the strength of the trade union movement can be linked directly, though not exclusively, to the collective power of workers on the shop floor.”

Merseyside delegate Nigel Flanagan warned that trade unions, “despite a summer of outstanding action and some successes, are still suffering from long-term trends of decline.

“Even during the strike wave, trade union membership declined by another 200,000 — 122,000 of them were women workers in the private sector,” he stressed.

“Trade union density in the private sector is collapsing — in sectors like IT, hospitality and services it is heading under 10-11 per cent, so nearly 90 per cent of those workers are not joining a trade union. Only 3.8 per cent of trade union members are under the age of 24.”

Mr Flanagan argued that unions struggled to recruit because of a shift away from the patient rank-and-file political work of the 1960s and ’70s, when the unions were run very much by shop stewards representing their members, towards “service” unionism or adherence to the ideas of “community organising gurus” from the United States.

“We need to decolonise the unions of these mad ideas and look to our international comrades like those in India organising a general strike of 250 million workers.

“In practical terms: get involved in your trades council. Get involved with Strike Map UK. Link the issues of Palestine, the People’s Assembly, anti-racism inside your union with the workplace.”