Meaning of Militancy? Postal Workers and Industrial Relations, The

Capital & Class, Summer 2004 by Darlington, Ralph

Unfortunately, while the book undoubtedly presents an admirably multi-layered exploration of its subject, there is a fundamental fault-line at its core. The attempt to conceptually define 'militancy', as with much other, similar abstraction, ends up being both an illuminating and an obstructive exercise in terms of grasping the essence of the phenomenon. But the most important problem is the author's attempt to downplay the significance of postal workers' militancy. he is particularly dismissive of strikes (in terms of their number, extent, character, and significance beyond purely immediate material gains and trade-union organi-sation), and attempts to emphasise their limitations as an industrial weapon because of both their fundamental form and their practical nature. Non-strike forms of militancy-such as 'political action'-are counterposed as a more appropriate alternative. At the same time, he claims that the majority of RM workers cannot be won to the task of creating 'effective militant unionism' (p.296). The rank and file are highly dependent on leadership from senior lay officials in the union for the articulation and representation of their interests, but the actions of a minority of activists are unable to square the circle. We are informed that passivity, inactivity, sectionalism and lower forms of tradeunion consciousness, with their attendant organisational expressions, are generally the predominant characteristics among postal workers. The author reveals that he submitted evidence to the official Sawyer Report into industrial relations in Royal Mail, arguing for maintaining a sense of proportion about the nature and extent of postal workers' 'militant' strike activity (p.263).

Meanwhile, speculating on the future, the deregulation and licensing of competition in the early 2000s are viewed as a formidable challenge, which may undercut the very factors that have provided the basis of postal workers' industrial confidence in previous years, with the 'likelihood of a profound sense of disorganisation and demoralisation amongst the members and activists' (p.314). Gall even wonders 'whether the time of postal workers as a leading group of combative trade unionists is coming to a close' (p.3i4).

Paradoxically, this pessimistic assessment emanates from an author who formally locates himself within the Marxist tradition, and yet who appears to be concerned to bend over backwards in order to avoid the perceived danger of simplistic caricature through presenting a heterodox viewpoint. In the process, he falls into the trap of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Should we view unofficial and illegal strike action, which often involves an extraordinarily high level of solidarity within and between offices, as an exciting development or not? Gall is obviously determined to appear singularly unimpressed, as his detached tone and dispassionate style of writing reflect. In the process, there is a tendency to concentrate on machinations within the union machine at national and branch level, with the voice of the rank-and-file members (apart from those activists interviewed, most of whom were on facility time at the time) relatively absent. So, despite the fact that postal workers' militancy invariably has its origins and development in the workplace, there is no real sense of shop-floor, rank-and-file members' own ideas, interests and behaviour, nor of the nature of union organisation within the offices, nor of the relationship between the members and workplace union reps/activists. Such a focus, notwithstanding the leadership role of lay union activists at different levels, would have been better suited to grasping the social dynamics of a strike movement, the driving force of which has undoubtedly come from below.