Dave Ward – Commander Of Scabs

The CWU General Secretary Joins A Long Line Of Union Sell Outs

The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. – Friedrich Engels

The proud boasting done by David Ward, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, regarding his acceptance of a CBE, tells us a great deal about the wretched state of what passes for leadership in the British trade union movement. What we see from the likes of Ward is what was referred to by Engels all the way back in the 1880s, when he observed that the craving for what he termed bourgeois respectability amongst the British trade union leaders would be an incredibly damaging thing for class struggle in Britain in the long term.

This has proven to be the case in the over 140 years now since Engels made that observation. We have seen multiple trade unionists make it onto the red benches of the House of Lords. Join the ranks of the vermin in ermine. And we’ve seen many more get knighthoods and various gongs from the British ruling class in return for services rendered. Now Ward has been made a commander of the British Empire (CBE) in apparent recognition for his services to trade unionism.

Here we should look at what the purposes of the honours system are, and this ties into what the purpose of the monarchy is in this day and age. The reason why the British ruling class kept the monarchy around was to give their rule an element of or the appearance of continuity, with the various different feudal regimes that had existed beforehand. As Engels observed, the monarchy became thoroughly bourgeois, meaning it was a capitalist monarchy, just as you had an aristocracy that was converted to capitalism and was part of a system of institutions which is designed to be very decorative and look as if it’s this, , set of institutions which dates all the way back to the days of William the Conqueror. In actual fact, the British ruling class has been very ruthless about repurposing these institutions in every generation, when they feel like they need to rearrange them to make sure that they’re still doing the thing which they’re designed to do, which is, of course, to serve the needs of the British capitalist class. Now, the honours system is very much part of this. The honours system, which deals with everything from the medals given out to, members of the armed forces through to OBE, KBE, knighthoods, damehoods, lordships, ladyship’s. 

This is all part of the monarchical system in this country. And these aren’t awards which the ruling class give out lightly, especially not to trade union leaders. If you look at whose got these over the years, whether it’s Sir Walter Citrine, former general secretary of the TUC back in the days of World War two, a bitter anti-communist and profoundly anti working class individual. Same with the various others who made it into the House of Lords over the years. So you’ve got Lord Dave Prentis of Unison, a man who sold out more strikes than he’d had dinners paid for on expenses. You’ve also got people from earlier in trade union history, such as Lord Len Murray. You’ve got people given various different other awards like knighthoods, etc., from across the trade union movement, all for services to trade unionism. What does this actually mean though? Why would the British ruling class be interested in giving an award to a trade unionist? In actual fact such awards are in recognition of the services that such trade unionists provide to the British ruling class. The British ruling class realized that they couldn’t just squash and repress trade union organization, as they tried to in the 1830s and 1840s, and in the end, it didn’t work. The ruling class had come to the realization that they had to bargain with the trade union leadership and part of the way in which they have bargained with them is to make sure that the upper layers of the trade union movement, the leadership layers, incorporated into the systems of the British state and tap into the the desperate desire, as Engels observed from these trade union leaders, for the acceptability in bourgeois circles. This is what people like Dave Ward crave above everything else, acceptance in ruling class circles. In order to get that acceptance and the very real financial rewards that can come with that, they are prepared to sell out strikes, they’re prepared to squash militancy in their own ranks. They’re prepared to see hundreds and thousands of jobs lost. They’re prepared to see their unions wither away and die all so they can get a medal from the ruling class, a pat on the head and perhaps entry into the hallowed second chamber and a chance to become a member of the vermin in Ermine. That is the path that Ward is on. 

Now, we remember from previous coverage on the Class Consciousness project from a couple of years ago, where Dave Ward and others were very heavily criticised by members of their own union for essentially capitulating to Royal Mail in the long running dispute where Ward and others were boasting of the the great strike votes that they’d had from the the workers in Royal Mail. And indeed they did get huge majorities for strike action, easily getting past the anti-union ballot thresholds that had been put in place. But as we pointed out in an article at the time, the Royal Mail strike petered out into nothingness because the union leadership refused to endorse further action. They let the will of the workers to fight wither away. And then they turned round and said that the crap offer that they’d had from Royal Mail was the only one on the table, and that’s the best they could do. So we’re going to shut down the strike now. And many postal workers left the union in disgust, and rightly so, and in many respects. But now we get a clearer idea of what is going on, which is that Dave Ward has been given this CBE in the King’s Birthday honours list. Now, do we really believe that King Chucky himself goes through the trade unionist address book and picks out the good boys and girls to be rewarded? No. This suggestion came from the Prime Minister’s office, and I strongly suspect that this is part of what was in the mix when it comes to the selling out of the Royal Mail strike. Well, over two years ago now there was pressure from the office of Starmer directly applied to the leadership of the CWU, with the implication being “well, Dave, if you play ball on this one then a reward will be coming your way” and now Dave Ward is starting to reap the rewards of capitulating in what was a very crucial industrial dispute, and one that arguably could have been won with a more determined leadership. 

We should at this stage say that the nature of British trade union leaders hasn’t really changed in over 140 years. They’ve always been, for the most part, Craven sell-outs. The reason why the likes of Arthur Cook from the old Miners Federation and Arthur Scargill from the National Union of Mineworkers, and Bob Crow of the RMT stand out, is because they are the exception, not the rule. The general trend of trade union leadership in Britain has always been towards craving acceptability in the eyes of the ruling class, desperately seeking titles and medals from the ruling class, doing literally anything to, get that acceptability, including, as we have already said, by selling out multiple strikes and overseeing disastrous setbacks for the working class movement, all so that they could be embraced by the ruling class and reaped the rewards.

That’s not changed in over a century. What’s changed is the fact that they used to be a counterbalance to that. By having a strong rank and file movement within the trade unions at the base of the trade unions. You had in the past working class leaders in unofficial positions or the or just being branch level activists who had such a strong ability to influence the workforce in various different industries. That strikes would be called from the rank and file level, and the leaders would be told to either back it or at least get out of the way. And that’s what’s missing now. It’s not that the trade union leadership was any better in the past. It was not. It was always this way. They were always, in the most part, wretches who were prepared to sell out the working class at the first available opportunity. But what used to be present was a strong movement at the base level of the unions that would actually force the leaders to do the right thing, under threat of being shoved out of office.

These days we don’t have that, and it desperately needs to be rebuilt, because the only way we’re going to be able to counteract the likes of that miserable sell-out Dave Ward is if the rank and file in this communication workers union and other unions are confident and politicised enough and have a high enough level of class consciousness that they can work around or ignore or make irrelevant the anti-union laws and push for strike action in direct defiance of the anti-union laws, and tell the leadership of the CWU and any other union that they either back the workers or they get the hell out of the way. That’s the only way that you can counteract the actions of a union so-called leader like Dave Ward. We should always see that the union leadership is open to corruption, and plenty of opportunities for corruption will be presented to them by the ruling class. That should be taken as read. What we must do as workers is prepare ourselves for a struggle against the union leadership and bureaucracy in our own unions, and with the aim that we must either shove them out of the way or render them irrelevant by the power of rank and file organization. This is the only way you are going to counteract the corrupting and corrosive influence of the British ruling class within the union movement, and it’s the only way we’re going to be able to force the trade union movement into actually being a movement of the working class again, and not a career ladder for the likes of wretched sell-outs such as Dave Ward.