The latest meeting of the all-Britain Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) steering committee was held on the eve of the Makerfield by-election. And although it couldn’t exactly predict the course of the subsequent events, it did set-up TUSC for the work that needs to be done to fight for the working class to have its own political voice in the new conditions of a seventh prime minister coming to office in ten years.

The steering committee discussed the latest cross-union meeting of the ‘Trade Unionists for a New Party’ campaign held on June 8th, which 303 people registered for. Hosted by the TUSC chairperson Dave Nellist, it was opened by the Birmingham bin strike Unite convenor Matt Reid, who made the point that when people had “voted Labour, it was because they had stood for communities, for working people, for trade unions. And I’m of the belief now that they’ve had far too many chances and we need to re-establish ourselves as a trade union and build our own party again. We did it before”, and could do it again.

Other speakers (in a personal capacity) included executive members from Unite, Unison, NEU, UCU and Napo; and the PCS Deputy President Dave Semple, who argued that the motion passed at the union’s recent conference on fighting the far-right – which included the demand for PCS to convene a conference with other unions “to discuss the building of a political vehicle for workers” should Labour not move to implement pro-worker policies – will be a major task for the new national executive committee in the year ahead. A video recording of all the contributions made is available on YouTube here.

In preparation for the meeting TUSC had produced a union-by-union progress report (available here) up to the end of May and, with further union conferences taking place in June and beyond, the TUSC steering committee agreed to produce an update at the end of the conference season. The meeting also welcomed the addition of two further executive council members of Unite and three PCS national executive committee members onto the TUSC steering committee, to play their part in the growing debate on working class political representation in the unions. ■

The meeting also agreed a re-draft of the How TUSC Functions rules to clarify the role within TUSC of individual socialists who are not members of any of the component organisations of the coalition. They retain their self-organisation rights, with representation on the TUSC steering committee, but under the more accurate name, ‘TUSC Independent Socialists: the individual supporters section’. The amended rules can be viewed here.

The next steering committee meeting will take place on July 22nd. By-election candidate applications and any other items for consideration to be placed on the agenda for the meeting must be received by the TUSC National Election Agent – Clive Heemskerk, at [email protected] – by Friday 17th July.