A hundred thousand trade unionists stake a claim to a
Europe for people not profit
By Matt Cooper and Nick Holden

Brussels on Thursday , December 13th, saw possibly the
largest ever demonstration of trade union strength
across Europe. Well over 100,000 people took five
hours (on a working day) to march through the capital
of the ‘Europe of Profit’ under the slogan, “Europe:
it’s us!”

Huge contingents from the union federations of France,
Germany and Belgium were joined by sizeable numbers
from almost every other country in Europe – Spain,
Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Even
Poland’s Solidarnosc had two banners and several dozen
demonstrators. The smallest contingent was from
Britain – a reflection of how isolated the TUC is from
the increasing life in the unions of the rest of
Europe. Decades of ‘left’ little-Englandism in the UK
labour movement is partly to blame, but neither the
TUC leadership nor the left could summon up much
enthusiasm for coming to Brussels.

Tucked in among thouands of red, green, blue and
orange-clad workers from across Europe were a couple
of dozen TUC bureaucrats with only a handful of white
flags between them, and a slightly larger left
contingent, comprised mostly of the SWP – although
those who brought union branch banners with them were
having trouble finding people to help carry them.

Significant, perhaps, was the complete absence of any
party or political banners – the working class of
Europe may be rising off its knees; but it remains
deprived of any form of political representation, just
as it does in Britain.

More surprising, the European left was also largely
absent. Possibly they believed they were keeping their
powder dry for the ‘anti-capitalist, anti-war’ demo on
Friday, but that is likely to prove to have been a
mistake. Firstly, Friday’s demonstration will be
dwarfed, in both size and significance, by Thursday’s.
And secondly, the real progress at Genoa was the
heightened sense of unity between union members and
anti-capitalists, and the latter’s small numbers on
Thursday’s march has not helped in developing that
unity. We don’t know yet, of course, how many trade
unionists will stay in Brussels for the demonstration
on Friday, but much of the potential for the left to
intervene into the activities of the European
organised working class has already been missed.

One big demonstration doesn’t make a labour movement,
of course, and the European Trade Union Confederation
that organised this magnificent “manifestation” is the
same layer of bureaucrats who failed to organise
sufficient Europe-wide solidarity action to save the
Vauxhall workers at Luton, or to defend their members
in public services throughout Europe,who are all
facing similar assaults from the private sector.

Trade Unionists leaving Brussels tonight should
reflect on the possibilities that their demonstration
represented. If the thousands upon thousands of union
members who marched were now building a militant and
confrontational European workers’ movement then,
truly, another Europe would be possible. But the
lesson has to be that we cannot leave that task in the
hands of the bureaucrats – whether in Lonodn or
Brussels: we need a Europe-wide rank and file campaign
for unions to fightback!