“What’s the point of being in a union?” is a pretty common question these days? If you work in the banking sector you couldn’t be blamed if you asked for a refund of your membership sub.

RBS is cutting another 1700 posts bringing its recent total to 3700 jobs axed. Any union worth its salt and / or stuck in old ways of thinking might be threatening ballots, strikes, protest meetings or demonstrations. Unite has risen to the challenge with a fiery statement from its national officer Rob MacGregor. Raging with class hated against the injustice to his members he fulminated :

“Unite views the loss of 1,700 staff as a fundamental mistake. The union does not believe this will do anything to improve the company’s future performance. HSBC should think again before cutting its skilled and dedicated workers.”

Robespierre or Fidel Castro have never reached those heights of demagogic contempt for an opponent. Any board of directors that doesn’t wither under that volley must be made of pretty stern stuff.

Look at what he did! He pointed out that they might be wrong and asked them to reconsider! These are valuable new weapons for the industrial struggle and we can be confident that those redundancy letters were shredded within minutes of the management hearing just how miffed the union’s officials were.

The reality is that Unite’s response to this assault on jobs is the norm. Actions like that taken by the Communication Workers Union are exceptional. Union bureaucracies are directly responsible for the passivity of workers faced with job losses, pay cuts and carnage to their pensions. A statement like Rob Macgregor’s makes you wonder what people like him get paid for.