"The power of this idea to transform the dry detail work of trade union organisation into the constructive work of revolutionary Socialism and thus make of the unimaginative trade unionist a potent factor in the launching of a new system of society, cannot be overestimated. It invests the sordid details of the daily incidents of the class struggle with a new and beautiful meaning, and presents them in their true light as skirmishes between two opposing armies of light and darkness."
     --James Connolly, 1908

Our party rightly bases itself upon the revolutionary struggle of a united working class for the establishment of a 32 county socialist republic. In order to achieve that goal we must build our party and strive to conquer the leadership of the working class. This is not ours by right but must be fought for through the power of our ideas and our organisation.

The first prerequisite to building our party must be clear ideas, a clear programme and analysis which can arm ourselves and penetrate the wider working class movement. It is our duty to raise our ideas and demands inside the workers' organisations.

The basic unit of workers' organisation is the trade union. The unions affiliated to ICTU have 750,000 members. Our party must establish a base and then build upon it in all these organisations. Our task is to struggle alongside these workers for their daily demands and to link these struggles up through our demands and our analysis with the need to change society, the need for a socialist revolution.

Clear ideas and demands are vital, but on their own they are not enough. We must also organise our work in this field effectively. We have already a number of members with important positions in the workplace, at local and even national level in the unions. The work of these comrades needs to organised and co-ordinated in such a way as to best enable us to build the party, its influence and its membership.

Most recently we have stood out against those who wanted to split the T&G after the bureaucratic attack on Mick O'Reilly and Eugene McGlone. This was absolutely correct and must be continued. Given the shift to the left taking place across the unions in Britain, the campaign for their reinstatement can gain a great deal of support there as well as at home. Of course we differentiate between those honest workers who argued to leave the union or for a split out of disgust at the actions of the leaders, and those childish elements who always seek to split and divide allegedly in the name of some mystical revolutionary purity. The latter are an irritant and play a less than useless role in the movement. The honest workers however, as we have found, with a clear explanation of the dangers of such splits can be won over. This increases our influence also, and can bring us new members in the union.

The class struggle will continue, no matter what the union leaders say or do. Of course, the union apparatus is powerful and can hold back the movement for a time. But this will only give it an even more explosive character in the long run. If the unions act as an obstacle, there will be a wave of unofficial strikes, which will later end in official action. The main thing is to see that a new mood of class struggle is building up under the surface of apparent calm.

The change will come from below. It will shake up the unions from top to bottom. That is why union work assumes such a key importance for us. Those who fiddle and fuss around on the fringes of the union movement, playing around with "rank and file" alternatives to the unions are doomed to fail. Such unofficial movements can never be a substitute for the permanent structures of the unions. By picking off isolated individuals who have moved a bit too far ahead of the class, they only weaken the left inside the unions and objectively aid the bureaucracy to maintain its stranglehold. Those who seek to split the unions do even greater damage. We stand for unity. To remove the most advanced activists from a union is to leave many workers defenceless in the grip of the bureaucracy and at the mercy of the bosses. Such splits sow confusion and disunity. The division of the workers movement is a crime which plays into the hands of the bureaucrats and the bosses.

Union work demands time. A great deal of it has a routine character, involving a host of mundane and organisational tasks. While this is unavoidable, it carries with it certain dangers. Comrades can unwittingly become absorbed into this dynamic and lose sight of the basic objectives of revolutionary work in the unions. There is a danger that without the necessary check of revolutionary discipline and theory, our comrades can find themselves in a position where they begin to reflect the pressures brought to bear on them by the bureaucracy.

Moreover, union work brings us into daily contact with the most non-political elements of the working class. This too can have a negative effect, if not corrected by the counter-weight of a revolutionary organisation. One can end up becoming a professional negotiator. While it is necessary to be the best and most assiduous defender of even the most elementary interests of the workers, it is also necessary at all times to regard oneself as a revolutionary doing work in the unions, and not a trade unionist who happens to be a Republican socialist.

The only safeguard is to integrate the trade union comrades into structures of the party, and to pay special attention to their political and theoretical development, to encourage them to read the writings of Connolly etc. Most activists have an interest in the broader ideas, but little time to read and study. Therefore experienced comrades must find the time to discuss with them on a regular basis not only their union work but all the issues of the day and also theory.

We must strive to make party meetings lively, interesting and useful. Workers are busy people, with many meetings to go to, families etc. We must not waste their time. Badly prepared, boring, routinist meetings must not be permitted. Workers should look forward to attending our meetings and not see it as a burden, or just another meeting. At the same time, party meetings must not be regarded as a kind of doctor's surgery for trade union problems. Party meetings should give our trade unionists a general view of the class struggle, on a national and international scale. This is an essential antidote to the pressures of trade union parochialism.

Trade union work must be under the control of the leading bodies and units of the party. This is particularly important where we have comrades in leading positions in the unions, which bring them under the direct pressure of the bureaucracy. Unless such comrades are consolidated and educated politically, they can succumb to the pressures of the bureaucracy. Where possible it is better to build a strong base of support within the ranks before taking a leading position in a union. However, sometimes it is necessary to take a position before we have consolidated ourselves at grass-root level. In this case, it is imperative that we use the position to build the party, in order that the comrade is not isolated under the pressure of the apparatus. If the comrade is unable to build himself because of lack of time or other reasons, we should send in other comrades to build around him or her.

Caucuses/fractions should be organised in each union where we have a presence, and plans must be laid to establish a presence where we are as yet absent from a particular union. The purpose of these caucuses is to plan and organise our work in each union and workplace, under the direction of the party leadership, to best build our influence and our membership in the unions, not as an end in itself but as a preparation for events, for the development of the class struggle, and for the conquest of the leadership of the workers movement.