The Scottish Labour Party, while I have breath in my body, will listen to the views of trade unionists.
Labour is at its best when it remembers its moral fury.
We've got to stand up for what we believe in as a labour movement. And that means the party's membership needs to be even bigger so it becomes a genuinely mass organisation.
I spent 20 years working for the trade union movement before becoming a Labour MP. I'm proud to have done both jobs.
I think there's not much patience for organized labour, period, public or private sector.
The trade unions and the Labour Party... failed miserably. Instead of giving concrete support, and calling upon workers to take industrial action, they did nothing.
Trotsky found out about him - Leon Trotsky - because A.J.[Muste] worked. He was an activist. And he organized the first sit-in strike in Toledo in a factory. And Trotsky was very impressed with that.
The British Labour movement is today, and for many years has been, working in a narrow circle of strikes that are looked upon, not as an expedient, and not as a means of propaganda, but as an ultimate aim.
I think the business community is smart enough to realise that just having a trade union is not enough. They are smart enough to know they need to be part of a union that has political and financial power.
