No. 82, April, 1986
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the , LPVS marxIsm• & UNION LEADERS RETREAT • HAVING SEEN UNIONISATION strength of the major unions is violent picketing on the tele drop below 50% of the workforce due to the fact that their leaders vision can undo weeks and the trade union chiefs are getting have not been prepared to stand weeks of really hard work In worried. They have taken to whin up and fight. As sections of trying to get our message Ing about how the bosses have workers have been cowed and across." moved the goal posts by getting intimidated by the bosses and She and her kind would prefer tough and even, horrors of horrors, by the threat of the dole queue, to get a big hand for the gallant "militant". the union tops have sat on their loser than shape up for a real They are nursing their wounds hands. When workers have fought fight. after the drubbing they received back the leaders have moved into In line with this thinking the at the hands of an enemy that action only In order to contain TUC employment committee have they never really wanted to resist, and control struggles. just circulated new guidelines on let alone beat. Their only hope In order to restore their public picketing which stab militant was that the Tories and the mil image the ranks of trade union workers In the back. They now lionaires would treat them clvllly officialdom are taking further explicitly rule out pickets that and occasionally hold talks with steps to clamp down on any aim "to blockade a . workplace". them. Did they not offer up the action the members might take And they oppose big solidarity NUM for defeat on MacGregor's to resist the bosses' attacks. demonstrations that might be seen terms and only get sandwiches Brenda Dean sees the battle by the police by Thatchers' from Thatcher In exchange? Is against Murdoch as a battle to scabs In blue - as "intimidation there no gratitude in this world? win the public sympathy for the towards those who wish to enter". Is there no recognition for printers. Hence her hostility to The union bureaucrats wlnge and services rendered? the effective picketing and soli moan at the bosses' militancy. Most of the union leaders put darity action that could stop Mur But they spit blood at the mili their present sorry fortunes down doch. As she told the Communist tancy of workers trying to make to their low standing in the eyes Party's right wing rag Marxism their strikes effective. of 'public opinion'. What nonsense. Today, The Tory anti-union laws The________________________________ declining size and bargaining "On picketing, one nIght of.... illegal.render Theeffective current trade sequestratlons unionism • of the print unions prove that once again. Yet another sign of FIGHT SCAB UNIONISM the right wing stampede is to ERIC HAMMOND AND his cronies and their wives tu secure victory, be found in the TUC's current boast that what the EETPU does ignoring the fact that it was the discussion on trade union laws. today other trade union leaders treachery of the bureaucracy that The majority of trade union will be doing tomorrow. This Is led to the defeat. This man shared leaders are lining up behind Kin no empty bragging on Hammond's vice-chairmanship of the extreme nock and Prescott in pushing for Rank and file must rebuild mass resistance Andrew Wlard (Report) part. right-Wing Mainstream group with a legally enforceable Bill of trade used and agreed procedures stuck the LCDTU provoked a pavement The EETPU leaders have good the UDM's Prendergast. If he wins union rights to be overseen by to. The independence of the trade caucus of Jack Taylor, George reason for being smug at the the presidency it will strengthen a new Labour or Industrial relat unions to fight and organise as Bolton and others In the NUM, moment. They should have been the hand of the hard right even tion's court modelled on the Irish necessary to advance workers' who are hell-bent on steering flung out of the TUC long ago. further. example. interests would be sacrificed to the union away from a mllltant Their better members - in Fleet Hammond and Jordan are advo the rulings of a Labour court. course. Scargill's fatal weakness Street In particular - could have cates of what they call 'market Faced with the hard-nosed is that he wtll not break ranks done with just that act of support unionism'. Put bluntly this means RETREAT far right (Hammond) and the right- with these elements openly and from the TUC to aid them in that the officials sell their services moving centre (Willis, Edmonds, organise the rank and file against rallying members against to the bosses through single union This represents yet another Dean), the traditional left has them. Hammond. deals and no-strike procedural major retreat even on the i985 become increaSingly marginalised. The task of the day is to Instead Hammond can survey agreements. And they sell their conference policy of non-coopera Its silence is deafening. The recent organise rank and file mllttants a scene of official retreat and services to their members too. tion with current laws. It puts Liaison Committee conference In every union. Every struggle capitulation which he can rightfully By services to the members the off the question of challenging was poorly attended. No action that erupts Jleeds to be taken claim to have been the architect EETPU now means cheap car in the laws to that distant day when was forthcoming fr m its desultory up and supported by mllltants of. Neil Kinnock is now a firm surance and stock market advice. Kinnock might come to power. deliberations. Tocher's campaign within and across the unions. This and loyal convert to Japanese Collective organisation and strength It also means the majority against Jordan in the AUEW con- way solid rank and file links can Industrial Relations (i.e. company to defend wages and jobs is, they of trade union leaders are more tains no commitm ~ nt to organise be established, and the isolation unionism). It is Hammond's crew argue, a thing of the past. By than prepared to drop demands and lead struggles In the key ques- of mllltants that the bureaucrats that have pioneered this company selling their new wares they gua for trade union legal immunities tions faCing engine rs. It is Jordan prey on can be broken down. unionism in 3ritaln, the no-strike rantee the salaries of themselves in order to ease Kinnock's path who is on the offensive in the The basis could be laid for class collaboration trade unionism and other officials in the 'union to office. Quite rightly the campaign hustings. rank and file movements In each that Kinnock thinks contains suffi business'. workers' movement has always union, and for a national rank cient worker docility and produc The fashion is catching on fought for the trade unions to and file movement, committed tive innovation to woo the bosses elsewhere. The print unions have be free of legal shackles and from PRISONER to a class struggle, anti-bureaucra with. just signed a deal with the Finan judicial interference. The seques tic programme. The TUC's miserable failure cial Times that guarantees the tered funds of the NUM tell us A start can be made by ensur to fight Hammond has made the bosses against any disruption of why. Despite formally apologising In the highest reaches of the Ing that every union branch and right In the trade union bureau production. Vauxhall has secured to the court the union has still trade union bureaucracy only conference rejects all legal cracy all the more brazen. Witch a similar deal which allows it not get its money back! The anti Arthur ScargllI dist\lrbed the TUC's shackies on the unions, and -hunter general, John Golding has to replace striking workers with union rulings of the courts under recent commltarlive committee commits Itself to breaking the now taken over the NCU. Jordan's scabs with full union backing. line the fact that British justice conference on un laws by de- Tory laws when necessary and present campaign for the presi Militants must organise to do is ruling class justice. claring that relations backing all workers who do so dency of the AUEW has none of battle with all of these moves Now Kinnock and Willis want would be better as class with Industrial action to destroy the mealy-mouthed dissembling by the rampant new right. Failure every aspect of trade unionism relations.· He used the those laws. The only alternative that has become the property to resist them now will mean to operate within prescribed legal Liaison Comml Conference to the growth qf scab unionism of the left in the unions. He open that the cancer of company union terms. Workers will have the right to attack favoured is one that offers workers a lead ly courts fusion with the EETPU ism and de-unionisation will spread. to strike and not to strike. They building broad campaigns in fighting to defend their jobs and sings songs of praise to their * Expel the EETPU from the will be entitled to join a union, as against industrial and living standards. The TUC scab methods. He misses no oppor TUC! and not to join. Special courts action. Yet himself leaders' doctrine of retreat can tunity to scoff at the failure of * No single union/no-strike deals! will arbitrate over whether those remains a within the only strengthen the hands of Ham the heroic militancy of the miners rights have been legitimately bureaucracy.