Back TGWU Executive decision VOTE BENN!

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"Northern Ireland, is Britain's last colony. The nationalist people don't accept that the British government has any right to divide their country and maintain that division with thousands of troops, armed police, and UDR"

Fermanagh and South Tyrone's Anti-H-Block/ Armagh MP Owen Carron was speaking at a press conference to launch a visit to Britain by nearly one hundred prisoners' relatives.

The aim of the visit was to step up pressure on political leaders and appeal to the ordinary working people of Britain to reject the media lies and cringing subservience of Labour and Trade union leaders on the question of Ireland and come out in support of the hunger strikers and the prisoners' five demands.

And it was a very moving story they had to tell.

Several parents told of sons - serving long sentences in Long Kesh -being beaten up by warders, several of them receiving broken bones and perforated eardrums. And Mrs. Livingstone told us of her two sons in the H-Blocks and her 14 year old daughter, Julie, murdered by a plastic bullet fired by the "security forces."

Their simple, powerful stories won over many even hostile workers, confronted with the brutal reality of British repression in Northern Ireland, at street meetings round London.

And Owen Carron will be back next week to address a Labour Committee on Ireland fringe meeting It is now up to militants within the Labour Party and the trade unions to take up the struggle of these relatives for the just demands of the H-Block prisoners. We must expose those Labour and union leaders who on the day the relatives flew back to Belfast were to be seen on the annual Chile demonstration, but, who, on Ireland, slavishly support the Tory government or, worse still, actually implement those same policies when in office. shop steward, BL Cowley Assembly Plant)

THE EXECUTIVE of the TGWU should be fully supported in its decision to urge support for Tony Benn in Sunday's vote for the deputy leadership of the This decision, which puts Benn within sighting distance of victory, was a major defeat for acting TGWU general secretary Alex Kitson, who was opposed to Benn's nomination originally and has fought against it ever since.

"Consensus"

He advised against the executive's 21-to-12 vote for Benn, urging them to take into account the 'results' of a 'consensus' of branches, regional committees, and district committees, which, he claimed, had gone in favour of Healey.

The subsequent screams of the mass media that the executive had acted in defiance of a democratic expression of the views of the TGWU membership, is simply hot air. It is not difficult to see that the "consensus' had nothing to do with democracy.

Bound Some executive members, quite rightly, questioned the validity of the 'consensus result at Monday's executive meeting, arguing that they could not be bound by a decision taken under such conditions.

Kitson has already refused to provide any details at all of the completely unscrutinised exercise, except to claim that eight of the ten regions involved supported Healey.

Every Region carried out a different exercise, although it is clear that in most regions the appointed fulltime district and regional officers, who are controlled directly by Kitson, were heavily influential in the results.

Irony To exert influence in this way is not difficult in the TGWU, where a great proportion of the union's 8,000 or so branches never meet. Many of them are run directKitson ly from the district offices, or by the officials or their secretaries.

There are so many unanswered questions. How many branches actually replied? Of those that did, how many had a branch meeting to take a vote? What are the branch membership figures?

Many branches have complained that they have not even had the chance to place their vote at all.

Alex Kitson says eight regions out of ten voted Healey. But the two regions he accepts voted Benn -London and Scotland -contain over one third of the union's membership. The North-West region, possibly the most militant, was recorded as voting for Healey. In that region there was no real attempt to consult with the branches, the decision being left to the regional committee.

Since the regional committee was held when a number of the left-wing members were on holiday, it produced a freak result.

Although the executive was quite right to disregard such a farce, they have, however, little to be proud of.

Chaos

Their decision, last June, to recommend that the T&G's biennial delegate conference should take no decision on the deputy leadership issue, is at the root of today's chaos.

That decision gave Kitson the authority he needed to ensure that no vote was taken. This determination led T&G national chairman Stan Pemberton into disgraceful scenes of manoeuvring which, although eventually leading to a challenge to the chair, was effective in stopping a vote.

Yet the BDC consists of 1400 elected delegates. It is the highest body of the union, and decides policy on all other questions.

Who would doubt that had the conference been allowed to vote, it would have voted for Benn? Moreover, the decision would have been perfectly democratic and beyond challenge.

The media are completely right when they point to the irony that the union which provided the vital vote to enact democratic reforms inside the Labour Party appears incapable of producing a simple democratic decision within its own ranks.

But that does not mean we should support the fraudulent 'consensus'. It means we should fight for democracy in the unions as well as the Labour Party, and the media will give no help in that.

Efforts are now being made to overturn the democratic decision of the executive. It is already being emphasised that the executive decision is not finally binding on the union's delegation, although it would be unprecedented for them to ignore it.

Factor

Alex Kitson, although defending the executive decision in public, has not changed his convictions on the matter. Already Moss Evans, back at work for two days a week, has said it is simply 'another factor for the delegation to take into account on Sunday'. Brian Mathers, Midlands regional secretary, has said that he does not regard the executive's decision as binding.

The delegation should, however, fully support the executive decision, and cast the union's 1¼ million votes for Tony Benn. They must completely: disregard the 'consensus'. . There is not the slightest evidence that the T&G rank and file has suddenly swung to the right and produced a majority for Healey.

The policies passed at the T&G conference were basically the policies supported by Tony Benn. The conference called for the return of a Labour government pledged to socialist policies and it is quite certain that Dennis Healey is not going to carry that one out.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 2 4 Septe nber 1h 1 Page 2

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BRIGHHON "8L pages 6-10

at the Labour Party con- ference in Brighton.