Trade DEMOCRACYI SPECIAL fight for new leaders Fighting for new

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WHERE: Lanchester Poly, Priory St, Coventry. WHEN: Saturday March 6, 11 to 4.30 INITIAL SPONSORS: Socialist Organiser Alliance, London Labour Briefing, Oxford Trades Council, Nottingham Labour Brifing, CPSA British Library Branch DELEGATES: and observers invited from all labour movemı organisations. Individuals also welcome. Credentials £2. WRITE TO: Democracy Conference, OVER RECENT years, and especially since the 1979 general election, a struggle for renewal has been shaking the labour movement.

Learning from the experience of the 1974-9 Labour government, constituency Labour Party activists have fought for accountability of MPs to Desty? enlins tn make sure the next Labour government bases itself on the labour movement to act against the capitalCRECHE: Available.

28 Middle Lane, London N8. ist establishment, than vice versa.

This fight for democracy - for Labour policies to be actually carried out - has gone together with battles for those policies to be really Tony Benn's deputy leadership campaign took political issues into the trade unions as never 14 dare before. But it showed the size of task to be done in also the the In many unions the membership had voice - or it had only a botched-up 'consultation'. , like the TGWU. In NUPE it became clear that the official support for Labour democracy at the top had not been translated into any real effort to lead and involve the rank and file.

Now, with the Bishops Stortford deal, the top union leaders are trying to put a stop to the struggle to transform the Labour Party.

They plead the necessity of unity to win the next election for Labour. But another Labour government like the last one is not much of an election-winning prospect. And above all it would not be adequate to what the working class needs in the present It would predictably be a failure - and lead to the return of Tory reaction, perhaps in a much worse form than Thatcher.

Link

The strong link between the fight in the Labour Party and the fight in the trade unions could not be clearer.

Many trade unionists art drawing the conclusion that a light for trade union democracy is necessary, linked with and parallel to the fight for Labour Party democracy. I MPs and Lahour leaders should conne up regularly tor reselection aletion. then 1() should union officals.

Recent industrial struggles have the need for trade union democracy. At BL, eleven general secretaries stepped in over the heads. of the Joint Negotiating Committee to fix a sellout. AUEW President Terry Duffy boasted he was 'backing England' In the recent Ford pay dispute, as the disgusted convenor of the Swansea plant complained, a single phone conversation between TGWU full-timer Ron Todd, ACAS, and Ford, was enough to get the democratic strike decision of thousands of workers overturned.

The AUEW leadership have also recently flouted union rules to withdraw official support from the Laurence Scotts fight for jobs in Manchester.

And the women's movement has added a new dimension to the fight for labour movement democracy demanding that the labour movement be transformed to suit the needs and interests of the doubly oppressed half of thi working class. simon a homs and at tach us chose issues and virugglin underline the fact that the fight for democracy and accountability must run hand in hand with the fight for a programme of socialist policies to arm the working class with a genuine answer to the bosses' offensive.

The so-called 'Alternative Economic Strategy' embraced by Benn and by many left wing opponents of the existing leaders of the labour movement rests both on divisive nationalism (import controls) and on the belief that it is possible to 'plan' the crisis-ridden anarchic capitalist economy.

To defend jobs, wages and working conditions, we need to take action on demands which start not from what capitalism can or might afford, but from the independent needs of the working class.

This means for instance fighting for cost of living clauses in pay agreements to protect wages against inflation: fighting for occupations. supporting strike and blacking action. and for work-sharing without loss of pa! in opposition io emplovers plans tor hip redundancy; ari demanding the national isation of major indust: ies and a crash program me of useful publi works to create jobs a trade union rates of pay Such demands a: consistently stifled an sabotaged by the preser bureaucratic leaders who seek instead simpl a basis to coexist wid the employers.

Conference

With these poir: in view, Socialist Orga: iser together with Le: don Labour Briefing I= others is co-sponsort on March 6 a confere:: on democracy in it trade unions and -This pull-out the beginning of of articles weeks around theme.

Future issues o: Sc... list Organiser wit i=further discuss:: including our sugges for a platiorm o: = mands for demixits: the trade uriens. 35 -: as more reports particular 5:30 facing minaris ior

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union Democracy Special NUPE: A Nobody became General Secretar NUPE strikers press for the full £60/35 hour claim in the 'Winter of Discontent' - to be offered only partial strikes THE 1979 Winter of Discontent gave NUPE the reputation of being a union to be reckoned with - the anion central in the 'low pay dispute' which helped lay the Callaghan government to rest.

Alan Fisher and the NUPE leadership were violently attacked in the capitalist press as the determined militants throwing the country into chaos in pursuit of the £60 minimum wage and 35 hour week claim.

Any NUPE member will tell you how far from the truth this was.

The leadership did everything possible to ensure that the action was contained to selective strikes which served only to demoralise the membership; who saw it having no effect on the employers while losing themselves wages.

An all-out strike was deemed out of the question, even though this could have closed the country down.

The only section which won the claim was the only section to go on all-out strike for two weeks - the London Borough of Camden.

The NUPE leadership argued then, as they have argued since, that they are helpless 'generals without an army'.

They argue it is not their place to instruct the membership to act. They depict •hamanloo as caralled with intuistives as sauuitu przvu non-militant membership, mainly women, many of them part-time, working in the caring sector, who think that 'strike' is a dirty word.

So, no lead is given and the membership are offered not a word of encouragement about how they could take effective strike action, от how emergency cover could be organised.

LOW elow Since that winter, in the face of a sustained attack devastating its members' jobs, pay and working conditions, the NUPE leadership has remained absolutely passive and stony silent.

In the first year of Tory rule they argued in the cuts conferences and demos that they chose to atterd that the working class was only getting what it deserved in voting the Tories in.

NUPE's national policy was publicly declared to be one of 'low profile' '. for a whole year the NUPE membership received nothing more than the odd handful of glossy leaflets telling us nothing more than the now inevitable battle cry, 'contact your local press, write to your local MP' In the same period there was the massive November 9 demo against the cuts. NUPE produced thousands of lollipop placards declaring Stop Thatcher' -perhaps hoping that cardboard and printing ink would do the job, as they busily ensured that nobody in NUPE could do anything.

The executive had deeply buried the conference resolution on blacking private hospital beds leaving the path open to the massive privatisation of the NHS and use of its facilities which has gone hand in hand with the cuts.

Where a fight has been organised against these health cuts, it has usually been initiated without a shred of assistance from the NUPE officials and even its lay Executive members, and often in the face of downright opposition.

Struggles like the occupations of St Benedict's and St Mary's Hospitals have stood as beacons in the fight to defend the NHS - but have been left isolated.

In what must be counted as Fisher's finest hour, he hid in an ante-chamber at St Benedict's to avoid the press gaze and to talk things over, while scab ambulances and security police dragged oui terrified geriatrics from the occupation.

As the leading union of the local authority manual workers, NUPE obviously had a major responsibility to put pressure on Labour-controlled councils to adopt a policy of no cuts and no rate increases.

Yet Ron Keating argued the Lambeth Conference at the end of 1980 that it would be impossible to back those Labour councils that defied the government because (surprise, surprise) "the membership won't fight"!

To Keating's embarrassment, however, the membership did fight last year in Coventry, where 4000 NUPE members took indefinite strike action against the Labour council's £2 million cut in services.

It was soon made clear who really didn't want the fight. Not one other branch of NUPE outside Coventry received so much as an official whiff of the strike.

The bulk of NUPE members heard of the strike only from the papers. When the NUPE London Division sent a cheque for -£200, it was stopped by the executive!

NEC members were certainly to be seen on the picket line - but urging the women to return to work and to settle for a formula giving them 'only' a four per cent cut in wages.

In the end the strike was called off, with NUPE encouragement, for the sell-out deal of accepting ACAS arbitration.

Generally tne NUPE Ex ecutive seems pretty apt at encouraging its members to accept wage cuts.

Admittedly, there have been information packs on what the four per cent 'rise' really means. A mass of leaflets has been circulated urging us to reject the four per cent. But there is no hint of what should be done in order win even the pathetic 12 per per cent claim.

When the negotiators of the Labour- controlled Metropolitan Authorities offered seven per cent, the NUPE leadership emerged triumphant as if the battle were over and won.

It still has to go to the membership, but the vote is a foregone conclusion.

The 'left' image of NUPE received another severe blow in the past year on the question of its vote in Labour's deputy leadership election.

NUPE made much of how democratically they conducted the ballot. However, conference poliey was to support the candidate that represented closest the interest and policy of the union - and that this should be decided by the membership. It was clear that only one candidate -Tony Benn - fitted this categorý and deserved Executive support. But in the midst of one of the most vicious smear campaigns against Benn, NUPE leaders kept silent.

Of course we can't expect elections, accountability or democracy to be too close to the heart of a NUPE bureaucracy which has just appointed a nobody -Rodney Bickerstaff - as the new general secretary, without the slightest consultation with the membership.

Bickerstaff has served five years as national officer for local government, In this pull-o examines the 'left' union ie elected, whit! the problems. "democratic' the right wind ing eg ele thi tod cal fre ele

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The obstacles to the CONFERENCE Democratise the labour movement!

Coventry March 6 ra

Paid Workers YUPE NEED 04 5% aMinimum isults Wage

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