AUEW: Under the heel of full-time ight-wingers

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iUEW education officer 1 705 dan Hughes and research Ificer Trevor Esward were ecked by John Boyd in 980 for helping assistant eneral secretary Bob iright to prepare a criticN 1972 the AUEW (Engneering Section), led by re Left in the persons of lugh Scanlon, Bob Wright nd Reg Birch took on the ory Industrial Relations ict and virtually stood lone in the official Trade Inion movement in its total pposition to the last major tempt by the Tories to ripple the organised Labur Movement.

The left leaders stood at le apex of a vigorous shop tewards' movement, willig to struggle in the deence of engineering workrs' living standards.

Now in 1982, the same Inion finds itself in its lost desperate straits for many years, and the Left i its most disorganised. he AUEW has lost 00,000 members since 979. The elected officials re dominated by a poweral analysis of the union's record on the Prior Bill and the 1979 pay and hours fight.

Hughes and Esward had done the work in their own time, and the union's Final

ful Right Wing axis which meets regularly with Tory Ministers, top industrialists and Right Wing journalists under the name of "The Group' Scanlon has joined the Establishment in the Lords, Birch has retired and Bob Wright is a virtual 'prisoner' in Peckham Road.

Shreds The Left, still dominated by the Communist Party (CP), finds it difficult to win any elections, even with well-known candidates such as Derek Robinson. The shop stewards' movement, as a national progressive force, is in shreds:

Meanwhile, the Right enjoys such total control as to oppose local district committees as in the LaurAppeal Court supported them. But Boyd pressed ahead.

Here Alan Hughes discusses the way to fight back against Boyd's bullying.

ence Scott dispute and to ignore even its own supreme judicial body, the Final Appeal Court, when it sees fit.

How has this volte-face occurred in such a brief space of time? The answer is far more complex than just slinging mud at the fallen heroes of the Left.

The Right in the AUEW has been well organised, well financed, and given more media support than in any other Union. Apart from journalists such as Woodrow Wyatt and Bernard Levin, the AUEW Right has benefited from the attentions of groups such as Truemid and Catholic Action, which are shadowy organisations aimed at crushing • the Leit in the The Right has captured the two major decision- making bodies in the AUEW - the Executive Council of full-time officials and the National Committee of lay officials. This alliance of the executive and policy-making wings of the union, combined with subtle rules changes enacted in 1980, has led to the complete dominance of all the Union's functions by the Executive Council, President. and General Secretary.

The consequences are this. By effectively appointing the women's seats on the National Committee the Right has guaranteed itself an inbuilt majority on this body. The delegations to the TUC and Labour Party now have to kowtow to National Committee policy (dictated by the full-timers on the EC) instead of casting their votes independently as in the past. All power over decisions among the Irish membership (both North and South) is now held by a Committee consisting entirely of fulltime officers.

Because of the supreme power of these bodies, the rank and file checks of district committees and Final Appeal Court can now be overruled.

The effects are obvious. The AUEW leadership stands idiy by as mass redundancies take place at Laurence Scotts and BL. The pay battle has been an abject surrender. At the TÚC and Labour Party conferences the AUEW machine swung solidly behind the most reactionary policies and voted for the : *s reactionary individuals of the TUC General Council and the Lahour Party NEC.

There is a crying need for a strong Left offensive to capture district and divisional committees, to win back the National Committee and to push strongly for Left activists in all fulltime elections. This can be done but not until the dead hand of the CP is removed from the Broad Left alliance in the AUEW.

Oust

A new initiative is required in which a Broad Left, based firmly in the Left of the Labour Party, campaigns to fight redundancies, to step up the pay struggle and to build up a viable rank and file movement involving stewards and convenors and oust the tyranny on the Right. The faces that launched a thousandi Duffy confer at the TUC Congress