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Socialist Organiser1982 1982-06-24Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 6 →
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ON Monday, Albert Spanswick, under strong pressure from delegates, admitted to conference that visitors' passes would not be issued to members who wanted to come to conference for the pay debate the following day on the basis that the visitors gallery might collapse and this would weigh heavily on his conscience.
Come Tuesday morning, the visitors gallery was, as usual, half empty. But the hall and surrounding areas were swarming with police.
An NEC meeting at the weekend had apparently decided to turn the conference into a fortress against members expected to lobby on. Tuesday. They feared a repeat of the militant scenes the previous week ona lobby of the TUC's NHS committee.
A busload members turned up expecting to be aliowed to hear what conference was going to do about their pay claim. Three COHSE members walked in unopposed and asked to speak to their delegate.
The conference steward, seeing they had no visitors passes, called the police who manhandled them out of the hall.
A delegate tried to raise this appalling event on the conference floor and the rostrum microphone was switched off.
The members eventually got visitors passes irom inelr delegate VUL VASILY delerata hut were vieihlv shaken by the experience.
Many delegates and visitors who witnessed the event siad they had never thought they would see the day when members of their own union would be evicted from their own conference by the use of police force.