Witch-hunters break the rules: Loser 'elected' (continued)

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"SHADOW boxing" - that's how last week's public meeting against the closure of Clydebridge steelworks should have been billed.

Local Labour MP Gregor Mackenzie said: "We have to make it plain that this is not the way business should be conducted in Scotland at the present time" . And a local Literal district councillor added: "There is room for a more enterprising approach io marketing British steel. We have to stimulate man.. tement"

No mention of 'stimulatne workers to take on the I:7Es Sadly. speaker after continued in the see rein. none going furth= :an general condemnatde= :: the closure.

Orly one speaker (mysi ded for organising te i sal labour movement sie and not wasting time zoe to the Tories and the JI_L bosses.

The reply from the chair was that: "We have to forget our politics" for the sake of the fight against closure!

The meeting passed resolution calling on the Secretary of State for Scotland to 'intervene' The development of an active campaign faces probl ems - specifically, the local influence of the Communist Party. Their way forward is to build parochial local Popular Fronts and to call for government action.

What we need instead is a working-class campaign which will have the active support of the local labour movement, tenants' groups and unemployed. A committee formed from these groups should discuss the action needed to save Clydebridge and kick out the Tories.

IAN McLEISH shonand in arrantr inatoll a right-wing convenor. The powerful TGWU branch in the plant was split up twice, orice in 1974 and again in 1977.

In December 1977 the right wing lost the convenor position to the left. Then in January this year they suffered the final blow -tha antino loft alate for ran- ine enure Ici save IvI Lunvenor and five deputy convenors was elected and the right wing wiped out.

Now, eight months after that election, Brian Mathers, regional secretary of Region 5, has moved to reverse that defeat in a move which is scandalous even if measured against his own notorious record in such matters.

The method of election was determined in 1974. Thare muld he a ahon finar LICIE WUUIU NO a DAUY LUVE ballot for convenor followed by a second shop floor ballot for seven deputy convenors (since reduced to five). Obviously the winner of the first ballot would be the convenor, and seven (or five) votes in the second would establish the deputies. It worked that way in 1975, 1977, 1979, and in January of this year.

Now Mathers has ruled, as a result of representatleft.

GO-D Ricky Houston (Edink joined in the witch-hu ON January 27 of this year a letter was sent to POEU branches, sincerely and fraternally addressed by. David Norman, the General Treasurer, on the question of the Militant Tendency of the Labour Party. Militant wanted to speak to branches on the Labour Party witch-hunt, and were requesting donations for their fund to publish literature opposing the witch-hunt.

David Norman (who in a speech at the Union' Special Conference last year lost his normal cool composure, and in the best Prince Philip type accent began deriding "Trots and Marxists', , i.e., the conference delegates), ruled that donations to 'any other political faction' than the Labour Party proper would be a direct breach of Union rule 5 paragraph 4 and the 1913 Trade Union Act.

Letters from any other •gh POEU External Branch) against Militant NEC decision in respect of the Register of nonaffiliated groups of Labour Party members' . It should be noted that in at least David Norman's opinion many of these same POEU delegates come under the umbrella of the undesirable elements within the Labour Party ('Trots and Marxists'). Golding, however, also enclosed copies of a leaflet entitled, 'You, the Labour Party and the Militant Tendency'. This is not a Labour Party publication but is published by the Labour Solidarity Campaign - one of the 'any other political factions' mentioned in David Norman's earlier letter and ruling.

It is therefore apparent that the Union leadership are in breach of their own rules.

Not content with writing to POEU branches, further letter was published dated August 5 and was anger of POEU delegates at CLP meetings when the correspondence was reaa out!

Golding, Norman & Co. are not adverse to witch-hunts in their own union. Last year the POEU leadership which is dominated numerically by the Mainstream faction, right-wing organisation in the POEU, (they do not consider themselves a faction, they say, but rather a collection of individuals) attempted a witch-hunt against the POEU Left faction - but at tnar aueinpl, There's little reason to suppose they will not try again, especially if a witch-hunt is successfully carried out in the Supporters of democracy and open-discussion and decision making in the POEU should refuse to comply with the NEC call and argue the case in POEU branches for opposition to the Register.