Problems - and Policies Workers' ' democracy vs Tebbit's 'reforms'

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THE UNIONS have "a rich diversity of democratic practices, including secret ballots"

With such guarded words, TUC. representatives have tried to conceal the fact that the brazenly bureaucratic practices and structures of most unions leave them sitting ducks for Norman Tebbit.

• His Green Paper on 'Trade Union Reform" is plainly laying out one of the main arenas on which the Tories will fight the next General Election.

By posing as advocates of "democracy" in the trade unions, the Tories will aim to capitalise on the confusion, frustration and demoralisation of sections of trade unionists who have been offered no lead in mass action to defend their jobs, wages and conditions - and to consolidate the anti-union sentiments of whole sections of the. middle class.

Previous articles in this column have examined the gulf between the privileged, entrenched full time official hierarchy of the unions and the demands, struggles and concerns of the rank and file membership.

The Tories have understandably seized upon this weakness in the position of the bureaucracy as a means to drive forward their attacks on the unions.

Pronged

Tebbit's Green Paper discusses a three-pronged attack, centring on the election of union leaderships by secret ballot, the enforcement of postal ballots before strike action, and breaking the unions' links with the Labour Party by changing the political levy from 'contracting out'to 'contracting in' By focussing on these issues, the Tory press can explóit the bogey of "extremist' and 'unrepresentative' .. union leaders whose alleged willingness to call irresponsible strikes at the drop of a hat is portrayed as the major problem, while the gap between affiliated and active membership of the Labour Party offers Tebbit the ostensibly "reasonable" argument that people should have to opt into paying the political levy.

In- none of these cases - hypocritical though the attacks may be - is it sufficient to answer the Tebbit offensive by simply defending the status quo in the unons. The fact is that they are bureaucratically controlled, they do alienate members, and this works consistently against the interests of the membership - though not in the way the Tories suggest.

Divorced

The fact that most union officials up to General Secretary level are either appointed or elected for life means that - completely divorced from the harsh reality of wage cuts, speed-up, staffing cuts, redundancies, closures and victimisations which colour every day life for their rank and file members - they feel free to pursue policies of collaboration with the employers without ever having to account to their members.

The answer to this is not the trade union equivalent of Parliamentary elections - a secret ballot every five years, leaving the elected candidate to do as he/she wishes in the meantime -but a genuine and living system of democratic accountability through which periodic reelection of all officials is linked to the power to recall them at any time.

Such accountability cannot be enforced by the passive "infolvement" of individual members merely filling in occasional ballot forms at home; it requires the participation of the Would you buy a rulebook from this Tory?

most actively committed and aware trade unionists in collective debate and discussion on the policies and record of each of the candidates for office. Every candidate must be given the right to campaign for elected office.

Workers should have the opportunity to make their assessment of the candidates not through the Tory press and mass media but at first hand in general workplace meetings timed to allow the maximum

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7 January