Benn call to democratise the block vote

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was not an attack on the role of trade unions in the Labour Party, or on the block yote as such. The issue was one of accountability.

The conference on democratising the block vote was held by the Broad Lefts Organising Committee, which was set up from last year's meeting of Broad Lefts initiated by the Labour Coordinating Committee.

The secretary, Phil Holt, of the POEU, said that one reason for holding the conference now was the need to make the work of BLOC better known and to establish firmer contacts.

Phil Holt stressed that it was not just a matter of Benn. attacked TULV right wing general secretaries defying their own unions' policies. Even where the vote is cast rather more in line with union policies, there is still considerable room for criticism and improvement.

He criticised the failure of most union delegations at Party conference to report back to their members, or to allow minority reports. When he had made a minority report on the use of the POEU vote in favour of wage controis, against union policy, he was told he would never get on the delegation again.

However it was just those people who did make minority reports who had been re-elected time after time.

Benn argued that democratising the block vote was part of the fight to polticise the unions. Too often, even when under direct government attack, trade unions did not see their struggles as political. The left had to get far more union affiliations at Constituency Labour Party level.

We should also take on the task of setting up workplace branches of the Party; these could provide political leadership, but they could also build workplace organisation in many places where the amalgamation of union branches into larger and larger units had made them very remote to the rank and file.

'Trade Unions for a Labour Victory' also came under attack from Benn. TUL had now been set up as a limited company, with a group of right wing general secretaries as directors. There are no elections and no report backs but they collect in the affiliation fees and drip feed the Labour Party according to whether they approve particular actions by the NEC.

The general secretaries themselves do not usually bother to attend meetings, but send their research stati who make the detailed decisions.

Tower Hamlets. Contact 790 4937. Meets fortnightly on Fridays, 6.30 to 8.30pm. Next meeting February 25. Newham. Contact 555 9957. South-East London. Contact 691 1141.

Lambeth/Southwark meets every other Wednesday, Lansbury House, 41 Camberwell Grove, London SE5. Business 7.30 to 8.30, open forum discussion at 8.30pm. Next meeting Wednesday 2 March, on 'Lesbian and Gay Rights' SO is sold at Brixton tube, 5-6pm, every Thursday. Estate sale every Monday, meet at 6.30pm, Lansbury House.

New Southwark SO bulletin: first issue out February 24.

Hounslow. Meets fortnightly on Sundays, 8pm. For details phone 898 6961. Hackney. Contact c/o Andrew Hornung, 28 Carlton Mansions, Holmleigh Rd, N16.

SO is sold at the following London bookshops: Collets, Central Books, The Other Bookshop, Bookmarks, Bookplace [Peckham Rd, SE15), and Reading Matters Wood Green Shopping City].

EDINBURGH day school on the struggle in Central America. Saturday March 5, 10am to 4pm at The Pleasance, with Jenny Pearce, Robin Cook, and video and workshops. Organised by ELASC.

RAILWORKERS' Broad Left rally: Scrap Serpell, no to all productivity deals, for a fighting NUR leadership: Speakers: Tony Benn, Derek Fullick, etc. 1pm, Saturday March 5, at County Hall, London SEI.

In discussion activists from a large number of unions gave accounts • of the experience of the left groupings. In some like BETPU and UCW the left operated under a tight bureaucratic regime which repressed discussion, tried to prevent groups from campaigning in the union and threatened suspensions and expulsions.

A delegate from UCATT described the success they had had revising the rules to ensure that their delegation to the Labour Party conference should be bound by union conference decisions. But as another UCATT member pointed out, there is still a lot to do before genuine accountability is won.

A member of the 18month old NUR Broad Left emphasised that the present left groupings should not just become electioneering machines; they must base themselves on concrete demands.

Pat Byrne of the CPSA, which has one of the largest, most open and so far most successful Broad Lefts, though in a union not affiliated to the Labour Party, described the situation at the TUC.

In many large unions the general secretary alone decided how votes were AFTER 12 months of organising a campaign to gain more work for Vauxhall Motors UK plants by using the blacking of the Spanishbuilt S-car and the threat of the first ever united strike of Vauxhall's three major plants, Luton, Dunstable, and Ellesmere Port, the unions have finally won some concessions from the parent company, General Motors.

From August 1983 two shift working will commence at Luton, with voluntary transfers from Dunstable and Ellesmere Port required in the short and long term to meet new manning levels.

The following year, in August 1984, two shift working will also start at Ellesmere Port, with production of the new T85 car (a new body shell on the old Astra):

The Dunstable plant (which since January 1 1983 has no longer been part of Vauxhall-Opel, but : a new company, 'Bedford Ltd' based around commercial vehicles) has been more or less mothballed until market demand improves.

The company (GM) say they have new models planned and they will improve the plant in the meantime.

No guarantee • Workers there have been offered work at Luton, but as yet have no guarantee of sustained carnings or job status.

At the same meeting Vauxhall-Opel announced an increase in their share of the car market from 8.5% in 1981 to 11.7% in 1982 - a cast. Some delegations never met, in others only the full-timers met, or only officials were allowed to speak. It was essential to tie the general secretaries firmly to internal democracy in the union.

A speaker from another non-affiliated union, Betty Bell of NALGO, described how the right-wing witchhunt in the Labour Party had undermined the campaign to affiliate NALGO to the Party.

The right wing in the union had been able to point to the 'disunity' in the Labour Party as an argument against affiliating.

The conference was clearly an important advance for the Broad Lefts which have grown up in many unions over the last tew years. " Though the organisers were at pains to point out that they did not want to interfere in individual unions, it is clearly essential that the Left in the different unions should link up, and that they should raise the political questions bound up in their relationship with the As one speaker argued, we need today to recreate something like the Minority Movement of the 1920s.

TONY GARD 43% increase.

A £9 million profit after tax figure did not include a massive profit made on imports of Cavaliers and Astras from Germany.

To ensure that things didn't look too good, they added that the £9 million profit was a loss after they paid interest payments on loans totalling £46 million!

The unions have not accepted the figures (especially the interest payments) on the grounds that they were refused access to the company's books and accounts when they requested it.

Noted

Since that meeting a mass meeting of the TGWU at Ellesmere Port (the factory where the S-Car ban started from) has passed a resolution noting the offer, but deciding to seek guarantees of no loss of jobs or wages before and after the introduction of the T85 and the start of two: shift working, in August 1984.

The unions are meeting the company again at national level on February 21 to seek these guarantees, and it now looks likely that they will be given by General Motors.

It so, the ban on the sCar and threatened strike will almost certainly be called off, leaving the way open for the import of the Vauxhall Nova (the Spanish-built S-Car) with the consent of In the meantime Vauxhall have put back the launch of the Nova from March, to May-