Chapple sucks in former militant
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-05-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 14 →
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PHOTO: JOHN HARRIS After the NHS pay sell-out - the anger remains VUPE general secretary Rodney.
Bickerstaffe OP IVE ON FALL MATES ARE ONE of the few unofficial strikes to hold firm and challenge Phase _ of the Labour government's wage controls in 1977 was that of the electricians in the Port Talbot steelworks.
The leader of this shop floor revolt - which stayed solia, for over 3 months - was Wyn Bevan.
Now Bevan has left that message of class struggle against class compromise far behind him as he scales the heights of the EETPU bureaucracy. The former firebrand convenor has become the servile advocate of Japanese-style management techniques in British industry, and, as an executive council member of th EETPU, an architect of 'pioneering' agreements designed to eliminate the involvement of shop floor members in industrial struggles.
The deal Bevan helped formulate with the Japanese firm Toshiba - and has also agreed with the British microchip company Inmos - is designed to eliminate strikes by the introduction on binding arbitration. The central feature of this is that all differences are resolved at top level between officials and management - with the membership being confronted after the event with an agreed or 'arbitrated' fait accompli.
The incorporation of Bevan into the right wing EETPU bureaucracy - parallelling the degeneration of many former left wingers once they become fulltime officials - is another testimony to the immense pressures brought to bear on individual militants who are not part of an organised, political struggle for an alternative leadership in the labour movement.