Called by How to fight the Tories

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Jeremy Corbyn MP; Reg Race, Joy Hurcombe (Labour CND)*; Val Dunn (Manchester Labour councillor)*; Andrea Campbell (COHSE Group 81)*; Colin Talbot (POEU Broad Left) * * In a personal capacity Workshop discussions, coupled with the showing of videos, will cover a wide range of topics and current struggles, and enable everyone present to contribute in debate on policies for 937.

Richard Croucher shows the roadening out of shop stewards ictivity at the strongly oranised factories. ...'the nain matters reported on were he employment of unskilled abour on toolroom machines, dack pay for five workers on ring reclassified as toolnakers payment for a shop teward suspended from work, einstatement of a girl sacked Dr fighting and a wages disiate in the battery shop... fetween 1935 and 1937 no bubt partly through publiising their successes in the ages of their lively journal, he stewards were able to levelop. membership to an aceptionally high level appbaching 100% ... the questions hey were able to take up in 1937 were wider also in terms if the numbers involved. The natters dealt with included und increase for capstan setters none departme thit pron on mother a number of problems elating to the cable shop, he factory holiday rota appentices wages, a wage increase n the milling ; shop and two lectional piecework disputes.' (Engineers at War).

However, factories like this were the exception. Prior o the war, raising greivances emained a dangerous busiless. But there were major chievements in the thirties, ruch as the key strike at Hawters Brockworth factory in 1935 which laid the 'basis' La national aircraft shop having a war of their own... they cannot forget the numerous battles of the last thirty years and cannot overcome the bitter memory of industrial insecurity in the past ten years, and their distrust of the motives of managers and employers" •The average number of strikedays in 1939-45 was well above the level of the depression years of the '30s, although most strikes were short, sharp and successful.

embrace all engineering workers, and renamed itself the Engineering and Allied Trades Shop Stewards' National Council.

Its April 1940 conference was attended by 283 stewards from 140 factories, and the sales of its newspaper expanded. The Communist Party, which initially opposed the war, was an important influence on this movement.

After the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 the Commust Party switched to supporting the war. It opposed strikes and backed productivity drives.

Legitimate

This, together with the general anti-fascist sentiment which the ruling class exploited, ensured that no movement similar to that of the first war èmerged.

In some situations the Joint Production Committees set up to draw the stewards into collaboration with management served to legitimise and strengthen the stewards' organisation, however. The stewards were involved more than ever before in the actual organisation and control of work.

A major breakthrough compared with the first war was that most stewards' committees were joint committees on which the skilled sat with the unskilled.

Committees had their own libraries and published their own annual reports, although facilities on the whole remained poor able that it would be on the basis of sectional organisation limited to industrial struggles and with powerful tendencies towards collaboration with the employers and government in the 'national interest' The long boom was now to turn that probability into reality.

In the 20 years aiter the war, the number and organisation of shop stewards expanded continuously.

In 1947 the AEU recorded 19,000 stewards. By 1962 it was about 32,000. In 1961 the total number of stewards in the UK was estimated at 90,000. Research for the Donovan Commission seven years later put the figure at 175,000.

That research also recorded a spread of the shop steward from engineering into the distributive and service occupations. 45% of stewards were still in the metal industries, but 36% were outside manufacturing, including 12% in transport and communication.

The shop steward in the early '60s was a representative identifying closely with his or her work group and bargaining directly on their behalf.

The steward bargained over a whole range of problems affecting the control of work - its organisation, the degree of effort, the level of overtime. S/he was particularly powerful where bargaining was over money, as for example with piecework systems.

Power

In those circumstances, s/he was able to develop a whole range of custom-and-practice controls, which acted for the benefit of the work group and could be exploited on its behalf in the high-demand market conditions of the long boom.

Full employment swung the bargaining power to the shop floor. In short, sharp, unofficial strikes, small groups could jack up their earnings.

*So the Tories are back. The bland phrases in their Manifesto are already turning into renewed attacks on jobs, on union rights, new cuts and the privatisation of vital services.

*Already even as Tebbit prepares new ANTI-UNION LAWS - the TUC right wing have run up the white flag. But Arthur Scargill and Ken Livingstone have correctly pointed to the need for mass, direct action by the labour movement on the streets and picket lines. Our conference will focus on the problems, policies, and tactics for achieving this kind of fight.

* Against previous CUTS, many union leaders/ wrongly argued we wait for a returned Labour government while Labour councils blamed lack of union action for implementing Tory policies. A new 5-year mandate for Thatcher makes this a plainly useless policy: instead we need occupations, supporting strikes, the extension of struggles on a national level - and we must learn lessons from. such struggles in the past.

*PRIVATISATION in British Telecom, the NHS and other services Platform and workshop speakers include: the way forward.

CRECHE FACILITIES WILL bankers. against privatisation has been either localised and isolated or largely action before the is carved up by the *The SHOP STEWARDS' MOVEMENT has come under fire in en in theN HiS in the course of ase years.

to rebuild and extend the independence of Ful-time union ord its and management propaganda!

*New, more radical BROAD LEFTS have been emerging in many unions: but under fire from employers and the right wing, some - like the CPSA Broad Left - can crumble. How can we link Broad Left activity at national level to day-to-day struggles workplaces develop a consistent, principled leaderAVAILABLE DAY *BLACK WORKERS too are beginning to organise against tacit and open racism from the bosses, the state, the police and - most scandalous of all, from the labour movement. How can we help develop that struggle?

*Thousands of YOUTH are now faced with another 5 years - seemingly a lifetime - on the dole. Millions of adults are on the same scrapheap. How can we act at rank and file level to remedy the criminal failure of TUC and Labour Party leaders to organise and mobilise the unemployed? How should the unions respond to the new threats posed by Tebbit's so-called "Youth Training Scheme'?

*OUR CONFERENCE "How to Fight the Tories" will attempt-to promote discussion and give some answers to these and other questions facing the labour movement.

Open to delegates and observers from all labour movement bodies.

Credentials (including discussion papers) £2.50 (employed), £1.50 (unemployed).

Please send me details/credentials for the September 17 conference. 1 enclose £ ..

Name Address .

Send to Socialist Organiser, 28, Middle Lane, London N8. (Please mark the envelor "September 17 Conference'.

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Socialist Organiser no.145 September Page 81983 ATS NIGHT *Tarati HAY

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threatens jobs, working conditions and union organisation. But the action