Industrial discussion from our Sept 17 conference «Tories and employers are making a new turn

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The concluding session at the September 17 conference SOCIALIST Organiser called the conference at this time -between the TUC and Labour Party conferences - because we thought it would provide a useful opportunity to discuss the political situation facing the labour movement.

In the event it has come at a time of very important developments which must be discussed.

The first period of the Tory Government was characterised by three major factors:

1. The development of a massive offensive against the trade union movement, both at the level of government action such as Tebbit and by organising the employers themselves to take up the offensive against their workers. Mass unemployment, deliberately created, established the conditions for this.

2. The willingness of the working class to fight the Tories despite mass unemployment. Under these conditions the working class were strong enough to mount potential serious industrial challenges to the Government on at least six occasions - the steel strike, the BL strike, the ASLEF strike, the health service action. the water workers and the Welst: miners (which should have developed into a national miners strike).

3. The crisis of leadership. In each of these strikes, with the exception of the water workers, defeat came as a result of the failure of leadership - either weak and vacillating leadership or downright cold blooded treachiery, as with ASLEF when the TUC threatened to expel the whole union if they did not get back to work.

These are not leaders who are simply intimidated by mass unemployment and the conditions faced by the working class today - but leaders who are politically opposed to an industrial challenge to the government.

It was those conditions - plus the Malvinas war, which was a major political turning point in both the national and the international situation - which was a major factor in the Tory election victory. The election was largely lost even before it was called. Thatcher was able to project the "resolute approach" not only by winning the war but claiming that she had won virtually every industrial confrontation since she came tu office.

Since the election the politic21 situation has developed verv Our Annual General Meeting is on SEI On de in before.

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There were two main reactions in the labour movement to the Tory victory: the reaction of the TUC and the majority of the trade union leaders was "The majority of our members have voted Tory (which is not true) therefore we must recognise reality and talk to the government"; the reaction of Arthur Scargill and a few others - which we strongly supported - was "we have lost the battle in Parliament we must now fight them on the picket lines."

Since then, however, it has been the right wing who have pursued and won that argument. The TUC conference took a major turn to the right - it was a wholly negative conference. One of the first things it did was to formalise what has been their real position for the past-four years. They voted that strikes against the government, as a government, are completely wrong at all times. It means presumably that the sell-outs of the last four years. will now be official policy.

In coming weeks we'll be from discussions. This t speech, and the health cuts An important factor which helped the TUC move to the right was the build-up of anti-communism immediately before the conference.

This started with the political victimisation of the Cowley 13. It created an atmosphere of McCarthyism which had a serious effect on the political situation. It was built up by the scale of the media intervention. This merged into the witch-hunting of Scargill over his Moscow trip and was followed by the witch-hunt over the shooting down of the South Korean jet. Anti-communism really took off. The first thing the I did was to support the Reagan condemnation of the Soviet Union. Then we had Chapple's anti-communist opening speech. Chapple who was seen as a right wing eccentric was now presented as one of the main leaders of the TUC.

The conference went on to loosen its ties with the Labour Party, enter into talks with Tebbit and implicitly drop unilateralism and accept Polaris. The only time the platform got excited was when they were attacking the left.

Cardowan

The stepping up of the employers offensive since the election has created, alongside this, a very important situation.

The closure of the Cardowan Colliery in Scotland was a very major blow to the defence of jobs. It was the first pit to be dowd with no attempt by the SLM to organise any supporting ente inion of any kind. The pit • a l while Scargill was in • i hey were offered •i end financial sup-de raditions where the " = dran could hasi printing speeches and rep me: Alan Thornett's platf workshop.

impact themselves since was being closed.

The sacking of the Cowley 13 has an important industrial dimension. The boldness of Leyland's actions gives direct encouragement to employers everywhere to take a hard liné. The victimisation of an activist of the UCW recently in Basingstoke by British Telecom is a reflection of that.

Ian | MacGregor has now moved to the NCB in order to do what he has done in BL and steel.

The strike, over yesterday, at Highlands Fabricators on Cromerty Firth is a case in point - it may be they have won a victory of some kind - although today's papers are not clear on it - there the employer presented a list of 21 changes in conditions of employment™ from stopping orange juice in the hot weather to canteen and travelling allowances to seniority agreements.

Possibly the current strike at the Monktonhall colliery in Scotland comes out of one of the harshest moves. There, management sent the whole workforce home because they were five minutes late on shift after a union meeting. That is harsh bevond even BL's normal standards.

But in some ways not as harsh as Birmingham NALGO. They took reprisals against the workforce by cancelling pay-roll deductions and then banning the collection of union money in working hours. In the factory I worked in management have not done that since 1463.

Now at the same time there is a major turn in the use of Tebbit.

At the Stockport Messenger the employer is not using the 1980 Prior Act but the 1982 Tebbit Act. There, they are interpreting secondary action as the rerusal or the journalists to supply cop! because the printers in the same firm are in dispute. It is aid to be econdary because they are in another union.

Perhaps an even more significant use of Tebbit - in advance of the implementation of that part of the law - is the incredible decision of the Water Board to demand the ending of the closed shop agreement. They are doing it similar to a BL move. First they want to renegotiate the bargaining arrangements and then under the cover of that propose the ending of the closed shop.

It is obviously a very major move from government level.

There is no way the Water Board would make such a huge move alone. Such a decision is certain to lead to similar decisions in other parts of the public sector if they get away with it there. Given the important position of the closed shop in the British trade union movement it is a very major move indeed.

It is clear therefore that we are witnessing not just a major turn in the, employers" offensive bat also a major turn in the use of the Tebbit laws. It is a situation Which has serious implications for the whole labour movement, the Labour Party as well, although I am not able to cover that. aspect in this short succi- Other speakers will bring it into the conference.

Am I spelling out an entirely black picture? Of course not. This situation could change very rapidly indeed. The jailing of the leadership of the NUJ for example over the Stockport Messenger would in my opinion meet a massive response from the trade union movement - initially from Fleet Street. It would completely change the present political situation.

This conference can make a contribution by discussing. what kind of leadership the workers need under these conditions. No one else is trying seriously to, do this as far as I can see. No one is discussing the development of leadership at the point, where the struggle is taking place. At_the point of speed-up, in defence of agreements, at the point of confronting the employers' offensive. This conference can make a contribution to that process.

THE workshop on privatisation in the NHS took place just as the Tories announced new attacks on hospitals and health care oci vine Andrea Campbell, COHSE, said that we must not see the NHS cuts as concerning NHS workers alone, but as part of a wider attack on the living standards of the working class as a whole The present round of cuts stemmed, she said, from the failure of a successful wage struggle - which had encouraged the Tories to attack.

The Thornton View occupation, run by workers exercising a veto over management decisions, was an example of the need to fight now - but also served as a warning of the possibility of isolation and susceptibility to pressure from managément's. carrot-andstick tactics.

She told the workshop that in Hackney, where the NHS is the biggest single employel, four hospitals are to be closed and replaced by just one, which will open in 1986.

It was, she said, important to explain to the community the consequences of such closures, of loss of hospital beds, increased waiting lists, loss of local services, loss of jobs and so on. Links should be made between • labour movement organisations and workers and the community, but it should never be forgotten that the real strength of a fight back lies in the trade unions themselves.

And a central demand must be for the opening of the books of health authorities.

Pete Keenlyside, one of the Manchester City Councillors from whom the Labour whip has been withdrawn, said that the Tories are proposing that local authorities be put under the direct financial control of central government. This is an attempt to scare councils into making cuts now. Manchester faces £25-30 million in cuts alone. There is a real danger he said of councils putting off any real fight "until next year... , camouflaging their inactions by organising conferences.

He cited the recent conference in Sheffield attended by Labour councillors out of which no fight back came.

Lol Duffy said that in Liverpool the left could vote down cuts because they - including Militant supporters - were the majority on the council. Yet Liverpool was not at all in the vanguard of concerted, effective action against the Tories.

Although Militant supporters now have control of various council expenditure committees, cuts in the present year are causing problems in related industries. Work has not been done in the trade unions and the policy of "no cuts, no rent and rate increases."' has been shelved.

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Socialist Organiser, 29 September 1983, Page 15

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Sendas October 30. 10 Stam 1o 5pm in Come Hall. London