POEU: time is running Short

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CONTINUING resistance by the POEU to privatisation of British Telecom now owes more to decisions by BT management than the union's National Executive.

Following the union conference - which had supported the NEC's decision to abide by a court ruling and accept defeat in the campaign against Mercury - POEU General Secretary last week began moves to windup the whole privatisation campaign.

On Tuesaay, Stanley and other POEU national officers met BT management.

Exactly what happened at that meeting is not known but it is clear the right wing in the union were planning to wind down the action which had led to more than 2,000 London members being in dispute.

To create the best conditions for this to be done at the NEC meeting scheduled for later in the week, the Industrial Action Strategy Committee, which has a majority who were opposed to this policy, was prevented from Though lobbied by a delegation of locked-out union members, the NEC voted 13-10 to instruct half of them back to work from Monday of this week on the basis that their action could not be financially sustained.

Yet it seems BT management were not prepared to accept Stanley's gradual timetable for calling off the action. On Friday they issued stringent conditions for a return to work - that everybody out must go back, that they must sign an undertaking to take no further industrial action, and that they would be subject to a final warning against them for a prolonged period of at least a year.

This rendered the NEC policy inoperable.

Opposition was also developing amongst the rank and file of the union. The London members taking action were incensed at the attempted sell-out and ten London branches called a national meeting for Monday morning. This meeting provided potentially a crucial means of organising a fight back.

A Socialist Organiser leaflet distributed at the meeting called for the following:

*The full wages policy (for I TELEPHONE IT strikers) has to be reversed and a more normal policy of strike pay or hardship allowance adopted which will not limit action and which could be sustained by the trade union movement. Fresh appeals for finance should be made to other unions.

*The ten London branches should continue to meet and liaise to administer this if necessary and to organise the action.

*Today's meeting must not simply demand that today's meeting continues and develops the current action (and no more retreats) but that the current action will continue irrespective of decisions or instructions from the NEC.

*If this leads to further action by BT management, possibly sackings, it should be met by a call for all-out strike action London and appeals for support to the rest of the country, particularly the major centres. Pickets should be sent from London to ensure that the action is spread.

*Branches should prepare for this situation, form committees to organise picketing and prepare the ground for a national strike.

*Bryan Stanley is now calling the tune in the union and now controls the NEC majority. Effectively the old right wing are back in control. Today's meeting should therefore press for the hard left on the NEC to break with the soft left and align themselves with those who are prepared to fight.

The situation ould not be more urgent. Unless action of this kind is taken, and today's meeting may be the last chance to take it, it may be only a matter of time before all resistance to privatisation is wound up."

Fewer than 100 turned up and no propositions were even put. Significant absentees were the ten NEC members who had defied Stanley. The only NEC representative was Tony Young, leading Broad Left member and now the Union's vice-president, but operating with great dexterity 'as the right wing's main cuckoo in the Broad Left's nest.

Regrettably it seems even now there are some in the Broad Left who retain illusions Young and have not drawn the conclusion that any worthwhile fight from now on will be as much against the NEC majority as BT.

The time is rapidly running out for independent Broad Left organisation.

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