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THERE were some extraordinary scenes at the special TUC Conference of union Executives which on April 5 1982 adopted an 'Eight point plan' effectively winding up any fight to prevent the Predictable left speeches from Arthur Scargill and Moss 'not a penny of this money is to pay fines or legal fees' Evans were follor up by a bloodcurdling show of militancy from Terry Duffy — who claimed the credit for the historic AUEW sympathy strike that enabled the NUM to win the 'Seize of Saltley Gates' in 1972! His right wing pal, Roy Grantham of APEX, echoed Moss Evans, declaring that the 'fighting fund' should not be frittered away legal costs, while NALGO's Geoffrey Drain — scarcely a firebrand of proletarian struggle — invoked the memory of the strikes to free It was left to Len Murray to keep the feet of the Conference on the floor, insisting that 'nothing we decide today will stop the Government from putting its Bill on the statute book this summer ' And lest anyone take seriously the ranting declarations of solidarity from the General Secretaries, Murray insisted:

"The General Council will, as they always do, deal with unions, not with individuals or goups of workers. And the support they give cannot be unconditional: there will be no black cheques... So unions can have confidence in the General Council, both to give firm and positive leadership and to act in a responsible way... There may well be situations from which we will have to extricate unions: that would not be the first time that the General Council have had to advise a union to draw back from a no-win situation [!1!].' Since then ASLEF strikes and others have seen close up just what the General Council's 'positive leadership' consists of: the NGA itself, now at the forefront of the fight against Tebbit, this year won pay battle with the Financial Times only in the teeth of bitter TUC Yet these decisions of April 1982 were the last recorded resolutions of opposition to Tebbit's Bill; this is why NGA General Secretary Wade has been carefully referring back to this Special Conference and avoiding the capitulationist policies adopted in the This was how Socialist Organiser no. 78 summed leaders. They need the sort ard its leader, the direct action of trade union structure that, of the rank and file, almost for example, existed in the invariably unofficial, its effecdocks section of the T&GWU tive weapon.

movement of 1954 started. jacket came to fit more loosely Defeated: Heatin Tebbit anti-union Bill becoming law. the five Pentonville dockers in 1972! resistance and obstruction.

1982 and 1983 TUC Congresses. 'action' plan: emasculation of militant trade nionism. The Economist, : militant ruling class weekly, contemptuously explained what they really want to do with stiff-necked working class fighters like Bernie Steer, Vic Turner, and the rest of the Five:

"In any sensible industrial system the right sanction against the likes of them is not jug, but the sack. If they persist with their unlawful induatrial nrartines. thew ahnuld шиио HIMLO, HI DU be dismissed from the trade union whose rules they will be flouting, and then from the docks where they will be steadily rendering all jobs uneconomic: arguable with due compensation for the loss of those jobs, but more arguably not' To do that they need the active support of the union before the breakaway union A closed shop existed by virtue of an agreement between employers and trade unions. It was used by both union and bosses, hand in hand, to sack workers who refused to bendthe knee.

In the '30s, '40s, and '50s, many unions hardened into semi totalitarian bodies working hand in hand with the employers and their state. One of the foremost examples was the T&GWU under Arthur Deakin. (The ban on the Communist Party was lifted only four years ago).

In the post world war 2 boom the power of the bosses was gradually eroded, as the central trade union machine became less important in determining wages and conditions. The shop floor became the focal point of the struggle, the shop stewThe bureaucratic strait-