[Weanescay HE TUC's Employment and rganisation Committee POC)…]

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Weanescay HE TUC's Employment and rganisation Committee POC) met as far back as ctober 19, when the first junctions were granted to lah - to restrain the NGA om writing to advertisers • ask them not to deal with lah's papers, and to stop e secondary picketing of e Bury and Warrington ants.

LPOC have verbal support but posed the mass picketing. On onday November 28 the consevenice of the NA's firm stand is clear for all to see.

The initial £50,000 fine, the Fusal of the union to pay it, d their refusal to call of the keting, had been met by questration of the NGA's Bets. The weekend's Fleet reet stoppages had led to Dusands of workers being ked out.

It was the hour for leadership. was the time when a call for a e-day general strike could ve taken the tide.

Instead, as injunctions worth million piled up against a ember union, the TUČ's inner binet promised only financial pport so that the union could rry out its legal functions. At this stage Murray made ar to the NGA leaders that it was it.

They could expect no more in the full General Council sting on Friday 2nd.

This news, and the witchnt generated by the mass keting led the NGA leaders to jaken.

Dn Friday 2nd they called a lek's truce. Just at a crucial Int in the struggle they noved their central pressure, return for talks which were nost certain to be unproducBy this time mass picketing itself was insufficient to win i battle. But the mass picketi provided an essential focus i a possible dynamic for what в required: the extension of ¡ dispute.

You can see why the NGA did They knew it could not win i dispute alone. On that same 1, Friday December 2, the | General Council took only 20 nutes to offer financial port as long as the dispute • kept within the law.

This was, of course, tantaunt to no support at all. Ince again, none of the TUC ; wingers - not Evans, not kins, not Gill, no Sapper, not kerstaffe - opposed this ¿sion or even put it to the e. They remained silent le an NGA appeal for the C to call on affiliates to bilise for the mass pickets rejected. i was, said Murray, up to the vidual unions, not a matter the TUC.

Questioned about the act the dispute could have on TUC's tentative relations • the government, . tray explained that it had no eace a: all and the TUC li coite to see governJenkins: will he act to support the NGA?

ment ministers about economic matters, pensions, and the political levy." (Guardian, December 3).

The NGA then compounded its original error in calling off the picket.

"Mr Joe Wade, NGA General Secretary, said after the meeting that he was happy at the decision." (Guardian, December Tony Dubbins explained that his earlier criticism of the General Council really only applied to Terry Duffy and Alistair Graham.

During the seven day truce Shah failed to negotiate. And worse: before the truce ended he had returned to court and the NGA were fined a further half-a-million pounds.

To give them full credit they again did not cave in. They decided to test the water by calling a one-day national print strike for the following Wednesday; and to take up the fight against Murray at the EPOC meeting on Monday 12th.

The EPOC decision to support the NGA strike, the denunciation of that decision by Murray, and its later reversal (29-21) by the full General Council were dramatic enough.

But in one sense it was all a storm in a teacup.

When the General Counci. reconvened on December 21, there was only one passing reference to the Messenger dispute. It was this: Moss Evans and Clive Jenkins objected to the minutes of the Black Wednesday meeting. They stressed that they dia not (repeat, not) accept that their advocacy of a sympathetic and supportive attitude to the NGA "at that meeting constituted 'explicit support' as recorded in the minutes.

The only support these two heroes claimed that the left had fought to give the NGA was 'non-explicit' support!

All the NGA and the lefts asked for on December 12 was a message of support. They were not saying that the TUC should encourage members or affiliates to strike on Wednesday December 16 or even take more limited forms of action.

Moss Evans specifically stated that he was not talking about bringing dockers out on strike.

But Murray and the right wing were absolutely determined to avoid giving even implicit support! They wished to avoid any paper statement which gave any kind of support THE CLIMBDOWN of the NGA over the Stockport Messenger dispute is a severe setback for the Left and the whole labour movement.

NGA general secretary Joe Wade was absolutely correct when he described the TUC's decision to betray his union as "an appalling capitulation to the government's anti-union legislation"

His deputy Tony Dubbins hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that long-term, ...'it's going to affect the overall membership of the trade unions, their bargaining strength... In other words you are sowing the seeds for the death of effective trade unionism in this country"

These are not just two more pieces of empty platform rhetoric. The results of the debacle are already on show.

Speeded up

The Guardian reported on December 19: "Government ministers have been sufficiently encouraged by the results of the Messenger dispute to consider speeding up further industrial relations legislation. The options facing Mr King include bringing forward the date by which employers must hold ballots if the closed shop is to retain legal immunity, publishing a consultative document restricting strikes in the essential services, and toughening up the trade union democracy bill"

We can also see the impact on the leadership of the trade unions. The National Union of Journalists has hitherto been one of the few unions determined and hard in its opposition to the Tory laws.

Refused

Like the NGA, it refused to abide by an injunction over the Stockport Messenger dispute. Until now it had refused to abide by the terms of a High Court injunction awarded to David Dimbleby after NUJ members struck over his attempt to transfer printing to the anti-union T.Bailey Forman outfit. As recently as December 10 the NUJ *ight. executive unanimously resolved not to comply with the legal order made under the Tebbit Act, but instead to hold a membership. special conference to discuss the issue in January.

The NUJ had also appealed to the TUC for support.

In the aftermath of the General Council's decision not to support the NGA, the union decided to withdraw its strike instruction to the Dimbleby chapel immediately and appeal to the House of taken the point. Lords against the injunction.

When Dimbleby went back to the court for proof that the instruction had been properly communicated, we had the sad and unedifying spectacle of NUJ deputy secretary Bob Norris - who until then had been a militant campaigner against the legislation - reading out a legal affidavit stating that no member The mass pickets: dropped by the NGA Bob Norris knows as well as I do how the legal snare works.

And yet he is now saying what would have stuck in his throat before Black Wednesday: Don't rely on your own independent action. Let seven impartial belted peers of the realm decide vihether you or Dimbleby are Perhaps it still sticks in Bob Norris's throat. Nevertheless he has disoriented the union THE TUC's inbred fear of class confrontation made the It is easy to see why it has ambiguities in the Wembley happened. The NUJ possesses policy fatal. not one tenth of the discipline, muscle and money of the NGA... The June 9 election result and look what happened to the settled any doubt. It was NGA. How can the NUJ stand Murray's opportunity. Within alone? Unions which possess weeks he was pushing through not one twentieth of the princip- talks with the Tory government. les of the NUJ will have already The Blackpool TUC Congress consolidated the turn to the The NGA put its head above right. the firing line. It stood up to be The concessions to the TUC counted. In principled lefts that the Wembley profashion it followed what it saw as gramme represented were withTUC policy. It ended up publicly drawn. The compromise disowned by the leaders of Brit- remained on paper. It was finain's unions, its assets control- ished in practice. led by the state, fined half a The position now was simply million pounds and with enough this: The 1980 and 1982 Employoutstanding writs to knock its ment Acts would be accepted in organisation back into the return for the most minor conBritish "elecom?

Murray felt bold enough to declare: 'Congress has not yet decided that any union obeying an injunction would be contravening Congress policy."

There was no question of the TUC setting out to break or encourage members to break the The bosses stepped up their attack.

In the workplaces there was the determined attempt to push through privatisation in British Telecom; the derisory offer to the miners; the attempts impose the "slaves' charter" in shipbuilding; the ripping-up of the water industry closed shop; a score of small stoppages over redeployment, speed-up and victimisation, and withdrawal