Vote Todd and fight

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THE three Water Board Authority unions - the General and Municipal Workers, National Union of Public Employees, and the Transport and General Workers - representing 28,000 manual workers have rejected the 4% pay rise offer made to them this week as being totally unrealistiç.

The unions are looking for a substantial increase related to earnings in gas and electricity, though when talks resume next week with management they expect a revised offer of around 4.5%, similar to the deal accepted by council manual workers, to be put.

A MAJORITY of the 900,000 local authority manual workers have voted to accept the latest offer of a 4.5% pay increase -half as much again as the 3% pay limit set by the government on public service pay - made by the Conservative dominated council employers. The rise is to be backdated to November 4, 1983.

This is the first important pay rise negotiation to be concluded in the public service pay round, which should set a target for the other 1.5 million public servants, including 500,000 white collar workers, and the 250,000 health ancillary workers, who are now involved in pay talks. THE battle to succeed Moss Evans THE battle to succeed Moss Evans as general secretary of the TGWU as general secretary of the TGWU must be almost incomprehensible munt he almant innamarshawsihla to many union members.

Ron Todd, hailed by the Morning Star as a consistent supporter of "left wing policies" denies being the candiate of the left. Meanwhile, George Wright, the Welsh regional secretary, generally considered a right-winger, boasts of his CND membership and claims he is no ditterent from Todd politically!

Underlying this confusion surrounding the two serious candidates in the election, is a major crisis in Britain's biggest union. The TGWU's membership has fallen from two million in 1979 (remember the badges 'Join the Two Million"?) to 1.5 million today.

A special one-day Rules Revision Conference earlier this year had only one item on its agenda - to raise the dues by 25p week in order to ward off financial disaster.

And the crisis is not just financial. The Evans leadership likes to present itself as the left face of British trade unionism. During the NGA dispute last year, Evans was the leader of the "Friends" of the NGA within the TUC General Council and was one of the few union leaders to publicly condemn Murray's sell-out.

But at the same tine, Evans used his hold over the NGA to dissuade them from fighting for a recall TUC conference and to hold fire until the scheduled TUC in September.

More importantly, neither Evans nor any other "left" TGWU leader made any call for solidarity action with the NGA The current aispute at Carousel in Glasgow shows just how much the TGWU's left image is worth in practice. Local TGWU officials have been actively undermining support for the strike.

Behind these local officials stands Hugh Wyper, Scottish Secretary of the TGWU, and a prominent CP member.

Meanwhile, the Carousel strikers, fighting for union recognition and reinstatement, are left isolated on the picket lines without the secondary action needed to win the dispute.

Wyper, along with Evans and Deputy General Secretary Alex Kitson, publicly backed Roy Hattersley for Labour Party Deputy Leader after the Executive voted for Meacher.

Similarly, in Region 5 (the Midlands area), regional secretary Brian Mathers was until quite recently generally considered to recently gene: be part of the "broad left" and be part of th had very close links with the had tramer ~1Communist Party. That did not prevent him blatantly sabotaging the 1981 Ansells strike and actively opposing the recruitment of the unemployed to the union.

Ron Todd, who enjoys Evans' personal support, stands entirely within the present leadership's fake left traditions. He has built his reputation as a "tough" no-nonsense negotiator, around nis recora of handling Ford pay claims - exactlv as Fvans did ' Under ine pressure of a militant rank and file, he gave a degree of leadership to the 1978 Ford strike that succeeded in squeezing 10-16% rises out of the company and helped finish the Labour government's 5% pay ceiling.

But in January 1981 he unilaterally abandoned a national Ford pay strike after secret talks with the company over the Christmas holidays.

His handling of Ford's proposed foundry closure has been an object lesson in how to confuse and demoralise the membership: after the closure announcement he swiftly sanctioned strike action, only to defer it when the company offered talks!

moment Wright Ron Todd to be marginally ahead in terms of branch nominations, (although these are not always a reliable guide to final voting) and there is no doubt that although he is the "outsider" in the sense that he is not based at the union's London headquarters, his impressive campaign organisation has given him a clear lead over Todd and the ramshackle official "broad left" organisation.

So why should left wingers support Todd - the "left-winger" who denies being a left-wing candidate?

Because, whether he likes it or not, Todd has become the candidate of the left in the union and can only win on the basis of support from members who want to fight the government and treachery of the TUC.

Because Wright, as secretary of the Welsh TUC, was the man who pushed the document 'A Social Plan' advocating incomes policy and cooperation with the employers.

Because a victory for Todd will strengthen those forces who want to build a serious, fighting left current in the TGWU, based upon rank and file militancy, democracy, (presently only the general secretary is elected) and resistance to social contract-type deals with a future Labour government.

We should place no reliance on Todd, but his election will help build such a current.