Dangers and opportunities it has a Stalinist structure. TASSIASTMS MERGER Clive Jenkins looking peekish around the Gills and TASS could this year create a THE proposed merger of ASTMS new union nearly as large as the AEU, and challenge NALGO's status as the largest white collar UNIONS for the memberships involved: it could either THE ASSOCIATION of Scientific Technical and Managerial Staffs (ASTMS) and the Technical and Supervisory Staffs (TASS) are the largest 'white collar' unions in the private sector. Their merging is a major challenge mean a strengthening of their hand, or rein-
amount of contempt for the ASTMS NEC, who have not only not 'dealt with' the "Trots', but This anomaly stems from the fact that ASTMS has elections for its NEC - most of which are contested - and Sue Lister, a known Trots- kyist, won a secret postal ballot for one of the two national seats. TASS NEC members however, are not usually contested; so they don't have elections! (This is how they man- age to 'defy' the Tory anti-union laws with- have an NEC member who is a Trotskyist! Trots' in ASTMS. They have a moving leadership; but under pressure from strength among independent activists, and witch hunted by Clive Jenkins' rightward- Militant and the SWP it has declined in now doesn't meet regularly (if at all) any SOMERS assesses the prospects union in Britain. ANNE for the new union. The logic of the merger is obvious - both unions organise in the technical grades of engineering. In fact the proposal to merge rence. The members work alongside each other; and the officials of both unions go into joint negotiations with management for however is not quite so obvious to other sections of the unions. The ASTMS Insurance force bureaucratic control. It may be a step came from the ASTMS Engineering Confe- members in the same factories. forward or a massive mistake!
could have an input into engineering that well-oiled bureaucratic machine of Ken Gill's 'Broad Left'. The If the combined unions were to end up ASTMS structures - then the merger would not only be a logical development but also a positive step forward. It will create a large union which will be potentially left wing, and The ASTMS leadership, however, though having far more members, are no political out themselves having to break the law!) would counter the AEU and EETPU. with the best points of both unions gerial and supervisory staff with working wing and dominates through the bureau- more. ASTMS as a whole is a strange mixture of politics, reflecting its mixture of mana- technicians. Although the leadership is right cracy it has never been able to totally strangle on the other hand has a very bureaucratic structure. It has a small confe- rence (about 160 delegates) that is elected at district conferences. The size of the confe- rence makes it very easy for the bureaucracy to control, and most of its representatives are similar type of member, and if the incredible mixture that makes up a hybrid union like then the addition of members from TASS (which is the smaller of The real problem is the totally different Sections, health workers and university tech- nicians — including some of the lowest-paid and most militant membership - have no The TASS Tobacco workers do not have ASTMS counterparts either; but they are a structures and histories of the two unions. the two should be easy. ASTMS can work,
elements of both ASTMS and TASS, becoming but essentially right wing political direction of the new merged union - whose contempt for even the most darity has been shown by their appalling victimisation of jailed anti-apartheid fighter If the new union ends up being strangled by this bureaucracy, it could destroy the best would swiftly pass towards the TASS leader- elementary principles of working class soli- obstacle to any real fight by its members. a left-talking which Ken Gill's Morning Star wing of the ive and over 95% of the conference delegates Statements that 'anyone can join the Broad selected at that conference. The TASS Broad Left is effectively the machinery through traditionally con- trolled the union. The entire national execut- members of the Broad Left or they The Broad Left is more broad then left. are closely followed by the proviso: 'well , any one except Trotskyists or anarch- Communist Party has wouldn't get elected). ASTMS has a relatively open democratic structure (as far as that is possible within the rence (made up from over 1000 branch delegates); elected lay delegates represent ASTMS at both the TUC Congress and the Labour Party conference; ASTMS even elects The Broad Left within ASTMS is a vague unstructured organisation based on left ac- tivists. In its heyday it has been viciously confines of a bureaucratic trade union move- ment). It has a large annual delegate confe- Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 its representative on the TUC.