year's Labour Party Conference, which meets in a chipping away at their pay, conditions and union negotiating rights. through negotiation. This stabs deep at the heart of new realism. certain" to make this national. or their pet theoreticians on Marxism Today. "New realism" - a trendy tem for class collaboration - has drawn its main impetus from the defeats inflicted upon the working class, while in tum producing It is no coincidence that the right wing counter offensive in the Labour Party (which has has brought us the Policy Review as well as the reversal of many left policics won in the carly 1980s) gathered its main momentum in the aftcemath of the mainers" strike, and has ex- ploited the subsequeat defeats of the printworkers and seafarers. Yet in each of these cases it has been the political weakness of 'new Scargill's bold lead to the miners could not overcome the deter- mination of the TUC right wing to see them isolated and avoid at all realist union leaders that has laid the basis for isolation and defeat. policies which guarantee more defeats to come.
Page 1 ago, and a Policy Review fashioned as a defeatist capitulation to Thatcherite market" ideology when it was at its flood tide, before the To ensure that this spectacle is not repeated, the class struggle for- ces now galvanised into trade union activity must alno be organised and mobilised politically. The task of building a serious, fighting left a central concer of the November conference on Trade Unions called sors). A step forward here could lay the basis to tum the tide against in the unions that also fights for its policies in the Labour Party will be by the Socialist Movement (with an impressively wide list of spon- Kinnockism in the bartles to come. Be there! more recent ebb. costs a generalised confrontation with the Tories: and the refusal of SOGAT leader Brenda Dean and other print union chiefs, and then of the alleged 'incffectiveness of the strike (which held up 75% of the Seamen's Union leaders, firmly to break the Tory anti-union laws The dockers faced cxactly the same political impasse: it was not their weakness on the issue which led to defeat (70% voled in two bal- lots for all-out action to defend the Dock Labour Scheme): nor was il British trade, and was quickly blamed for a month's catastrophic trade It was Ron Todd's new realist politice: his dogged refusal to break led their memhers to defcat at Wapping and P&O. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18. October 1989 figures).
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18, October 1989 originally tried to amend the 3- posed it too, because it included This MSF hailed as a victory. Labour Party, lack of clarity can serve both shoddy sides just as be strength, but when the left lie or even triple-speak seems to bave infected the movement, like der which makes you come out with at least three words when one would have done. Last ycar with unilateralism. Now they've got a embraces. and ing Science and Finance mion. Ken Gill's MSF, which had resolution to a clear unilateralist policy, mstead managed to just add on a reference to a non-nuclear ing stage. This fudge took neally the whole week to concoct. So the TGWU voted against the composite, since it wasn't clearly So did Kinnock's supporters in the TUC. In the TUC, as in the well, when they play the same bureaucratic games. Unity may low like this, they just get Jane Wells Selling shares? or trading votes? Engineers leader Bill Jordan with yuppiphone sible and played dead, in the hope that nobody would notice them until after the next election. The defence dehale was a classic. in this respect. Kinnock doubic, some unpleasant digestive disor- bilateral' Initiatives for disarma- The white collar Manufactur defence policy" at the composit- unilateralist, and the AEU op- calls for unilateral initiatives. multilateral stuck which reference to trampled over. 'unilateral. Congies policy пепт. way policies which count - and that The rest of the time Congress for trade unions'. The meaning puted and there has been much speculation as to whether as a have played the significance of the TUC decision at once up - and down. Up, because when the same position is put at Labour's conference by the Transport defeated (if the righr-wing unions get their act together), it will look like a victory for Kin- nock Down, because that's a high-risk strategy and they don't want the left culching on to it as a way if denting the policy The left did win an important. and clear, victory on nuclear Miners, demanding that all nuclear reactors be phased out over fifteen years was passed by Congress, against the General Council's wishes, Which goes to show, amid much media specula- lion about Scargill's isolation, mental health and possible im- minent political eclipse, that it is clear left policies, when put and The decision on trade union was probably the most significant of the week, with a call for immunity in ton of this legalistic formula is dis- result the TUC demands are now left of Labour's policy review. The answer in probably Umion and Labour Icaders workers (TGWE), and likely power. A motion from the avoided clanty as much as pos- argued, can win the day- legislation UPDATE review! to the yes. Council, The opportunity was concentrated on sclected deals at for Positive Action and Organising for Change - women vast majority of unions women are not organised separately with any degree of authority or strength, it was always more a matter of which (mainly male) union leaders would call the ference may have been, the left Under NALGO's proposal current unrepresentative right-wing majority would have been removed and replaced by a more evenly balanced General lost though, by a strategy which progressive change across the shots - right or less right-wing. And, marginal though the dif ——..... the top, to the exclusion of build Delegates £10, individuals 56/$4. Credentials from Private Vices, Public virtues - fighting privatisation 11am-5pm Saturday: 10am-4pm Sunday Which Way for Socialists in the John Harris/'FL ing a real momentam before - and the right have a majority of around 7 (in- What might have been a real exercise in increasing representation squandered in the usual depressing round of horse-trading' over which pated scats. Since in the women would sit in the dis- Sheffield Polytechnic Student Union, Defiance not Compliance - anti union laws The Socialist Conference (TU), PO Box 118, as a whole lost out, 10o./ Pond St Sheffield (opposite BR station) stead of 11 last year). unions, from below. and black people in the unions TUC Congress '89 November 11 & 12 Chesterfield, Derbyshire Workshops include: women's and much more muddle and Conference Unions? was: the night's snappy slogan of 'Spirit of ruled out of order and then, after changes proposed by Norman number of scals reserved for women to 12 The Willis 15 women - more than ever union But there was little evidence of the spirit of the recent summer of discontent though in Blackpool. Con- gress passed away peacefully instead in an early autumn Pulsen did quicken from time A proposul from the public the General Council to the benefit of women and the higger, generally more left-wing unions, was first threats of legal action, debated and defeated on the first day. Congress insead voted through the NALGO proposal, increase the proposals, however, are guaran- majority. On the new 53-seal General Council there are now Spirit of TUC 1989 went under the NALGO to re-structure These changes, like defeat teed to preserve the white collar ----------- seaside slumber. white to time though. Willis. sector Page 2 89'-
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