ignores sacked miners
NALGO conference swings left
THE ENTHIUSIASTIC response to Arthur Scargill's hard: hitting speech at this year's Yorkshire miners gala — especially his call for direct action to fight Tory arracks — showed thar militancy is still alive and well in the NUM.
However the agenda for this vear's NUM conference in Rothesay offers little of substance now that Thätcher's clection victory has squashed the life our of resolutions calling for action by the next Labour government!!
Nowhere in an agenda focussed largely on detensive demands is there any reference to the miners still sacked and victimised as a result of the 1981-5 strike. There are no proposals on the next steps in the fight for their reinstatemont, despite remarkably solid strikes in their support in the lew months prior to the election.
These class war casualtics had been told to wait for the THIS YEAR'S Blackpool conference of NALGO, Britain's biggest white collar union, saw an important surge in the influence of the left. Despite the failure of the left in recent years lo win seats on the union's 70-person executive, or to construct a viable national movement on the left, its influence ar conference was considerable.
The first and major step: forward was the decision to ballot NALCO members.on sctting up a political lund: This move, backed by the national executive, was a direct result of the high court judgement against NALGO's million pound Make People Matter campaign in defence of the public services. The court lound that the unton had broken the 1984 trade union legislation by financing the campaign out of normal union funds, rather than a political fund, during an election period.
The ballor for a political fund is a major challenge for
KENT Imprisoned Kent miner, Gary Hewell. return of a Labour government! now an emergency resolution is needed tn commit the union to further industrial action to secure their reinstatement.
The main issues up for debate at conference are of course pay, the management drive to speed-up, the longer working work and 'incentive' agreements.
The Yorkshire area has tabled a string of amendments: calling for:
• increased wages un a the lent. The last similar ballor in 1982 resulted in a heavy "no" vote. Only a substantial campaign will produce a more favourable restit this time
NALGO reaffirmed its determination to haycott the government's slave labour Job Traning Scheme, a move which has been followed by the TGWU and may result in the Tuc pulling out as well. This would pur in question the TUC's role in all MSC schemes.
Policy victories for the left included the adoption of a resolution on Ireland, morc radical than the policy of any other union, calling for an end to strip scarching. Diplock courts, plastic bullets and the P'revention of Terrorism Act. The resolution also called for a united Ireland, as the only just long-term solutiun, but the executive managed to amend it to include the words by peaceful means':
Conference also decided to salaried basis to incorporate the incentive bonus scheme into the weekly wage backed up by provision for a national delegate conference
•an NUM working party To draw up an alternative strategy to mangement's Wheeler Plan
• opposition to the varinus incentive schemes — the Doncaster' Doncaster", Kellingly and 'Derbeshire' options which are central to the Wheeler Plan.
Nots NUM condemns the Coal Board's attacks on the working day and working week and insists: "we should stick to the adage of not a penny off the pay, not a minule on the day
None of the three resolutions from South Wales arca incotions the controversial Margam proposals or changes in working practices
However. Scotland Communist Party-led antiScargillites continuc their disaffiliate from the Trade Union Friends of Israel, a move spearheaded by NAGO'S increasingly influential black members group. Other gains Icd by the black members group included support for the campaign against the deportation of Viraj Mendis; and a motion instructing the NEX: not to employ fascists — i move sparked off by revelations about une of NALCO's branch administrators, 'Strasserite? NF-er Paul Kingsley, The conference also decided to affiliate to the Narional Jurice for Miners Campaign.
The bigger left fringe meeting at