AMILLION ballot papers nave now gone out after a vigorous campaign for a merger between the Engineering union AEU and the notorious Electricians and Plumbers union the EETPU.
Now the two unions have invited others to join them.
Leaders Bill Jordan (AEU) and Eric Hammond (EETPU) have certainly nulled a few fast ones in their bid so form a new yellow bloc on the right of the TUC They have also had a hard job convincing AEU members that the EETPU is going to behave itself under President-elect Paul Gallagher, especially after recent EETPU poaching campaigns aimed at the building worcers union UCATT But their job has been made a good bit easier by the hopeless inacIvity of the tradional ABU left around the Engineering Gazette.
It sooms that left AEU Executive member Jimmy Airfe and his pais earnt nothing from the 1990 campaign, which defeated a similar merger move on the AEU executive. This me around, they have used the bir zarre excuse of democracy to explain their complete failure to stop the scab mongol.
Democracy
The executive have agreed the merger they argue 'so we must keep culat - we cant camosion acaris union policy. Ironically, it is precisely on the issue of democracy that the and most beleve that Jordan plans to doing away with any coal rank and fle ac Of course, the reason for the 'yes' vote is that practicaly every left exocutive member has been given the boot. with only a couple coming out clearly against the merger.
One union that will surely be swept onto the sidelines if the merger goes ahead will be the Electrical and Plumbing Industrial Union (EPIL), the remnants of pro-TUC elements in the ABU EETPU. But when asked for their reaction to the super-union plan, they Despite silence from the EPIU and the Gazette, AEU activists on the ground have been waging a rearguard it for a cemocratic union inside the JC. Shop stewards in the Nort West have been organising a last ninute campaion, printing thousand &' VOTE NO! - We don't need a bosses union' leaflets.
Scabbed on AEU
These spell out the objections in a tew hard-hitting points:
The EETPU...
"Scabbed on AEU members at Wapping. Of 5,000 sacked, 250 were AEU members.
Were kicked out of the TUC for unprincipled behaviour Have merged with scab groups (P&O strkebreakers) and now just completed talks with the scab UDM.
Have no democracy - members save no say in leadership decisions ul time officials are not elected bu this to be the inof the new Union. pany where sweetheart deals are the order of the day hence the unbe. levable company lacies 9iven 10 Jordan and Gallagher as they tour the country, speak ing at paid mass meetings on site and at joint AEU-EETPU stewards' meet. ings.' Meetings of shop stewards and convenors in Preston, Newcastle and Scotland have come out heavily against the Jordan campaign. Massey Ferguson convenor Steve Taylor in Manchester said 'At our shop stewards meting they would be no problem with TUC affilia. don of electing officials - waid outnumber the EETPU.
So we asked, what are they up to? why not take the votes now? They Welcomed by bosses: AEU chief Bill Jordan didn't have any answers. There's not much enthusiasm for the marcel The EETPUs agenda is obvious. Hammond may continue with the antiTUC vitrol, but others want a tar-night bloc inside the labour movement.
EETPU afforts to form a raht-wing alternative to the TUC, regrouping the so-called Union of Democratie Mine i workers (UDM) and others, have not come to much But a business-union bloc inside the TUC is the serious danger. The lack of enthusiasm for the merger on the ground must be mobilised into active opposition.