Islington UNISON THE FORMATION of UNISON with 1.4 million members has not yet brought any TRADE UNION NEWS advance in the organisation of its left wing.
The merger brought with it an uneven legacy of left organisation. In the 1970s the NALGO Left was organised through the NALGO Action Group (NAG) and the fight for a shop stewards system.
However by 1980 the decline of NAG had begun with the split of the CP to the right and it was eventually closed down by the SWP in 1982. Militant stepped into the vacuum to form the Broad Left but despite its name both they, and since 1990, the SWP, have successively run it as a narrow front organisation with little influence outside their own membership and periphery.
The CP/Morning Star retained significant influence particularly in Scotland but continued to move rightwards, increasingly playing the role of left apologists for the bureaucracy particularly in their opposition to any national action to fight cuts.
In NUPE the Broad Left, controlled by Militant, was small, secretive and marginal although one or two Militant supporters got on to the NEC. As in NALGO the CP retained influence in Scotland, however the union was dominated by the Kinnockite Sawyer/Bickerstaffe leadership.
In neither NALGO nor NUPE did the formal organisation of the left reflect the potential strength of the wider left represented by those prepared to fight on isues such as cuts and At NALGO conference a core of about one third regularly voted for strike action against cuts - while on specific issues (such as fighting anti-trade union laws) this often became a majority.
Even at the smaller NUPE conferences resistance was growing from about a fifth to a