In the shadow of Fort
NUJ Conference Wapping THE dark shadow of Fort Wapping and a generalised employers offensive hung over the proceedings of the NUT's An-
Delegate Meeting in Sheffield.
The result was a largely low-key conference, passing almost on the nod a whole series of proposals - not least the call for a ballot to establish a political fund - which in previous years would have been hotly disputed.
More controversial, however, and only narrowly defeated, was a call for the regular election of all NUJ officials, following a year in which both General Secretary Harry Conroy and deputy General Secretary Jake Ecclestone had been elected. The increased support for this principle suggests that any amount of serious campaigning for it by the newlyemerging NU] Broad Left could tip the balance next year and strike and important blow for accountability.
Amid the events at Wapping, and with visits to the conterence from a markedly conciliatory NGA General Secretary Tony Dubbins, and a clearDanny Sergeant, there was much talk demoralised SOGAT President of possible inter-union agreements and even amalgamation.
The Conference voted in favour of seeking to extend the present united tront with the NGA over new technology In the provincial newspaper sector to include SOGAT. and urged the NEC to reopen the talks over amalgamation with the NGA which broke down several years ago. But there was no disguising the scepticism of many delgates on this issue. recognising tht all these developments will be shaped above
ill by the outcome of the Wappin
attle and the links between the NGA and SOGAT
The debate over Wapping itself took shape with the NEC significantly putting down no resolutions of its own, and seeking simply to delete various demands from a composite resolution moved by a Brighton delegate and seconded by Oxford.
Key proposals which the NEC majority wished to delete were:
• For the NEC to call the four scab
Wapping chapels out on strike;
• For strike action on Fleet Street;
• Condemning the NEC's refusal to insitute disciplinary action against
By a Special
Correspondent the 500 Wapping scabs who have defied the Union instruction to work normally at their previous place of work;
• "Demanding" that the NEC change its decision, and lay complaints against the scabs.
In a debate which appeared to swing in favour of one side and the another, the right wing lost no chance to underline the implicit dangers of a breakaway scab union emerging from any mass expulsions at News International, while the left Insisted upon the need to uphold the union's rulebook if provincial branches and chapels were not to disintegrate. The eventual close vote for action was followed by an NEC meeting that evening which voted to take no action until after the Conference had disbanded
Next day, after the left had forced an adjournment of Conference, demanding the NEC give a statement TGWU to back wage controls? Todd's lurch to the right
By BILL PETERS THE swing to the right in the trade union movement since the end of the miners' strike has been dramatic and obvious of
The TUC has abandoned its position" to the anti-union laws and refused to discipline the yellow EET-
PU for its union busting role at Wapping. The AUEW has accepted
Government money for ballots, and
previously "left" unions like NUPE
ive played a leading role in the
wtich-hunt against Militant.
What may not have been so ob-
vious, however, is the shift to the
Socialist Viewpoint No. 12 May 1986 p7
of its Intentions, a unanimous declaration agreed that complaints would be laid under the Union's Rule 18. Subsequently the incoming NEC has decided not to begin this process until May 14 — a week after the final deadline set by Murdoch for a settlement, and two weeks after the possible April 30 "strike ballot" by the four scab chapels.
Though many of the Conference decisions appear to indicate a shift leftwards in the Union, and the incoming NEC seems unchanged in overall political complexion, the tone of all but the Wapping debate sug gested a sulky right wing largely assive in the face of resolutions it believed would not be implemented or could not (as on the political fund) plausibly oppose.
There is no doubt that the fight to uphold many of the policies and principles adopted at Sheffield will be a long and hard one in the NUJ, and the develpment of the embryonic Broad Left into a serious grouping with a real base in the workplaces could prove the key to success.
Todd - from "left" to right.
Major new threat to victimised miners.
right in Britain's biggest union, the TGWU.
The fact is that since the victory of the "left" candidate, Ron Todd, in the election for General Secretary last year, the union has moved further to the right than any time since the latter years of the Jack Jones era, sending out echoes of the Arthur Deakin regime which ended in the late 1950s.
There was an organised right wing campaign around the elections for the union's National Executive last December, which resulted in a swing to the right. Walt Greendale, the leftwing national chair of the union, was defeated for his own place on the Executive and was replaced by the right-wing nominee Brian Nicholson.
Ron Todd has added his weight to the rightward move, with a lengthy article in the Daily Mirror supporting the witch-hunt against Militant - in lat contradiction to the polic dopted at last year's TGWU Biennia Delegate Conference. He condemned the seven Labour NEC members who walked out and stopped the disciplinary hearing against Militant.
It is no accident therefore that Todd and the National Executive have refused to discipline their scab THE National Justice for Mineworkers Campaign has grown rapidly since it was established at the end of last year. It was established following an initiative from a Trade
Union Briefing fringe meeting
at last year's Labour Party Conference. It received the backing
of the Campaign Group of
Labour MPs and was then of-
ficially supported by the National Executive of the NUM.
In giving the Campaign official support the NUM proposed a new structure which involved establishing
an NUM nominee (Billy Etherington,
secretary of the Durham mechanics)
as the chair, a Preden burgering
secretary (Ed Fredenburgh)
establishing a broad-based Steering
members who are crossing print union picket lines and distributing Murdoch newspapers. At its last meeting the Executive instructed the drivers not to go into Wapping, but at the same time made it clear that there would be no disciplinary action even if they did.
Two weeks ago Todd announced that the union had made an Important breakthrough and had managed to recruit the Queen Mother.
This week Todd has joined with other right wing union leaders to hint at some kind of incomes policy in the event of a future Labour Government. "Il you want to see Labour in power there has to be a form of discipline exercised by us.
There could not be a more fundamental shift of the TGWU line than on incomes policy. The TGWU has had a consistent policy of free collective bargaining since Jack Jones was defeated on it at the 1979 Biennial Conference on the Isle of Man. At the 1981, 1983 and 1985 Conferences, free collective bargaining went through on the nod in resolutions moved by the National Executive. That the one-time "left" Ron Todd now challenges the long held and solidarity with
By BILL PETERS nominees from the NUM areas, 10 from the Campaign Group of Labour MPs, 10 from Women Against Pit
closures, 10 from the Support
Groups, 2 from the Co-ordinating
Committee of Support Groups and 10 "others" These would be general labour movement nominations.
It was a good democratic structure reflecting all the main groupings involved in the continuing campaign on behalf of 500 miners who remain victimised. The campaign based itself on the redrafted "Justice for Mineworkers Bill" presentec In
Parliament by Tony Benn and the Campaign Group of MPs in February. Although the redraft calls for a judicial review of the cases of the imprisoned miners rather than a Committee. This would comprise 10 | pardon, it is a very important rallying Socialist Viewpoint No. 12 May 1986p8
symbolic policy of the union serves to show the scale of the shift to the right which is taking place.
It is not just a matter, however, of an individual like Ron Todd collapsing to the right under the pressure of the job he has been elected to. His shift to the right is certainly remarkable; but it is linked into the political situation which has existed in the labour movement since the defeat of the miners' strike last year.
Since then a growing section of union leaders have concluded that industrial struggle will not win against the Thatcherites and that the only hope for the trade unions is in the election of a Labour Government at the approaching election.
At the same time the muchLabour Party under Neil Kinnock is strengthened right spelling out that the only way to win the election is for the Labour Party to shift to the right and the trade unions o present a moderate face.
It is under these political presures that the "left" speeches of the Todd election campaign have given way to the present situation within a few short months. point for the movement and a marker or a future Labour Government, since it calls for reinstatement of those miners sacked.
The Justice Campaign received a major boost with the highly successful March, Rally and Albert Hall Concert on March 2. All these positive developments, however, threaten to come to a shuddering halt if developments which emerged at the last meeting of the Campaign on April 18 in Nottingham are continued.
The meeting was again well attended with well over 200 people present. For the first time there were officials from some of the NUM areas. Terry Thomas was there from South Wales and a large delegation trom the Scottish NUM headed by prominent EuroCommunist Party members Eric Clark and George Bolton.
As soon as the meeting opened it
was clear that the informal open discussion of previous meetings had gone. Billy Etherinaton welcomed everyone to the meeting with his first sentence, and told them would be the last open meeting the Campaign would hold with the cond. In future, he said, only the Steering Committee would meet which would elect a smaller subcommittee to run the Campaign.
Another contentious issue when it was realised that a new position of convenor of the campaign had been created since the last meeting and the address of the secretary removed from the letterhead. Attempts to leave things as they were until democratically changed were defeated.
Alan Meale, secretary of the Campaign Group of MPs, then challenged the model resolutions Labour Party and TUC