Union news in brief
NUPE The all-pervading spirit of the Kinnockism" swamped the proceedings at this year's NUPE Conference, leaving the Barking strikers isolated and raising the spectre of a full-scale witch-hunt against the left.
The submergence of the BickerstatteSawyer leadership tom public view during the early stages of the miners strike, and the resurfacing of Sawyer on Labour's NEC as an advocate of expelling Militant and an opponent of YTS strikes symptomise the shift of stance in NUPE from arm-waving left rhetoric to unashamed right wing positions. at the respas ew President pate that the union's new be Betty Ward, a one time classical exponent of empty leftism, played a signiticant role in obstructing any opposition to hospital closures anc privatisation in her home area of Oxford. In the very run-up to her elevation to the Presidency. Ward was doing her bit to prevent. the spread of privatisation strike action from COHSE. organised Littlemore Hospital into the more immediately threatened NUPEorganised John Radclitte Hospital.
NUPE's political switch from casting one of the few union block votes against the witch-hunt of Militant to outright support for their expulsion is likely to have repercussions within NUPE itself,
here a handful of Militant supporter: in prominent positions could well begir to feel the heat.
The willingness of sections of NUPE's rank and file to respond to any kind of lead in resisting Tory cuts has been repeatedly demonstrated - not least in the massive support for rolling strike action against privatisation in Newcastle area. It is this as much as the scale of the Tory onslaught on the public sector which so plainly frightens the NUPE leadership. The task organising a serious. non-sectarian hard left on class struggle policies in NUPE - a task which so many militants have ignored in the past period of "left" leadership - is now desperately urgent. Tube strike The NUR Executive could not call off last month's London Underground strike quickly executh, It had been called on
Executive Underground Ltd. had both made a wage offer to underground workers which fell short of that made by British Rail and threatened a wage cut unless the principle of one-person operation was accepted along with staff cuts on the stations.
The terms were accepted by ASLEF -which has 40% membership on the tube system - and rejected by the NUR who called an all-out indetinite strike.
The action was corect,
YES IM TAKING YOUR POLITICAL!! FUND AWAY BUT JUST "new THINK OFALL THE NEW JOBSIM CREATiNG... who has anti- the of preparations meetings were held and no adequate picket lines organised. ASLEF members crossed the picket lines which did exist London and management claimed that 70% of trains ran. The speed with which the NUR Ex- ecutive called off the action rather than try to stiffen it up reflected the way it had been organised. band-waggon reflected a "new realism" by rank and file workers since the end of the miners' strike a propaganda point should never have but the chance to make. Socialist Viewpoint, No. 6, June 1985. Page 24
HANDS OFF OUR FUND! non-existent. No mass claim they been given the
LEARNED JUDGES LAWYERS, SEQUESTERS COPPERS, SNOOPERS, PHONE TAPPERS, JAILERS, DOLE CLERKS, GRAVEDIGLLAS ANTI- UNION CLAWS
in organisation By TOM SILVERLOCK In 1984 following Hackney council's decision to set a 17% rate, the then leader, Antony Kendall, was challenged at the annual borough conference and replaced by a left leader - Hilda Kean.
This challenge resulted from caucus called Hackney Labour Left which also had an important role to play in this rear's fight against rate-capping. Lendall is now and has been the mair right-wing organiser in the Labour Group and has been able to split the Group in his favour.
The majority of the Labour Group voted to set a rate at the Labour Group meeting before the Council meeting which did set a rate. Who would eVer believe Hackney - the radical socialist borough
would withdraw from such an early stage, when it had full support from the Town Hall workers Labour munity groups Hackney Parties?
This can only be seen as a defeat in the fight for working class interests Hackney and, as in the showed yet again that the left capable of learning trom and responding to the needs of the work1ng class.
The left in Hackney failed to create new initiatives in a fight against a very determined and class conscious government. We heard time and time Hackney was "standing firm". We heard time and time again from Arthur Scargill that the miners were "standing firm" Hackney was and the miners did; but if determination and guts alone can win a struggle then the miners would have defeated this government months into the strike.
Antony Kendall knew