Choice facing AUEW £5,000 or confrontation

gineers' leaders of the Amalgamated Union of are today expected to argue for payment of the €5,000 fine imposed by the National Industrial Relations Court for contempt.

The union is committed to a policy of complete refusal to co-operate with the institutions of the Industrial Relations Act, but the right wing will claim that refusal to pay the fine would mean a stand-up confrontation with the law as a whole.

MILITANT AUEW members from CAV, Acton, north London, have sent a telegram to the engineering union's executive calling on their officials to refuse to pay the £5,000 fine imposed by the National Industrial Relations Court. They state that their subscriptions are not to be used in this manner.

Already Jim Conway, AUEW engineers' section secretary, has said "serious consideration' will be given to the judgement. 'We have no intention of defying the law to that extent,' he added.

Union president Hugh Scanion has declined to comment until after an executive meeting of all four sections of the union today.

had been reports that A NEW disputes procedure for the engineering industry may be tied up 'before the end of the year', union leaders said in York yesterday.

The executive of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions accepted an invitation from the employers to resume talks on an agreement to replace the 50-year-old York Memorandum scrapped last December.

It is expected that the talks —broken off earlier last year on he volunteered to face arrest for failing to appear at the NIRC on Wednesday. Bill John, the executive member responsible for legal affairs, also said he did not expect the fine to be paid.

The AUEW - and the trade union movement as a wholestands at the crossroads over this fine.

In many sections of the labour movement the union has been regarded as the main bulwark of opposition to the Act. Payment of the fine would deal a severe blow to this opposition.

But as one leading official pointed out yesterday: 'Resisting the Act is one thing, but there comes a time when you either have to drop your front of resistance or go on to get rid of the people who are keeping the Act in operation.' That time has now come for Scanlon and his executive. It is either capitulation, or mobilize action to force the Tories out of office.

The union has until November 21 to decide whether it will pay up, but it seems certain that the key decisions will be taken today or at the engineers' section executive on Tuesday.

One possibility is that the right wing will attempt to shift responsibility for the decision onto a recalled national committee. The national committee is the policymaking body of the union and if such a move were accepted it would be with the clear intention of changing policy.

The right will argue that the engineers' section simply cannot afford an expensive confrontation the key issue of whether employers must have union agreement for changes in working practices—will be arranged to start up again this month.

'We are hopeful that a new agreement may be signed before the end of the year', said CSEU secretary Jack Service yesterday.

The confederation has also agreed to go ahead despite the Tory pay freeze with a 'substantial' pay claim on behalf of 20,000 gas industry craftsmen. This is to be presented to the Gas Council on November 30.

He said the government was to with the court, since it is already spending £8.85m a year on an income of £7m and must put its financial house in order.

In a speech to the section's final appeal court last month, Conway drew attention to the fact that 17 per cent of its 1.25 million members were more than 26 weeks in arrears with the contributions and should strictly be lapsed. At the same time the union has suffered a 76,000 loss in the last year.

But if the union is in difficulties financially, these difficulties must be laid at the door of the rightwing leadership which has dominated the union for years.

If there is disillusionment with the substantial failure of the There is growing evidence to show that the TUC has agreed to help the government over the period of total freeze by discouraging wage Feather's only reaction to freeze on the farmworkers was that it was 'rather odd'.

Meanwhile the miners' leaders have put back their own wage claim once more.

But the mood of surrender among the top union bosses was best expressed by Jones.

se mered to become a prese with the Tories in managing the capitalist economy.

He said the unions were sincere in their approach to government:

'We want an understanding, because sooner or later it must become common practice in advanced industrial countries that social policy is a matter of negotiation between unions, employday, and the government of the Later, for a concession on pensions, Jones offered to become an agent of the Tory governGreater London Rally must be laid at the door of the executive itself. And if there is a decline in membership this 1s due at least in part to its failure io get rid of the Tories and halt the massive labour shake-out in the industry.

Already a number of branches have written to AUEW headquarters at Peckham Road insisting that there must be no reversal of policy by the union and that the fine must not be paid.

Many more such expected.

But the real question before today's meeting must be: is a serious campaign going to be developed now to remove the Tory authors of the NIRC from office?

I want to make it very clear that had the government been ready to make a decisive move forward on pensions, then 1 would have been ready to stump the country calling for sacrifices by the whole community to meet that commitJones is here talking of a government which has created a million unemployed, set up a court which jailed five of his members for picketing and attempted to rob the working class of every basic right it possesses —including now the right to a standard of living.

But his position is the position of almost every TUC General Council member. It is clear they will do nothing to defend the working class from the Tory onslaught-on the contrary many of them agree with it in secret.

This neans that the campaign to mobilize the working class against the government and the rotten TUC leadership must be stepped up immediately.

Workers can be unified behind this struggle. There is not a single dispute, whether on wages or pay, that does not involve such political confrontation. The Tories have made sure of this by their courts and fines.

But the call to force the Tories to resign is not just a phrase.