HERE’S THE REAL SAFEGUARD AGAINST FIDDLING

I READ with interest the letter from Mark Young in Jast week’s New Statesman. I don’t think that Mark ~~ Young has thought seriously enough about the problems that face the whole trade union movement, of which -the Electrical Trades Union is a part. ’ Because he looks at the ETU in isolation his letter tends to be one-sided, misleading and open to quite wrong conclusions.

An untrue impression is now being created that fiddling of votes is done only in the ETU ‘and only by members of the As any active trade unionist knows, this is a problem in most unions, and in fact I have known many Communist Party members to fight quite vigorously against fiddling even when they had the power at branch level to do it themselves.

Right wing organize too I have known members of the Communist Party who have been kept out of trade union positions as a result of gross fiddling by their opponents.

Radio-Active Dangers in the Factoryennmmmnnnennnnn Supplementing this week’s report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the effects of atomic radiation, our scientific correspondent J. H. BRADLEY here discusses the chief radio-active dangers that workers on the factory floor are likely to meet every day.

T or use radio-active instruments or X-rays, but for HIS account is not meant for people who make the man who may run across them in automatic controls, safety devices, inspections or repairs, just as he runs across many other dangers. , No industrial radic-activs device need- be in any way unsafe, even amid fires and explosions, though some of them cannot be expected.to stand up to corrosive chemicals and fires at the same time.

They should all be put.as far from workers as possible, and well screened. — Vv ABOVE OR BELOW. Remember, if there is radioactive material in the shop above or below, or the next - room, some radiation may reach you. A fire might let it loose all over the place.

Under no circumstances need a worker wear a radioactive badge or ring as a safety guard on a machine, because his skin will receive radiation.

Any failure in the radiation detector will mean that the machine is unsafe—violating the first principle that all safety devices must ‘fail-safe’.

There are far better methods for nearly all machine guards, without the dangers of the old photo-electric devices.

The main legitimate uses of radio-active devices in routine production can be classed as:

Thickness measurement (without contact, as on hot materials, layers of one material on another, where only one side can be got at etc.); Level and position indicators (inside steel tanks and such. places where other devices are difficult or dangerous);

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Batch and revolution counting;

Detecting empty packages; Automatic conveyor routing;

Smoke and fire alarms;

On the question of advisory committees, it is surely understood by all in the movement that groupings, committees and fractions—from Left to Right—exist in every union. - The Right wing organize quite effectively in’ many unions.

They don’t need to go outside the rules to do it. Their control of the machine is sufficient.

Doesn’t Catholic Action organize in the trade unions and put forward candidates? Doesn’t the Daily Telegraph from time to time tell us coyly who the ‘genuine’ opposition candidate is? ;

To say these things is not to endorse fiddling by anyone, but simply to recognize things as they are in order that we can look at what the real problem is and advance a solution:

‘Capitalism is good for you’

Fiddling, corruption and so forth are symptoms of a struggle that has gone on since the birth of trade unions. This struggle is a reflection of the struggle that goes on in society between employers and workers, a struggle that with. each swing of the economic pendulum varies between desire for teforms and for revolution.

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Anti-static ionizers (with dusty and fibrous materials, as in operating theatres); .

Leak and blockage tracing; Measurement of wear; Search for cracks aiid’ flawsy Examination of inaccessible parts (girders encased in concrete, ‘jammed valves etc.).

Vv _ PERFECTLY REASONABLE. It is perfectly reasonable for workers to demand that all inspection by X-rays or isotopes shall be done at night or week-ends and all sources of radiation taken away (or X-ray tubes turned off) during working hours.

If a management alleges that some radiograph needs a very long exposure, the answer is that it can be done by sevéral short ‘exposures, with the source replaced in exactly the same position each night. :

All devices should have to be approved and inspected ~ by the Atomic Energy Authority for fire resistance, impossibility of accidental exposure to the radio-active source, resistance to tampering, safety of the highvoltage units needed in all radiation detectors, safety of the machine in case of a fault, and—not least—that radiation gives the safest way of doing the job.

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CAN INCREASE SAFETY. If this is done, radiation instruments and controls can be far safer than many machines already in use. -Indeed, they can greatly increase industrial safety by abolishing most of the failures in ‘safety devices due to dirt, grease, metal shavings, stray light, electrical faults, accidental damage or foolish tinkering.

When all is said. the greatest cause of industrial accidents is things falling on people, and, as I sought to show last week, there are many dangers. of injury: and poisoning quite as bad as radio-activity, about which we hear not a word. - : .

BRIAN BEHAN (Continued from previous. page)

There are sections of the trade union movement that sincerely believe that capitalism is good for you They believe that the main job of a-trade union is to cooperate to secure some reforms, while refraining from any actions likely to end the system.

The holders of these principles do not incur any great hardship because of them. On the contrary, particularly in boom periods, they are assured of comfortable trade union posts at quite decent salaries.

Their future prospects are even better. The boards of nationalized industries carry a number of trade union veterans at salaries of several thousand pounds a year. Now even the Heuse of Lords is to get its quota from the boards.

How to detect them. .

It follows quite logically that if the main trend of trade union leaders’ activity is top negotiations and compromise, then what is needed is not a powerful, active rank-and-file movement but that all real power should be concentrated at the top.

The problem arises: how does one detect the Right wing, ‘particularly if it hoists the red flag?

I think one simple test is sufficient. - How much real power do the members of a union exercise? .

Do the leaders consult them before they accept wage claims or alterations to labour conditions?

Have the members the right of communication between branches and access to the union journal?

Can the members vote on salaries, delegation fees etc. with a real knowledge of the amounts involved per person, plus discussion both in the union journal and in the branches before the vote is taken?

Conscious rank and file Without measures like these it is impossible to create the only real safeguard against fiddling and corruption—a conscious rank arid file. ~~ * , ‘ . — Even more important: without these being fought for now the trade unions will be unable to defend their members’ interests from the coming attacks of the employers.

Look at Mr Jack Cooper’s position now with his gasmen. Despite his cant about working together with the employers and so on, the Government will not concede him as much as more rebellious types are given!

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We need democracy in the trade unions, not to see one man replace another, but to secure a policy that corresponds to the interests of the members, and a leadership that will carry out this policy.

Voting fiddles are the sign of a crisis in the leadership. if leaders have no policy for the coming struggles fiddling can well become more widespread.

Fight for alternative policies Militant trade unionists, including the rank and file of the Communist Party, must’ neither be discouraged, nor deflected from the main struggle.

The task is not to elect an alternative personality with no policy except “Elect. me and I will do the job’, but to fight for alternative POLICIES and leaders who will carry them out.

The choice before the unions is not between Stalinist leaders and Right-wing leaders.

The choice is between countenancing leaders who betray their members’ interests, and a struggle for a rank-and-file policy and programme that will throw up leaders whose first concern is their members’ interests.

Sell the Humber Hawks Such leaders would immediately reduce the outrageous salaries and delegation fees that exist in most unions, incluiding the ETU, to the average wage earned in the industry.

Such leaders would sell the Humber Hawks and buy cheap vans with loudspeakers and use them for propaganda.

Such leaders would always consult their members on strike’ action, not only to defend and improve conditions, but also against rocket sites and H-bombs.

Such leaders would declare their intention of stopping unemployment by every means, including strike action.

Rather than chasing after courts of inquiry into trade unions, even under Trades Union Congress auspices, the rank-and-file trade unionist would do better to fight for a rank-and-file programme and reject or select leaders in relation to it.

EDUCATION SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE CAN AND MUST BE RAISED TO 16—IN THREE YEARS’ TIME Tue Labour Party’s education policy document ‘Learning to Live’ says: ‘It is Labour’s aim to raise: the school leaving age to 16 as soon as possible, but . . . the shortage of teachers may make this impossible in the first five years of the next Labour Government.’

Are we to declare the battle lost before we even start it?

It would be perfectly possible for a Labour government to announce that the school leaving age is to be raised to 16 in three years’ time.

It is true that something like panic would then assail all education committees and every secondary modern head and staff! But the cobwebs would be off in no time.

It can be done. What it requires is tremendous socialist incentive. It will call for a fundamentally new approach to education in secondary modern schools.

Too You might not think from ‘Learning to Live’ that there is only one big problem before_English education: revolutionizing the schools that provide so-called secondary education for 75 per cent. of the children of this country.

Having done all my teaching in these schools I know, as all other secondary modern teachers know, that we do NOT provide secondary education. (Exceptional work with GCE classes etc, does not alter matters.)

Most of us are prepared to go to all sorts of lengths to see to it that our own children do not go to the schools in which we teach. Can you think of a more shattering criticism?

Under the present arrangement boys and girls spend three full years in a secondary modern school and then in their fourth year leave at the end of the term in which the fifteenth birthday occurs. ‘Learning to Live’ proposes a full fourth year for all. So far so good.

No attempt is made however to suggest the educational