Charter Campaign MANCHESTER FIGHT ON SACKINGS SHOWS NEED FOR RANK-AND-FILE MOVEMENT

From a Correspondent Manchester no. 6 branches of the Amalgamated Engineering Yo me and to the other delegates from Manchester the main theme running through the discussions at the Newsletter rank-and-file Conference was the need to develop a virile and conscious rank-and-file movement.

The need for this has been confirmed by the latest developments locally in the engineering industry.

The Manchester district committee of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions recently adopted a policy on sackings. The core of this was that the shop stewards should demand a shorter working week as an alternative, and that if the employers refused this the workers should then impose the shorter week on the management.

Though there are some weaknesses in the policy, this was a welcome advance from the passing of pious resolutions, particularly since the issue was taken right down into the factories with the stewards holding factory meetings and a mass meeting of shop stewards.

Action along the lines of this policy could be the beginning of a successful and mounting resistance to sackings in the area.

Yet although this is merely applying already agreed policy of the Confed. to oppose sackings, the Confed. executive has come down heavily on the Manchester district committee for daring to take policy resolutions seriously and for trying to apply them.

To block effective defence The same Bro. Barrett, general secretary of the Confederation, who attacked the Newsletter Conference and the Marxists in the Sunday Times now writes to the Manchester district committee and, under cover of a constitutional quibble, tries to prevent a united struggle against sackings.

Here is one more instance of what Behan warned against at the rank-and-file Conference—the official trade union machinery being used to block an effective defence of