ENGINEERS RAP E C 'LEADERSHIP LACKING'

Before returning to work on the recommendation of the Amalgamated Engineering Union executive, the Handley Page strikers, by about 1,000 votes to 3, carried a resolution which declared:

'The AEU executive council has signally failed to give the leadership for which it was elected, and in doing so has in our view stiffened the resolve of the employers to resist our just demands.'

Victimized convener Ken Knight was not among the workers who went back. This week employers, trade union officials and representatives from the shop stewards' committee met to start discussions on his dismissal.

Tom Chapman, AEU divisional organizer who put over the executive recommendation (carried by a four to one majority) has declared that he agrees with the executive that the matter should go through the York memorandum procedure.

This ties the AEU down to being able to call a strike only if 'failure to agree' is recorded at national level.

SUITS THE EMPLOYERS

Normally it is at least three months before disputes of this kind become the subject of a national conference. Such long delay suits the employers.

Here is how the AEU manoeuvred the men back to work.

First it recorded that it did not 'disapprove of the conduct of the workpeople'. Then it said that 'the question of payment of dispute benefit will be considered at some subsequent date'.

This means: 'Get back to work now and you may get strike pay. Stay out and you get nothing.'

Bill Brown, strike committee Press officer during the dispute, told me:

'Once Whitehead, chairman of the employers' federation, knew of the executive's recommendation his whole attitude and resistance stiffened.'

WILL ENCOURAGE OTHERS

Handley Page, like the dispute at Universal Patterns, Fords, Standards, Nortons and many others, shows that the AEU leaders are incapable of defending their members from the employers' attacks.

Militants fear that Knight's sacking will encourage other employers to open an attack against stewards.

There is a feeling that a conference of all shop stewards in the union's London (North) district is urgently needed.

This could start a campaign in all the factories by means of mass meetings, leaflets and broadsheets aimed at preparing the workers for industrial action to secure Knight's reinstatement if the procedural method fails.

Another talking-point among militants is that a fight against Carron, Hallett and Boyd is not simply a question of pointing out that they sell workers out, and calling on members not to vote for them when they come up for re-election.

True enough. Left-wing candidates have to be supported against the present Right-wing leaders, and that certainly applied to the presidential election.

SHRUGGING OF SHOULDERS

But by itself that is not enough. There is a tendency in some quarters to shrug shoulders at recent industrial defeats and consider them merely as good electoral propaganda.

The same leaders who caused the defeat can turn round and say: 'Strikes are useless. They lead only to defeat. The way forward is by negotiation, and that requires moderate and responsible leaders.'

Preparing for future battles means putting forward cast-iron arguments against this kind of talk.