ETU: Witch-hunt Steps up

THE Right-wing Executive Committee of the - Electrical Trades Union is now working furiously to extend its bureaucratic control over the entire union. A referendum of the membership is to be organized asking whether or not the Rules Revision Conference should take place.

This is presumably a further attempt to nullify the properly constituted conference which was held towards the end of 1961.

If a Rules Revision Conference does take place, the Right wing proposes that there should be one delegate from each branch in attendance. A large number of branches other than the usual 300 which send delegates to the policy conference have only a very small membership.

DEMOCRACY?

The Right wing suggestion means that these branches will be granted the same voting rights as a branch with hundreds and even thousands of members.

('If this proposal is carried out we shall find that 406 delegates will represent 57,000 union members and 299 will represent 193,000.' - comment by contracting electrician in the press.)

Thus union money is to be spent in the struggle against the union. A large sum will be expended on the referendum and if a delegate conference is called the cost will run into thousands of pounds.

Meanwhile, rank - and - file electricians are asking when the new Executive will get down to business in relation to their wages and working conditions. It seems to them that most of the time which their leaders fill in is spent either in giving interviews to the press, conferring with solicitors or working out ways and means to further hamstring the union.

The Executive have also decided to set up a Court of Enquiry to investigate Bob McLennan, Jack Frazer, James Humphrey, Frank Haxell and Jack Hendy who were implicated in the ballot-rigging trial. This is nothing more than a propaganda diversion behind which it is hoped to intensify the witch-hunt against rank-and-file militants.

Although only a few weeks in the leadership, the Right wing have only as yet provided us with a foretaste of what is to come. So far as they are concerned, the main drive is to bureaucratize the union in a way which would prevent the Left wing from ever regaining control.

In next week's Newslett 6 New Problems For Imperialism' first of two articles What price steel?

This is the season when the steel barons report to their shareholders. But they do not bring glad tidings this time, for profits have decreased compared with 1960 and most steelworks are working at less than 80 per cent of capacity.

Let us, however, examine some of the trading profit figures reached for 1961 as announced by the leading companies.

Steel Co. of Wales £23,253,000 Stewarts & Lloyds €19,067,000 United Steel Co. £17,275,000 John Summers £13,175,000 South Durham Steel £7,088,000 T. Firth & J. Brown £4,646,000 These figures are before providing for depreciation on plant and income tax, but they indicate that there are not likely to be any bankruptcies in the steel industry in the near future.

But a concerted attack has been launched by the steel 'industrialists' against the Iron and Steel Board with the object of achieving a price increase so that even with Soviet Science Hindered by Bureaucracy last week, a leading Russian scientist complained of political interference with Soviet scientific research. He is Professor Igor Tamm, who wọn a Nobel Prize in 1958 for his work in nuclear physics.

'It often happens, he writes, 'that when the faculty recommends a student for a research post, his talents and success in research work—his productive capacity, in fact— are subordinated to third place in relation to all kinds of other considerations.

"Often it is claimed that the social activity of the student is insufficient even if the reason for this is not any lack of political consciousness, but rather an absorption in scientific work' Of course, the novelty of Tamm's statement does not lie in the situation he refers to, but in the fact that he is now able to talk about it.

In the years before 1953, Soviet science was held up in many fields by such bureaucratic methods.

Contact with western scientists was hampered severely in the days of Stalin. Whole subjects were hardly studied in the USSR, because of the political line of the Party.

Horsham HORSHAM Constituency Labour Party, which adopted Ernie Roberts as their parliamentary candidate, is fighting back against the decision of the NEC not to endorse him, They have sent a circular to every constituency, and local Labour Party in the country, describing the NEC's decision as 'intolerable' Mr. Roberts was accepted initially by the NEC, but after a long enquiry by thi = Organidiminished production, be given a further fillip.

The Iron and Steel Board, set up in 1953, is a government controlled body whose main function is to regulate steel prices with particular reference to the known capacity of the industry.

Mr. B. Chetwynd Talbot, chairman of the South Durham Steel and Iron Company, censuring the attitude of the Iron and Steel Board's directors for an 'unrealistic appraisal' of price structure had the immediate effect of drawing a reply from the Board. This clearly showed that it was prepared to change its policy in deference to the steel barons.

It is also significant that Sir Robert Shone, the Board's executive director has been removed to take up an appointment on the government's new National Economic Development Councilpresumably in response to pressure from the steelowners.

Judging from the clamour of the steel bosses, one would think that no recent price increase had been authorised by the Board.

The dominance of Lysenko in the biological sciences was assured by the backing of the Central Committee, not by his experimental results. At one stage, relativity physics was suspect, as it was alleged to involve idealist philosophical concepts.

One reason why Soviet scientists were able to develop so fast in the field of rocketry was that Russian mathematicians had continued to investigate the subject known as cybernetics, despite official disapproval.

MATHEMATICS

Fortunately the bureaucrats could not understand the mathematical 'language' spoken by these men and did not see the connection between the symbols and their application.

The treatment of science in the days following the revolution was the exact antithesis of this. Trotsky, in particular, stressed that science, like art, could only develop unfettered.

At a time when resources were extremely scarce, specialists in many scientific fields were given assistance and encouragement to carry on their work, even when its ultimate application was not obvious.

The laboratory equipped for Pavlov is the best known example of this attitude, particularly since Pavlov was a monarchist and very hostile to the regime.

ights Back sation Sub-committee, under George Brown, in which Mr. Roberts was questioned about 400 meetings he had addressed in recent years, the endorsement was cancelled.

Labour Party members should press for the reversal of the NEC's decision at all levels of the party. This attack by the Gaitskellites is just the first in a long-term sortie to weed out all militants and Left-wingers from the Labour Party.

In fact as recently as last June a 1 per cent increase was granted. Now the Board states that in view of the possibility that low running rates may be associated with a long-term change from a phase of tight supplies to one of ample capacity, some adjustment in the assumed average running rates may be called for This must mean that the Board is preparing to upgrade prices soon. Steel investors can expect increased profits and an appreciation in the value of their shares.

But what of the consumer and the worker? By allowing the price of steel to be increased the trend towards economic stagnation will be encouraged. A whole range of finished products will become dearer.

So that on the one hand, the Tories attempt to peg wages, on the other they encourage price increases. This represents a direct threat to living standards.

Nationalisation of the steel industry is the only alternative to the classic situation of falling demand and overproduction.