What is happening - inside the Trade Unions

writes:

TRAINING A NEW leadership inside the trade unions today means essentially a break from reformism. All the old left talk which amounts to nothing more than bluffing the employers just won't work anymore. The Labour government has organised the employers to fight the working class and as a result entirely new policies are needed in order to fight the employers and the Labour government.

The case of ENV Take the case of ENV, a north London factory owned by the American Cyrus-Eaton group of companies. In their private lite, Mr. and Mrs. Eaton are well-known sympathisers of the Soviet Union. In the field of industrial management, however, they are no different from any other group of ruthless employers. " During the period of boom, trade union organisation had grown stronger and stronger inside ENV. Wages and working conditions were improved. This was especially so after a successful strike which went on for several weeks early in the 1950s.

Then along came the present economic crisis and the need for a change. The American management directly intervened appoint its own boss on the spot. His first objective was to work out ways and means to weaken the trade union organisation in order to re-organise the factory.

In the middle of the summer of this year he placed a number of proposals before a works' conference attended amongst others These proposals amounted to a complete change so far as the functioning of shop stewards were concerned. Naturally there was great resentment inside ENV and it was clear that if the management. had proceeded to operate its proposals they may well be faced with immediate strike action.

In any case they could not proceed without the agreement of the Employers' Federation. and interests they have other factories and in Britain, they realised they would have to come to some kind of terms with the right-wing AEU leadership, so they quickly changed their plans. • Instead of placing their proposals through accepted procedure they announced that the factory would be closed and that the labour force would be gradually reduced until the final shut-down took place in the autumn of 1967.

Limitations of trade The shop stewards refused to take this course, obviously advised by the full-time union officials.

It was the beginning of the end, so far as their organisation in ENV was concerned. Outside the factory. they set up a Shop Stewards' Defence Committee which was just as powerless as the shop stewards in the factory.

Without a radical change of. policy and a turn out towards other engineering workers in the course of struggle, the mere setting up of committees and travelling from one trade union meeting to the next amounts to absolutely nothing.

As days went by, the men inside the factory became more apathetic. Gradually divisions began to develop inside their ranks. Then came the sackings and the thoughts of the men now without effective leadership turned in the direction of their redundancy payments and looking for other employment.

Resistance to the policy of the management was now effectively broken.

ENV management back to square one A few days ago this same management announced at a conference with union officials that they were prepared to keep the factory going with a reduced labour force of some 400 men but that they must get their way so far as the original proposals were concerned.

In other words, they are back to square one. More and more militant employees have been forced to find alternative employment or go to the Labour Exchange, while there will be nothing against the ENV employers building up a new labour force inside the factory organised to their own satisfaction.

The predominant outlook of reformist full-time trade union officials today is always based on the idea that half a loaf is better than none.

Many of them will justify the recent events at ENV AS SOME KIND OF VICTORY!

However, when these experiences are analysed in the context of the present economic crisis and political situation it is a serious set back.

It is not the purpose of this article to blame this or that in• The ENV strike • The Stalinists' the struggle against the Prices and Incomes Bill in 1966 Communist Party did nothing until March 1, when it was too late.

The YS and the SLI on the other hand went into action in October 1965 and prepared the magnificent lobby of parliament in January 26, 1966.

When the CP realised the YS was gaining support amongst adult workers they organised their own lobby under conditions where they could split the militants.

Then when the seamen's strike broke out and the YS again organised another successful lobby on May 25 the CP boycotted it for a more ineffective lobby on June 22.

Again when the YS organised a mass demonstration on October 2, in Brighton, prior to the LP conference, the CP boycotted it and went ahead with their industrial conference on December Naturally there were no decisions taken at this conference. From the beginning it was nothing more than letting of of steam.

Party members who spoke there declared their support for Wilson's government and would not under any circumstances tolerate criticism of the left MPs.

• All trade unionists and shop stewards should now be clear that the CP is nothing more than a left cover for the Labour Party. They want to modernise British capitalism and make it work.

Gollan and , company have broken completely from any vestige of Marxist politics. Nothing but treachery and betrayal can come from their policies.

SLL trade union The delegates who were members of the SLL at the conference proposed actions calling upon the left Labour MPs to fight Wilson on the basis of socialist policies.

It is not a question of bringing the Wilson government down, with its majority of 96 members of parliament. The Labour Party depends upon the trade unions for its main source of income.

The SLL calls upon all those left MPs to fight inside the parliamentary Labour Party in order to remove Wilson with the other right wingers from the leadership, and replace them with MPs who will fight for socialist policies.

We are calling upon the labour and trade union movement to make those leaders who say they are in opposition to the right wing: Fight the right wing.

Far from this being a policy leading to the destruction of the Labour Party it will lead to a growing interest in what is happening inside that organisation.

Political leadership in industrial struggles must be orientated towards the fight inside the Labour Party. The working class has now to be guided through the experience of Labour in power.

The struggle against unemployment, against wage freezing and the Prices and Incomes Act has to be fought out by a combination of independent class struggle action in some cases, combined with the fight to expose the right wing and fake-left leaders of the Labour Party and trade unions.

Only the Socialist Labour League has the policy and the organisation which can effectively do this today.