FOLLOWING THE defeat suffered by future.
The recent defeat of the union when the malonty or tc memoer ship ignored its call for an indetinite against management's imDUSILIULI of OPO on the East London, District and Metropolitan lines. makes it essentiai io go back ti the drawing board once again The post 1982 discussion correctly identified the nub of the problem. All currents opinion were agreed that a large very dangerous gap had opened DeLWCET the activists in the union the rank and file. It was decided to campaign for an overall policy of op position to all job loss and establish network Snop stewards and a reguíar District Council bulletin to fight for that Pustulou The policy of No Job cos estaressed on ile ckly established District Council against the position of those who only wanted to fight compulsory redundancies. was DOILLCL ULI! that management does not call for compulsory redundancies nowadays. inseau they need job loss"
of unit costs' These only become compuisoly redundancies if the union fights for every job However the fight for a shop stewards system and a regular bulletin never go1 off the ground. A major opportunity to launch this work was missed during the miners' There the rail map out a way forward to prevent repetitions in the War alot excellent solidarity work done at the level of the District Council itself. A lot of money WY d. raised bilcll militants were centrai le their local miners support groups. nonele WILI tew exceptions no consis tent work was done at the workplace.
was ruled out that the 40 or so activists could have conjured up a shop ceware DCLWWEY IrON 15000 members even over of the HIOHILI miners epic struggle.
Patrick Sikorski NUR (Personal capacity)
Within this framework the leaders 1l1C rail unions also failed. While they and Slater of the National Union of Seamen did order ihe попmovement coal, massive opportunities go onto the oitensive ir support of the NUM were deliberateiv a ACU These were around the pay claims and the victimisation of the railworkers. But while these obstacles were always going to determine ine overal oltcome or lue solidarity battle on rail have been ELU C done on LT The eventual outcome of the miners' strike reinforced all the tendencies the District Council had identified previously. The corrosive effect of 4 years mass unempioyment of acreal strongest section of the British working widened the gap between the activists and the ranks.
The numbers workers who mistakenly believe that are salt and demand a ballot as an excuse struggle became larger. When the strike call came it was they and not the activists who led the middle ground Firstly the majority of sectional council representatives and some branch officials argued against the District over • period of severa months. Over the years the Sectional Council system has rotted the union from within. It must be discard shop stewards system is going to be buil on LT the activists will nave lo Callualeil now on for their branches to refuse to have anything to do with this system of colaboration with management.
Secondly major con sessions in the Cal Ualki were made to the leadership or ASLEF in order to maintain unity Federation for as long as possible. This was a wrong approach Its starting point was not the develop ment of unity from the ranks upwards coupled with demands for unity in struggle on the leaders of both the NUR ASLEF; but was an attempt to have unity between those who were go ing to fight — the Distric Counci NEC representative of the NUR and those who weren't — the ASLEF District Council their representative The probiem of the Sectional Councils and the Federation can overcome by getting down to the task identified three years ago of building shop stewards system on LT.
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unions on both British Rail and London Transport in 1982 the NU'R London Transport District Council attempted to assess the reasons for that defeat and