ON ternmakers and Allied Craftsmen.
This committee, which also included former Labour foreign secretary Lord Stewart, and former Labour leader of the House of Lords, Lord Deen originally SCL up through Joe Godson, the former labour attaché at the US embassy in London.
Another key link between the SDP and the right wing in the unions has been through the various organisations campaigning for proportional representation for coalition government. The SDP campaign for fair votes' was launched after the June 1983 election. It was chaired by Roy Jenkins and had the support of Frank Chapple. In October 1983 Gavin Laird, general secretary of the AUEW, announced that he was accepting the post of vice-chair of the campaign.
Earlier, in April 1982, the AUEW had considered altering its rules so that it could give financial backing to non-Labour Party MPs.
In addition to these open links between the SDP and the right wing inside the unions there is also no doubt that Owen and his advisors have been tailoring meir trade union poncies In nne with their strategic goals of politically splitting the labour movement.
The SDP has sought, even more systematically than the Tories, to break the links between the Labour Party and une unions. At the time of the passing of the 1984 Trade Union Act through parliament the SDP sought to persuade the Tories to adopt the principle of 'contracting in' tor payment political levy. When the Act became law, and the voting on the political funds started, the SDP attempted to launch a systematic campaign for a "no' vote.
This policy of open attacks on the unions the SDP also called earlier than the Tories for the use of the law against the miners was developed right from the launching, in February 1982, of the SDP 'three point programme' calling for compulsory secret postal ballots for all internal union eleccompulsory strike ballots, and opposition to the politica levy.
In addition to the legal stick however, the SDP also attempted to produce carrots for specific unions it sought links with. Its entire trade union package, of course, was based on the EETPU and AUEW pracuce or une right wing. The SDP's December 1982 white paper also contained one signiticant difference compared to the September 1982 document. This was that it allowed unions to continue to appoint their general secretaries. John Torode of the Guardian explained this shift as being due to the fact that 'the SDP has set its sights on NALGO and NALGO is wedded to the appointments system' But whatever the individual moves it has been the relation with the EETPU that has been the core of the SDP's policy through John Grant. Going beyond the a link directly obvious virtual identity on trade union law, the EETPU's leadership was the one union that was prepared to say openly exactly what the SDP wanted to hear on politics. The key here was a June 1983 centre page article by Frank Chapple in The Times which spelt out how the EETPU leadership proposed to proceed.
Chapple argued that 'the introducof the tion of proportional representation would probably government could never be elected' He stated: 'I am convinced that it will not De before some rank-and-file members start suggesting that instead of giving our money.
Labour Party, we should donate it to the cause of proportional representation.
Chapple concluded wings of the movement will have to be more independent of each other' and that 'If we had not been so completely tied to the party's coat tails, we could have urged our members to vote SDP or Liberal if they had a better chance of winning. Over and over again our loyalty to Labour let the Tories in on 9 June (1983)?
The Alliance had received backing from the Labour right wing in the June 1983 election itself. ed for a vote for either the Alliance or Labour. The New Statesmen called for votes for the SDP or Liberals in certain constituencies. More significantly Roy Grantham, general secretary of APEX, called for a vote for a series of Liberal candidates against Labour. But it was Frank Chapple - who had naturally called for a vote for John Grant in his who was prepared to spell out all the consequences. leadership, both in the trade union and field, has been pursuing a course which is entirely consistent with Chapple's publicly expressed views ever since.
It is absolutely vital that the labour movement understands clearly what is the project both of the EETPU leadership and of the SDP. Eric Hammond is not just aining to totally transform those parts of it which get in his way Together with the SDP, the EETPU David Owen leadership is pursuing trade union change the entire nature of the British labour movement.
With big business financing of the SDP, the EETPU bosses of British industry such as Shah organised and Murdoch, this is a political assault which has not been seen this century.
Any underestimation of it whatever would be fatal for Labour.
leadership should recognise the EETPU and SDP for what they are: daggers pointed at the heart of the British movement. systematic campaign against both these enemies, and their links, there can be no way forward either for Labour or socialist for the trade union movement.
PU and the Alliance must stop.
that 'both The Guardian callThe EETPU and smash stake.
nas peen uneer 1982.
the 1980s. an integrate. path to , with direct collaboration between most ruthless updated of a type movement Both the TUC and Labour Party Without They The pussy footing on both the EETpicket lines there, selves with understand Cudham Hall, Wing workers.
Southampton recruited guard.
unions legally FLEET Street electricians voted at their branch meeting last week that Eric Hammond and the rest of the EETPU executive should resign as a result of their activites over New International's Wapping site. JOHNNY AITKIN is a member of the branch and was the broad left's candidate in the general secretary elections which brought Hammond to power as Frank Chapple's replacement. He told CAROL TURNER what's at RUPERT Murdoch's Wapping plant Then it wasn't clear what the intentions of the proprietor were although there was talk of bringing out a new newspaper from Wapping.
New technology was already evident in the regions at the beginning of Only the Fleet Street unions and some of the Manchester and Glasgow print workers were holding out against its introduction. As early as 1982 physical moves, like building the new Wapping plant, were seen as a means to shed the old prac tices of the print industry and get rid of some of the print workers.
During the construction of Wapping negotiations with the unions had reached agreement in quite a number of chapels. But Murdoch broke them off, claiming they had broken down. At the same time, the systems installed at the new plant were already being At the beginning of 1985 no necoratons wir une unions were de ing on. By then, SDP member John Grant, who is also the EETPU communications officer, had been instrumental in setting up a meeting between Murdoch and the electricians The end result was that the Southampton electricians started to recruit people to work at Wapping.
weren't necessarily recruiting EETPU members, but those inter viewed for a Wapping job were asked if they were prepared to join the EETPU and if they were prepared to cross For the last six months, this group of recruits has been working at the Wapping plant, going there in enclos ed coaches from Southampton. No one knows what they were doing perhaps familiarising them the new equipment. they were trained an EETPU training centre which is also used by manage- WOR ment. I believe that EETPU was actually doing the training of the Wapp- Mass hundred twenty people work at the Wapping plant. But there there in total. Most of the others have been recruited from London. For example, the deputy electrical manager of The Times is working there, and s ex-members of the NGA SOGAT. News International have electricians haven previously worked at Fleet Street and permanently taken on some of the contract labour. These people have been recruited through their contract with EETPU officials of the London area — in other words, Chapple's old Negotiations between Murdoch and the unions began again in the autumn of last year. By this year they had broken down with the other four involved - over manage ment's "right to manage' (which they Wal don't have in Fleet Street where the unions are involved in hiring and fir ing), the pre-entry closed shop, no-strike clauses, and the demand for a binding contract. But En E EETPU has remained in negotiation with Murdoch. Up till recently those negotiations have been conducted by Express electricians stand to lose 90 jobs because of the Murdoch deal the London press branch of the electricians union. Now they have beer taken over by full-timer Tom Rice Many EETPU members are beginning to get cold feet about what their leadership doing, cluding even some local officials There has been against Hammond's stance on Wapp ing from up and down the country.
Other groups of electricians are beginning to see that such deals aren't in their interests. For example, home, Daily Express electricians have just been told that 90 of their job. have to go. That's over half the elec trician workforce on that newspaper — and Wapping has been used as the argument for it.
For 12 months or more some of us have argued that Murdoch shouldn't be allowed to bring his plant onstream without first getting an agreement with the unions. Once the plant is operational, winning any dispute becomes that much harder. But if the EETPU withdrew from negotiations then this dispute could definitely be What is needed at Wapping is action, -incluaing general mobilisation of the whole trade union movement called through the TUC The TUC can't afford to back away from this dispute because it has wide repercussions for the whole move ment - ones that could bring about the eventual destruction of the trade union movement.
The isolation of the EETPU within the trade union movement is complete on this issue. They have implemented a strategy of organising with the employer to gain a single union no-strike agreement which has a legal binding clause. As a consequence hundreds EETPU members' jobs could go By its actions recruiting scal labour, training them, and colluding with management to place them in work - the EETPU has isolated itsel within the TUC. It would not be unreasonable for the TUC to act in a Etc prevent that, because threatens the whole fabric of the trade union movement It is in the best interests of the movement that every trade unionis every Labour Party member should do their upmost to support the print workers strike and stop Rupert Murdoch in his tracks.
Socialist Action 7 February 1986 struggle tion OI The apartheid.
National Forum democratic of trade