to the enquiry Liverpool in the party because of their political The black section now into its second week committee regional COl issued a statement At the London basis of regional conference black campaign for the NEC section resolutions seat. Any support which I receive is on the basis of the statement issued by the black section youth com- amendments were defeat- ed. Support was also demittee.
nied to tne derence camThe opposition of the paigns our inner-cities, black section to all witchsupporters hunts in the Labour Part! condemned the 'riots'. has been made clear. refused enemies of the working work with the left to fight class are the Tories •allu Tre witch nunt. time energy Al Yorkshire VUI should spent VIl regional the smashing this resolution in favour of government, not indulging was ourselves in internal bat- defeated by four votes. tles. decisions will further weaken the LPYS.
That means building a strong Young Socialists united movement of our able defend class in socialist struggles. against the present witchmeans ourselves to actual strug cuts and a threat to the gles: wineuter it's the youth organiser's jobs will miners, workers, only be a unites chi sai Sports and unites with the struggle of the rate- youth in struggle. That capped councils such exactly supporting Lambeth and Liverpool. the defence campaigns and The campaign the self-organisation black people. local calls by one. allow TOI delegations.
Liverpool wing this
Eric Hammond The dispute at Wapping has brought the union busting activity of the EETPU leadership right to the centre of the labour movement. But what is still not widely appreciated is the directly political dimension of the offensive of Hammond and his supporters. The EETPU leadership, and David Owen's SDP, stand in the centre of a web of connections extending both to the right wing of the trade unions and to purely scab organisations such as the UDM. The aim of these organisations is to totally transform the political and trade union character of the British labour movement. It is an integrated strategy. JOHN ROSS investigates the Hammond-Owen connection and the background it provides to the battle at Wapping.
WHEN the EETPU signed its first union-busting deal in the printing industry — with Eddie Shah's projected paper Today - this agreement was directly set up between two members of the SDP Lord Harris of Greenwich, a director of Shah's group, established a meeting between the EETPU through John Grant, the EETPU's press officer. Both Harris and Grant are SDP members -having been appointed under the regime of his long time friend, and former EETU general secretary, Frank Chapple.
Grant was also selected by the EETPU to present its case on Wapping on BBC television on Sunday. Grant is the chair of the Association of Social Democratic Trade Unionists.
If it seems extraordinary that a major union should have as its press officer a member of the SDP, it is in reality only a part of a long term strategy towards the trade unions that the SDP has pursued. Key parts of the SDP leadership already had long term relations with right wing trade union executives before they split to form a new SDP leader Bill Rodgers was sponsored by the General and Municipal Workers Union when in the Labour He was for Labour right's chief organiser of votes al party comerence. Shirley was sponsored by APEX. herself consistently electea to women's section of the NEC through Ian Wrigglesworth, another founder, told the Sunday Telegraph when the party was founded that he expected, a degree of sympathy - and eventual financial support - from the Post Office Engineers Union, from Clive Jenkins), from the and from the AUEW?
key reason emphatic An openly was Len Murray.
Messenger John Lyons Shah Grant THOUS SDP. gerating, many years the Williams She was June SDP All these SOGAT jobs have gone to scabs at the Wapping plant ASTMS (much to the annoyance of National Union of Railwaymen, from APEX, While these short term hopes of the SDP were dashed there is no doubt that one of the key reasons - probably the - that David Owen was so that the SDP should not merge with the Liberals following the 1983 election was because of his aim to pick up trade union support and links.
capitalist, long established, party such as the Liberals the could not easily establish relations with the trade unions in the way that the SDP could - despite the fact that it revealed in September 1985 that David Steel had held discussions with The most spectacular success for Owen's policy of building links to the right wing of the unions, came this January when the SP gained its first member on the TUC general council -of the Engineers and Managers Association. Lyons, together with Hammond, had of course led the assault on the miners at the 1984 TUC This SDP offensive towards the unions was spearheaded by its trade union officer Tony Halmos - who was recruited to the post from the policy the staff of the TUC. Halmos claimed after Lyons joined the SDP, that other officials of similar standing in the were strong suporters of the While Halmos is probably exagana certainly nas cause lo, what is clear is that the SDP and their Liberal partners have a very conscious policy of seeking to split the TUC as well as certain individual unions within it. They are systematically working on that policy.
The most open manifestations of this came following the UDM from the NUM. The SDP jumped into the local government by-election compaigns in Mansfield and Ashfield in Notts with clear declarations of support for the new organisation.
The SDP had set out to create links with what became the UDM right from beginning Already in 1984, with strike only one month old, Bill Rodgers called for the unions to reconsider their relationship with the Labour Party claiming that: "American trade unions, now under the shrewd leadership of Lane Kirkland, have no constitutional relationship with the Democratic Party and choose where to place their support. The time has come to seriously examine a similar role for the trade unions here.' At the September 1984 SDP conference a floor collection was held for the National Working Miners Committee'. The SDP also organised a conference fringe meeting for the organisation - the 'committee being publicly praised at the conference by Williams and Rodgers.
The relation with the UDM also gave the SDP another connection with right wing Prendergast, co-leader with Roy Lynk of the UDM organisation chair of Mainstream - the right wing grouping in the unions whose founding chairperson was Terry Duffy and which took its name from the organisation of the same name established by chief Witen -nutter John Golding POEU/NCU.
Prendergast maintained his
tion in Mainstream despite the UDM's break from the NUM. The EETPU in January this year organised an energy conference' with the UDM.
The EETPU was also sought out for talks by another scab organisation, the Professional Association of Teachers. In August 1985 this announced that it was seeking talks with the EETPU over how no-strike deals like the union had signed with could be applied to teachers.
Jimmy Knapp of the NUR and Ray Buckton of ASLEF have also written to Norman Willis for reports that Hammond has met the scab Federation Railway Servants mond has denied this.
UDM the Alliance also directly set out to exploit the struggle in the TUC over postal ballots. Here, EETPU. right wing, played the central role in split pulling together an extreme right wing grouping in the TUC.
AUEW various other right wing unions - John Lloyd's Association, Association, the merchant shipping officers association NUMAST, and the First Division Association of the civil service all let it be known that they intended to apply for i strike. ballots. the At the end of July 1985, commen ting on the clash, David Steel openly called for a split of the TUC between: 'an open ready to talk to the Alliance and the government as well as Labour and an old fashioned, revolves around Labour politics.
to talk to either the TUC or a new union group. He announced he had proposed a meeting with the TUC to Norman Willis but would also be happy to meet scab With UDM. the AUEW, unions has been one of the Alliance's cutting edges. It is one that has got a response general secretary of the CPSA. unions. September last year Graham called for the union told talks with of ties was vice other than Labour future role that the Alliance might play in parliament.
welcomed publicly glesworth of the SP leadership. At it: the last posi- leaders stated that they would welcome talks with unions who democratic and modern' such as the EETPU, AUEW, and CPSA.
second round of the offensive of the SDP to get talks with trade unions. The party had launched its first campaign 'for such talks immediately after its foundation.
By September Williams could claim at the SDP conference that 15 trade unions, covering two million workers, had responded in one form or other to the proposals put forward by the SDP for trade union 'reform'. The unions were reported by the Financial Times AUEW CPSA, NAS/UWT, the Bakers Union, the United Road Transport Union, the one the Eddie Shah enquiries into Professional - although Hamaddition to the link with the once more, the AUEW . In addition to the EETPU themselves Managers the British Airline Pilots state minaca progressive group socialist group which tion, Steel stated the Alliance was ready Workers Union, EETPU, the The campaign to hold talks with the meet Alistair Graham, In because helped through These remarks were immediately by Ian Wrigyear several SDP AUEW, SLOSHISK& were 'more Eastwood This initiative in 1985 was in fact the 1983 Shirley to include the NALGO, NUT, Communication Managers Associa the Amalgamated Textile and the First Division Association of the civil service.
In September 1983 the SDP achiev ed its first major success in gaining a formal meeting with a union when the National Association of Schoolmasters - Union of Women Teachers agreed to Owen. The same month the NALGO executive voted by a narrow majority to meet the SDP leader.
In addition to these official ap proaches to union leaderships Owe maintain continued membership. 1716 his membership after the 1983 election, of the Labour Transatlantic Understanding. Other members of thi EETPU, Terry Duffy Bill Sirs of the ISTC, Kat of CPSA, and Gerr of the Association of Pat
-OWEN Socialist Action 7 February 1986
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AS THE black section candidate for the LPYS seat on Labour's national executive committee I would like to distance myself from the Merseyside
district party. I completely oppose this enquiry, which is simply a front for more expulsions of
has Serences.
Socialist Action 31 January 1986 Photo: JOHN CHAPMAN