British capitalism again trade union power must be crushed. They are going for the Yes, the NGA leadership feared being totally crushed. But the NGA will be crushed if there is not a fight. It will be a crushing defeat for one of the oldest and most powerful trade unions in And if the NGA can defeated, imagine what the ruling class has in store for the NUPE's, the NALGO's, the white collar public service unions.
Don't imagine their right wing policies are going to save them. The NGA voted straight down the line with the right wing in the Labour Party. It supported Hattersley and the right wing trade union slate for the NEC. It voted for the very people who have now stabbed it in the back.
And there is no way it is going to stop there. The next target in private industry is already spelt out by the government. demolishing the closed shop.
Trade union membership has already fallen by 2½ million in five years. If defeat follows defeat, as unemployment takes its toll, the trade unions are going to take a continual pounding. The clear aim of the British capitalist class is to reduce the trade union down to only five or six million members only half strength of ten years ago.
You must be joking nowhere to goes down to defeat.
What makes these It is bomb I type of lead is not coming. their Maybe the trade union leaders will be able to hide in their plush offices, but the working class has hide. Unless fightback begins the future is grim for working people. And it will be the Labour Party as well, together with the unions, which policies even more criminal is that the working class movement and its supporters are not demobilised. politics The demonstrations against the the largest mass demonstrations for 50 years. At Fords a majority of the plants might have voted for the last wage settlement but a clear majority of the workers voted for a strike. If a lead was coming out of the TUC and the unions the NGA could have ut tie problem is that this The right wing is vigorous and active. Murray, Graham, Tuffin and Duffy kept up a constant barrage on the television attacking ¡the NGA action. Moss Evans, Scargill and Ken Cameron were nowhere to be seen. There was no call from them for massive supI port for the NGA. They have not even demanded the removal of Len Murray - the first TUC general secretary in history to openly defy the decisions of TUC committees. man whose make previous general secretaries look like raving Bolsheviks.
It's true that the fightback must start on the shop floor. Rebuilding the shop stewards committee strength and building up combine committees is vital. But it will not in itself be enough. As long as the right wing leadership holds the top positions in the union movement it is going to be able to sabotage every action that comes from below. Trade union left leaders who are not rooted in forganisations built on the rank file themselves helpless against the type of sabotage the TUC general ¿ council is now capable of.
What is needed is a new and powerful Minority which will challenge the right wing at every level in the labour movement. the unions must be built and extended. Kinnock and Hattersley's TUC line has to be challenged in the Labour Party. Because the right wing is openly sabotaging the movement. It is not merely incapable of winning advance for working people. capable of defending the most basic rights of the labour movement itself.
This fightback is going to be a long and arduous struggle. There are going to be no quick and easy solutions. mous defeats are staring us in the face.
unions, going to find CLP.
Fords, rington picket.
Movement The The Broad Lefts in pickets.
cil and Warrington It is utterly intion sheet were But without it enorthe pickets.
Socialist Action 16 December 1983