DEFENDING OUR UNIONS is the theme of the conference organised by Rank & File which is taking place this weekend in Manchester.
It could not have come at a better time. The Budget shocked a lot of people. Even workers who voted Tory in the last election are more than a little angry blatant wage rises for the rich and price rises for the poor.
The mood for a fightback this winter is growing, and with it a realisation that basic union rights like picketing But if major battles are on the agenda, will the labour movement be ready for them? The retreat of the last five years should be enough to make us reflect a little.
In a recent article in Socialist Worker (26 May], Tony Cliff gave some answers as to why that retreat occurred. Below, RAY VARNES [NUPE ILEA Schoolkeepers] and JANET MAGUIRE [ASTMS branch. secretary], both delegates to the Rank & File conference, take up the It's not a matter of just making propaganda is never wasted — but a matter of showing how these policies can meet the real problems which we is not the only reason why the movement's sectionalism has been reinforced. If common unite tne form of socialist policies, Cliff is also correct to say Tale was abelo avertone inc sectional struggle under the Heath government was the common enemy, rallied around the 1972 and 1974 miners' strikes because they were seen as through Heath's and then Heath's government. But 'the alternative to the Tories meant the Labour Party.
that alternative to and Callaghan particular. The left in the Labour trade union leaderships, subordinated everything But it That loyalty to extended right through the Eventually the workers began to but this sections less dominated by Labourism teachers and dustmen Wilson in the '60s, firemen and the public sector under Callaghan. The fightback took longer to develop the Callaghan government because of the deeper economic crisis and tre problems which Wal prescule to workers: up unofficial bodies.
This does not mean that socialists never argue for unofficial organisations when the become an obstacle to organising the fightback.
Stewas commee But workers will unofficial organisation when they see the need to choice. They first turn to the official union, and rightly so the unions are there for. Only when they see through the arguments of the union officials and are committed to a fight and find the officials blocking it will they try to organise through other means.