Buried Alive!

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The Grunwick strikers are not yet dead-but they have been buried alive under a smokescreen of left rhetoric.

An assorted array of Stalinists and Labour 'lefts' headed by Jack Dromey did everything within their power to bury the strike at a funecat conference on Sunday.

The end of the 17 month strike for union recognition now looks a formality; unless the strike committee can make an unlikely and last minute break from those who boasted they did everything in their power to win but were the source of its defeat.

Pickets

A defeat would represent a savage blow against the thousands of workers who turned out for dawn mass pickets, suffered police brutality, risked victimisation by management and by union officials by taking supporting action and donated thousands of pounds to sustain the strikers to victory.

It will raise an immediate question in the minds of workers like those at Garners Steak Houses who are fighting even now for union recognition: if Grunwick workers were defeated, won't the TUC do the same to us?

The Grunwick strikers themselves, however, confused and demoralised, appear to see no alternative to swallowing the poison served up for them, and virtually appealed to Roy Grantham to put them out of their misery by calling the strike The cycle of anti-governoff.

It was little wonder that could see no way forward.

The solid array of fake lefts and CP members offered not one single way forward for the dispute.

They delivered the knock-out punch to complete a carefully preparee: campaign to weaken the strika cor Grantham The Workers Socialist League was recognised as the only major obstacle to the final betrayal.

Even before the conference began Dromey was pacing the plush carpeting of the Wembley conference centre, complaining to anyone who would listen that he was being attacked by the WSL.

It was clear that he feared that opposition could emerge in the 250 delegate conference once a PHOTO: Laurence Sparbam, IFL and principled challenge Is chairman, Jack Dunn, NUM Stalinist from Kent, made it clear from the start that motions calling for the resumption of mass picketing or renewed efforts to secure blacking would not be taken.

There were to be no votes on whether the patient was alive or dead. Dunn was already preparing to throw the first sod on the coffin.

Kamlesh Ghandi, once one of the clearest and most determined of the strike committee, had been convinced the strike was already defeated-a line Dromey and his henchmen had been drip feeding into the committee for weeks.

He repeated many of Dromey's positions. The court of nquiry-which offered Ward a respectable path to victory had "loopholes" , he said.

APEX had to be thanked for the 'good things they had done. ACAS was hopeless and should be scrapped-but the MPs' private bills to dress it up in new clothes were to be welcomed!

All these positions had already been presented in a pamphlet, Grunwick-Bravery and Betrayal, written by Tom Durkin, president * 23x20 Such battles aré never lost. Our history is full of victories and deteats. Grunwick may be a defeat but it will be a glorious one nevertheless...

But frustration at what was happening could be sensed in an angry contribution from Archie Sinclair, a Cricklewood postman.

He followed the Dromey line but refused to pretend that Ward and NAFF could be ridiculed out of existence.

"The only people who have gained something out of this is George Ward and NAFF and they have gained it with the full support of the trade union leadership"

Durkin himself, arms waving in the air, proclaimed that it was not a disaster or a defeat but an "imperishable page in our trade union and working class history". The villains were "right wing thinking and politics in our trade union and labour movement"

Of course the right wing played a treacherous role. But the question is how they were allowed to carry that through and whether they were seriously fought by those claiming to lead the strike?

An IMG member who opposed.

ship-not for their political sabotage but for not setting up enough support committees!

He did, however, ask how Grantham and his cronies regained control of the dispute after last year's mass picketing.

Alan Thornett (TGWU 5/293) centred his contribution on the means necessary to expose and fight the right wing and fake 'left' The strike could be won today, in exactly the same way as on its first day, if the plant could be shut down by blacking action.

This could never be achieved by generalised calls, but by specific demands:

"The question is whether you make generalised calls or whether you actually tread on the toes of the bureaucrats who stand against winning the strike"

Thornett also criticised the strike committee's decision last year to call for the implementation of the Scarman report.

The impact of what Thornett was saying was considerable. A large number in the hall were calling for him to be allowed more time to speak.

Durkin But not only was his contribution brought to a halt, but a succession of carefully selected speakers was then brought to the platform to attack all those who had dared to criticise Brent Trades Council.

Dromey himself attacked the WSL as "a group that lump me and Roy Grantham together"

This is not true. The WSL and Socialist Press have never said that Dromey and Grantham are the same-just that they work as a team.

Grantham and his TUC allies are the assassins of the Grunwick strike, Dromey, Durkin and Co are the undertakers. a Doubtler, Dromey will, promiser, walk out of am with His held high. The striker meanwhile, will be jobless.

But Grunwick can still be won. It can be won with a new turn towards blacking, by applying the pressure of the mass pickets.

It can be won by a new and sharp turn back into fighting the trade union bureaucracy.

But first the domination of Dromey, Durkin and the other fakers over the strike committee must be broken and laid to rest in the graves prepared for the Grunwick strikers.

Set the date-resume mass pickets.

Challenge the courts-Black supplies and services.

Defy APEX and TUC threats, organise financial support.

*As we go to press, we have received a letter from the Grunwick strike committee questioning the line Socialist Press has pursued on the leadership Jack Dromey has given to the strike committee throughout the strike. We will be printing this in our next edition with editorial comment.

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the binterm mi mie thi the Brent Tredes Council leader