COVER UP BALLOT RIGGING! Guilty official keep full time position

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came to light last November, when the ballot was scrutinised, recently became national news when, two shop stewards from the branch took the mistaken step of making a complaint to the police.

This action'-the result of months of frustration as union officials blocked their attempts to take the matter up within the union. itself-is wrong in principle, since it brings the forces of the capitalist state into the labour movement.

Detectives of Birmingham's commercial squad visited TGWU Regional Office in West Bromwich last Friday and questioned Regional Secretary Brian Mathers.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pickard said afterwards that the union's officials had been "cooperative" and inquiries were continuing.

Own choice

When the ballot was scrutinised last November it was found that Law had personally cast nearly all of the 4,500 votes allocated to his branch in favour of two candidates of his own choice. And this for committees which run an entire union of two million members.

When questioned he said that he had done this because he did not have enough time, and sufficient office staff, to send out the ballot papers to the members!

Yet TGWU branch secretaries receive up to 15% of contributions in commission, which in a branch such as the 5/35 could amount to hundreds of pounds a week.

Branch secretary's commission is the biggest single expenditure of the union, and is paid precisely in order that they carry out such duties as conducting ballots.

'Null and void'

It is not the job of full-time paid office staff to do a branch secretary's duties.

The action of the Regional Finance and General Purposes Committee-the same five people who conducted the hear'ings into the Cowley 9-when informed of the incident last ballot null and void and to ask Law to resign, as branch secretary. This Law promptly did.

They also took the opportunity to break up the 5/35 branch into three branches, an action which was more connected with the militant role the branch was playing at that time in the tanker drivers' pay dispute than the irregularities of the secretary.

Law, however, was allowed to continue in his key job as a Regional Official, negotiating for 14,000 Midlands Road Haulage drivers.

Yet in Cowley. unprecedented disciplinary action by this same Midlands Regional F&GP threatens to remove from office an entire factory leadership, only recently elected in a strictly scrutinised shop floor ballot.

Deputy. convenor Alan I hornett. is recommended for expulsion from the union and others, including convenor Bob Fryer and two other deputy convenors with disciplinary action including • banning from all offices for life for such 'crimes' as walking out of a meeting without permission of the chair, circulating details of branch finances (including the size of the secretary's commission) to branch members, opposing Jack Jones on the question of the social contract and "campaigning against officers of the union"

, Presumably it is considered more serious in the TGWU to campaign against officers, than to rig the ballots in' order corruptly to determine who the officers should be!

Red handed

Militants are witch-hunted and threatened with expulsion because they oppose the policies of the officials, but officials caught red handed committing one of the worst crimes in the trade union movement, ballot rigging, get a slight rap on the knuckles.

There is now clear evidence that Regional Officials intend to proceed against the Cowley 9.

The minutes of the last meeting of the Region 5 Committee held in April, which have only just been circulated, state that the reports compiled on the Cowley 9 by the two Regional inquiries held in February and March will be "considered" at the next meeting of the Regional Committee.

Although those hearings stand adjourned whilst the status of the "evidence" submitted in an individual capacity by the officers of the Oxford Trades Council is investigated, these minutes can only be interpreted as a deciaration that they intend to act against the 9 on July 12.

A 140 strong meeting of the Cowley Assembly Plant shop stewards, numbers of TGWU Branches, and nearly 150 militants within the TGWU have backed the demand that these trumped up charges be dropped at once.

Regional officials are ignoring these demands and proceeding with their victimsation.

In the Law case, too, the TGWU officials are flouting the views of the membership. A mass meeting of 500 drivers held in Birmingham last Sunday unanimously demanded an investigation by branch members and national officers into the conduct of the recent elections in Region 5. Despite this, no disciplinary charges are being laid against Law and no TGWU investigation undertaken.

Whilst accepting Law's guilt in the matter, Mathers argues that the ballot rigging was carried out only in Law's capacity as branch secretary.

No complaints, he says, have been received regarding his position as a negotiator in road haulage-therefore his Regional Officer's position is not in But again very different treatment is being meted out to Cowley 9 victims Alan Thornett and Frank Corti.

All the allegations against them concern their positions as officers of the 5/293 branch, yet Thornett is recommended for expulsion and Corti to lose his steward's card as well as his branch position!

Mathers has said that neither the union or its officers has anything to fear from any investigation since the ballot has been rerun and this has "set the matter right!

This is the same technique used when allegations of ballot into question all aspects of TGWU ballot procedures.

Great parcels of unmarked and. completely unidentified ballot papers are sent to branch secretaries and it is left to two or three branch officers to fill in return sheets and send them to Region.

It is this discredited and corrupt union bureaucracy that is now attempting to hound out its political opponents through the Cowley 9 victimisations.

The answer must come loud and clear.

*Drop the charges the Cowley 9.

*For an inquiry by branch members and national officers into Region 5 elections-with the results open to the membership.

*Keep the law out of the unions.

*For new ballot procedures within the TGWU with numbered and identifiable ballot papers.

ual menther to question aid.

question and scrutinise the ballot.

*For the election of all officials by democratic procedures. -