Joint committee set up to investigate' BL stewards

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The continued refusal of TGWU officials at Regional or But this is not the first time that 'Socialist Press', almost national level to call an inquiry into admitted ballot-rigging alone among the papers of the left, has campaigned against by Regional officer Alan Law (see last week's 'Socialist ballot abuses within the TGWU. On February 11, 1976 we Press'), has once again highlighted the complete contempt carried the following account of a ballot held in Leyland's for democracy shown by the TGWU's army of well-heeled, TGWU Region 5 Secretary Brian Mathers FAR reaching step has been taken at the British Leyland Longbridge complex which allows management and trade union bureaucrats to intensify their attack on militant shop stewards.

A full meeting of shop stewards at the plant voted almost unanimously to support a joint union/management inquiry into the activities of two stewards from whom management withdrew recognition last week.

Their decision to set up such an inquiry goes far beyond even the technique used by TGWU bureaucrats in Cowley where victimisations have been carried out by internal union inquiries.

Even now, nine Cowley stewards are under threat of expulsion and loss of office through such an inquiry.

Now management are to have a direct say in the running and in the outcome of such "inquiries" , which have never been more than kangaroo courts.

This means extending the principle of the collaborationist 'participation' committees with Leyland to take in the new role of victimising militant shop stewards.

Such a decision sets the appointed officials.

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from the manoeuvres of the Region 5 bureaucracy of the Transport and General Workers Union to block an enquiry into the December ballot for regional and national positions.

This is that the non elected full time union bureaucracy of theT&GWU treats the democratic rights of members within the T&GWU with complete contempt.

it emerges, for instance, that within the T&GWU there is not a single rule which provides for disciplinary action of any kind to be taken against a branch, district or regional officer who violates the rules of elections or rigs a union ballot.

The sole action within union rules which could flow even from conclusive proof of corruption and ballot rigging is that the particular branch result be declared invalid! scene for a new round of attacks on those shop stewards who fight to defend the independent interests of their members.

The Longbridge stewards meeting was called when management withdrew recognition from two shop stewards early last week.

The stewards representing the engine testers on the Mini assembly track in CAB 1 had been involved in a strike in defence of an agreement.

The testers returned to work and management with167 out of 3,500 possible votes. The 5/55 Branch cast none of its 1,500 votes (having decided not to participate in the ballot).

This meant that Addams' votes had to come either from the 6,500 members in the Cowley Body Plant or from Coventry, the other main area covered by the election.

Continuous pressure

All the available Coventry votes can be seen to have been cast for Coventry candidates in the election, while a major branch in that area, the 5/920, with 6,000 members, also did not vote at all.

In other words, to amass 6,134 votes, Addams would have needed upwards of 5,000 votes from the Cowley Body Plant. But it can be shown conclusively that only a few hundred workers in the Body Plant voted at all in the election!

And, despite continuous pressure from stewards, the leadership of the Body Plant (5/60) Branch will not reveal the voting figures from that factory ballot.

Discrepancy

The case is similar for the other two positions, in which Body Plant convenor Bill Roche was elected to GEC with 11,442 votes, and Assembly Plant convenor Reg Parsons polled 6,700 votes coming second in the election for National Committee.

There discrepancy each case of something like 5,000-5,500 votes between published results and possible votes cast.

And in each case the 5/60 Branch leadership refuse to answer questions or give figures.

And now the intervention of Region 5 bureaucracy has given them full protection from any further enquiry.

The mangouvre was simple.

The Regional Committee after receiving the Branch complaints opened a "preliminary investigation"

This "investigation" took the form of summoning the two scrutineers from the 5/60 Branch to Regional Office. None of those who had lodged complaints was interviewed or given any opportunity to present further evidence. drew recognition as shop stewards.

No strike action has taken place in their defence.

Works convenor and Communist Party member Derek Robinson pressed for the grievance procedure to be used, and argued against a dispute.

Stark warning

At the stewards meeting the TGWU full time officials told the stewards that it is only the union who can take away the credentials of Cowley Body Plant:

Bill Roche As a result of their "investigation" the Regional Committee decided that a "minor technical infringement" had taken place, declared the results null and void, and called for a re-run of the entire election.

Having declared the results null and void they cieared the way to destroying any remaining evidence of the Body Plant voting figures!

What was the "minor technical infringement*? It was destruction of the evidence! It turned out that the ballot papers needed for the enquiry had been destroyed after one month instead of the three months asked for in the Regional Committee circular.

Yet even this "minor infringement" means it would appear that the ballot papers were destroyed after the first complaint and demand for an enquiry was lodged by the 5/55 Branch!

For the bureaucracy the unanswered question of the December ballot are now a thing of the past.

They do not intend to start an investigation which could raise serious questions as to the role of the extreme right wing stewards. This is true. But there is no point in having credentials if the company don't recognise them and no action is organised to force recognition.

It is a stark warning to Longbridge workers when a body as dangerous as a joint management/union inquiry into stewards can be endorsed by over 400 stewards with no significant opposition at all.

It rams home the point that if the offensive against the shop stewards movement in Leyland by both management and trade union bureaucrats is to be halted an alternative leadership must be built within Longbridge which is prepared to fight both the full time union officials and the domination of the Communist Party exercised through Robinson. 5/60 Branch leadership and serve to further discredit them in the town.

But most workers in the Cowley Body Plant are in no doubt on the question. They know only a handful voted in the last election, and why the leadership refuse to declare the results.

If the bureaucracy can evade an enquiry and exonerate a branch leadership simply by declaring a result invalid and reballotting, is there any way forward?

This is a particularly sharp issue when we remember that none of the full-time T&GWU District and Regional Officers is elected, and none answerable to anyone other than the General Secretary Jack Jones who in practice carries the power of the union's elected General Executive (and who himself, once elected, "shall hold office during the pleasure of the union").

The biggest union in the country thus has a rule book which is wide open to the most flagrant breaches of democratic procedure by its officials.

In instances where ballots do take place, workers must press in every way for the election ot rank and file branch members as scrutineers, and for voting figures and procedures to be open for inspection at any time to members of the branch.

New rules providing for the automatic removal from all office of a scrutineer or branch officer who is party to a dishonest election must be brought forward along with demands that all full time officials of the union be subject to regular election and recall by the membership.

Jack Jones

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There is only one conc- lusion. that can be drawn