Cowley 9 -new bulletin

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The Cowley 9 Defence Campaign, fighting for the dropping of the disciplinary charges against nine TGWU militants in BL Cars Cowley Assembly Plant, this week issued its second Bulletin to supporters and sponsors.

Drawing attention to the acute danger of underestimating Regional officials' determination to proceed with the charges, the Bulletin points out that the TGWU Region 5 Committee is due to consider the Cowley 9 inquiry at its meeting on July 12.

"If the recommendations of expulsion from the union and banning from all office are carried out, the 9 Cowley stewards could find themselves victimised two days before the annual two weeks holiday shutdown"

The Bulletin gives an up-to-date picture of the attempts by AUEW member John Power and ASTMS member Keith Dancey to interfere in this. internal TGWU inquiry by using their positions as President and Secretary of Oxford Trades Council in order to raise complaints against some of the Cowley 9. It points out that:

"The 'evidence'-two secret letters written by the Trades Council Secretary-had never been seen by Trades Council delegates, let alone discussed!"

And the Bulletin also includes evidence of the connivance between TGWU District Secretary David Buckle and Leyland martagement, who prepared and submitted to Buckle an eighteen-page dossier on elected Deputy Convenor Alan Thornett-who, as one of the Cowley 9, is threatened with expulsion from the union.

Brief accounts of the Alan Law ballot-rigging affair and a report of the near-unanimous vote by all 170 TGWU Assembly Plant stewards to support the Cowley 9 highlight the contempt shown by Regiona Regional officials for the views and democratic rights of the membership.

And, calling a meeting of TGWU campaign supporters for Wednesday July 12 at 7.30pm in the Digbeth Institute, Birmingham, the Bulletin calls for an intensification of the campaign to force the dropping of the trumped up charges against the Cowley 9.

Documented evidence

.. but there i procedure whatever complaints or queries by branches or individuals in relation to ballots to be dealt with..

This is what has left the Region 5 Committee free to ignore complaints and demands for an enquiry from branches representing over 5,000 together with documented evidence which shows conclusively that anything over 5,000 votes in the publicly announced December ballot figures can not be accounted for.

Two of the major Oxford cars branches, the 5/293 (BL Assembly Plant) Branch, with 3,500 members, and the 5/55 Branch, with 1,500 members, lodged demands for an enquiry into the election in which the extreme right wing slate supported by the Oxford District Committee returned huge and completely unsubstantiated votes in the Regional ballot for General Executive Council, Regional Committee and National Committee positions.

Blatant

Most blatant of these results was the 6,134 votes claimed for Jack Addams, the unknown right winger the Oxford District put forward for Regional Committee as an automotive group candidate. Addams comes from the tiny MG factory at Abingdon, where he has less than 100 T&GWU members.

In the Cowley Assembly Plant 5/293 Branch he won only

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Thatcher-leading advocate of the values of the family JSSE A new glimpse at the cynical líne to be followed in the Labour leaders' election çampaign was given in a speech last weekend by Prime Minister Callaghan.

Attacking the Tories as "the most profligate party this country has ever seen" Callaghan launched into defence of spending cuts.

Then with calculated deception he swung into breast-beating glorification of the "benefits" the Lib-Lab government has supposedly heaped on to pensioners, housewives and disabled mothers:

"I believe we can justifiably claim: Yes, Labour cares. Labour does care"

Brushing aside the historic cut in workers living standards inflicted during the last four years by Labour leaders "caring" for capitalist profitability, and the mass unemployment which has brought misery to millions of workers and youth, Callaghan went on to boast of:

... Care and compassion for those in need, the unique bonds [!] of family lite, qualities that are nearly always found in the home: the quality of integrity, service before self, fair play"

For millions of working women, 'family life' is certainly РНОТО: Mark Rusher a "bond"-that by preventing the socialisation of domestic labour ties them hand and foot to the most vicious oppression and exploitation in the home.

And as the income to each home declines relative to the cost of living, and the social services are cut back, forcing the burden of health care and care for the elderly onto the backs of individual families, Callaghan's speech cynically gloats that Labour policy is to:

"strengthen the family as the place where our children learn to practice consideration for their fellow human beings".

"That is the sort of socialism I believe in, the sort of socialism that has its base in individual Further evidence continues to emerge to prove the massive plunder of the nationalised industries carried out by private suppliers.

Two weeks ago came the shamefaced announcement by the Post Office that it had been "overcharged" by £9 million on contracts for telephone cables over an 11 year period.

But perhaps more interesting was the fact that the four cable-making monopolies concerned-BICC, Pirelli General, Standard Telephones and Cables, and Telephone Cables-were moral values"'.

The sort of socialism that socialists believe in has its base in the liberation of working men and women from the oppression and exploitation inflicted on them by crisis-ridden capitalism.

But to do this the working class must first divert itself of reactionary reformist leaders like Callaghan and his coalitionist cabinet colleagues, and take steps to construct a revolutionary party based on a programme of demands that lead from today's struggle to the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, the smashing of the capitalist state and the dictatorship of the proletariat. the overcharging on iy after a Post Office comm ssioned investigation of their accounts.

Embargo

At first the Companies refused to allow the Post Office access to their books.

It took a Post Office embargo on external contracts for cables to force them to change their minds and allow investigation of contracts worth a colossal £450 million.

It turned out that not only did the cable-makers extract huge and (even by capitalist standards) excessive profits from the nation"The par ent company might be le vying hidden management charges or siphoning off profits through its prices on "supplies."

In other words, unless the workers movement secures acdess to the hidden accounts of these and other monopolies, the behind the scenes swindling, profiteering • and exploitation inherent in capitalism will continue even in the supposedly "nationalised" and state controlled industries.

Lining wallets

How many other private suppliers are lining their wallets through high-priced Post Office, Health Service or British Rail contracts?

How many more . are growing fat on "fair" profit levels, while workers in the nationalised industries, like other workers, face declining living standards under wage control, and the effects of public spending cuts?

Open the books

Is this kind of backstairs exploitation the reality behind the crisis of British Leyland or British Steel Corporation's alleged "losses" of £500 million? What share of this is creamed off by the banks?

The case for a fight by elected trade union committees to open the books of private and nationalised industry and show the need for nationalisation of the private sector, without compensation, under workers' management is inescapable.

Only in this way can steps be taken towards a planned socialist