Chile Solidarity woos bosses
Socialist Press1978 1978-08-09Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
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In spite of a spirited stepped up in the Sheffield defence of working class labour movement.
PHOTO: ARE Over the last few months we have seen the Chile 'Solidarity Campaign leadership tures to the Chilean Tories (the Christian Democrats), the Church and British business circles. • This was the logical outcome of the Popular Frontist policies passed at the Campatien co terene: darity Campaign conference Among the resolutions passed were calls to attend meetings of bank shareholders and to lobby local Rotary clubs in order to raise the 'human rights' issue in Chile.
Protests against this course have developed from the majority of the local Chile committees.
This reflected growing hostility among activists to the continuous bureaucratic domination of CSC by the national leadership.
This conflict came to a head at the Sheffield Trades Council meeting in May when a near unanimous report from the Chile subcommittee recommended disaffiliation from the national campaign.
In the stormy debate which followed, the popular frontist arguments of the right wing and fake lefts were defeated and the strong practical work of the sub-committee in the local labour movement vindicated.
The report was narrowly carried. This decision of the largest active Trades Council committee in the country to disaffiliate marked the first major defeat for the Trades Council leadership for years.
It presents a real threat to the bureaucratic stranglehold of the CSC since Stockport and other Trades Councils have already disaffiliated.
It was no surprise, therefore, to hear a false report given to nearby Rotherham Trades Council the following month congratulating Sheffield for remaining in the CSC!
A week later at the next meeting of Sheffield Trades Council, the EC won a reference back and succeeded in forcing through a motion to call a special Trades Council meeting in July (immediately prior to the holiday) with the aim of reversing the decision.
This meeting was attended by less than 60 people, many of whom were Stalinists with no record of attending Trades Council or anything else in the labour movement.
CHILE independence and the neec for socialist policies in Chile the outcome was a formal. ity. The fact that a meeting of 60 had overturned the decision of a full meeting of over 100 delegates was not lost on many delegates however, and the fight for working-class based solidarity work on Chile will be Recent Chile protest marc
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