Right wing plans upset as Mathers upholds unior

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if management continued to revealed that they had an show how many workers support Buckle and blocked agreement signed by Buckle choose to remain in the the transfer of their which promised to fully witchhunters' branch-the subscriptions on the indemnify the company 5/837. setback.

For the right wing such a branch was envisaged as a means of hopefully isolating the militants in the factory and as a base from which to launch renewed attacks on them.

Now, following strong representation from TGWU branches in the Assembly Plant and the shop stewards' movement, Midlands Regional Secretary Brian Mathers has ruled that clause 20A of the TGWU rule book-giving members the right to transfer from one branch to anothermust apply of Behind this seemingly innocuous and unnecessary ruling lies a series of events connected completely with the witch-hunting moves against the Cowley 9.

The right wing knew full well that before moving to expel and ban leading militant stewards through the union's discipline procedure it was necessary first to destroy the main TGWU branch in the Assembly Plant-the 5/293.

Alan Thornett-who was to be recommended for expulsion from the unionhad been elected chairman of this branch as long ago as December 1975.

The right wing plans can be traced back to the autumn of 1276, when the then right wing convenor öf the Assembly Plant, Reg Parsons, and District Secretary David Buckle arranged the introduction of the "check-off" system for the payment of union subscriptions.

Programmed

The new system meant that pay roll deductions were programmed into the company computer.

Nearly a year later, in August 1977, a Regional "inquiry" into four victimised shop stewards on the plant authorised the creation of a new TGWU branch, designed to destroy the 5/293 Branch.

This was the second time within the space of three years that such bureaucratic moves against branch organisation within the plant had taken place.

Huge problems

But this time the right wing encountered huge problems from the start.

A mass meeting called to endorse the move broke up in disorder when Parsons refused to allow a vote once it was clear that it would go against the platform. Despite this setback Buckle and Parsons went ahead to set up the new branch-with huge backing from Leyland management.

30 hand picked right wing shop stewards-supporters of the new branchwere released from their jobs on full pay for three months to personally visit every TGWU member on the plant and attempt to browbeat them into joining the new branch-the 5/837.

But even this massively expensive exercise failed miserably. It did not even achieve the minimum objective of the right wing-to make the 5/837 the majority branch on the plant.

Used to transfer Only 1,900 of the 4,700 TGWU members in the factory joined. The rest refused to transfer out of the left-wing led 5/293 branch.

Buckle then made a further desperate move, which made the importance of the check-off system clear.

He instructed management not to switch union subs payments on the computer from one branch to another without personal authorisation from himself.

He hoped that this, together with the pressure exerted on new members by Parsons, would guarantee the survival of the new right wing creation.

False pretences

Effectively it meant that any member could transfer from the 5/293 to the 5/837-but that all applications to reverse the process were refused.

Within weeks branch being set up a total of 300 members made written application to transfer back into the 5/293 branch, claiming either that they had been switched over without their knowledge or on false pretences.

All of these applications were refused!

As the situation simmered, some members recently reached the point of threatening strike action:

The refusal of Soviet authorities to allow Jews to leave and go to Israel has provided the capitalist press with one if its riches sources of anti-Soviet propaganda.

The 'human rights' campaign of such great humanists as Jimmy Carter and David Owenwho praise or condemn bloodshed depending on which way it is flowing-has often quoted the Case of Soviet Jews as an example of the 'moral inferiority of the Soviet Union.

Poor second

But the press, Carter and Owen have studiously looked the other way this week as the Zionist state of israel made it crystal clear that for them the 'human rights' of Soviet Jews comes a poor second to the strengthening of their state.

Israel is planning to stop Jews in the Soviet Union from using Israeli entry permits as a method of leaving the Soviet Union when they have no intention of ever going to Israel.

A staggering 67% of those who leave the Soviet Union with Israeli entry permits go to America or elsewhere and according to Arye Dulzin, Jewish Agency chairman-the Mathers computer.

Management then numbers who do not in fact to Israel is growing.

This report-unrecorded by a majority of the capitalist press in Britain-was published in nine paragraphs on Page 5 of the Daily Telegraph and was ranked on that page of far smaller importance than an article on the economic problems of Siberia.

Its cynical attitude to the Jews seeking to leave the Soviet Union would have been frønt page news and merited pompous editorials had the country in question been a workers' state rather than Israel.

The Telegraph reports that Israel is considering two moves against Soviet Jews refered to as 'drop outs' "The first would be to grant Israeli citizenship to all Russian Jews as soon as they arrive in Vienna, their first disembarcation point outside the Soviet Union.

This would deprive them of the status of 'stateless persons' and of the privilege of obtaining almost immediately entry permits to the United States granted to such persons...

The second step is even more drastic. Relatives of 'drop outs' would be denied entry permits week to pull back from such an untenable position and uphold the union's rule book now means that the built-in advantage given ly Buckle to the 5/837 branch he created at such labour and company expense is now gone.

Every TGWU member in the Assembly Plant now has the right to choose which branch he or she will be in.

The coming months will by Israel thus achieving precisely what Israel and its 'human rights' supporters are supposed to be campaigning against-the enforced residence in the Soviet Union of relatives of those who have left.

Blandiy the Telegraph reports: "This step might be considered 'somewhat cruel' Israeli sources said, because it would prevent many Jews from leaving Russia in the first place.

"But it has been shown that most of the relatives of 'drop outs' themselves become 'drop outs'."

"Needed immigrants"

Israeli authorities said the country was losing "thousands of needed immigrants"

Needed for what? Well for one thing, to ensure that the Palestinians are never permitted to return to their own land, that Zionist expansion can continue, and that a regime built on racism • and supported by imperialism can trample the very lives-let alone the 'human rights'-of the Palestinians.

But then the Palestinianslike the Jews who refuse to go to Israe!-lose their human rights' at the same moment as they decline to serve the interests of imperialism and