Bakers leaders rail road sell out
Socialist Press1978 1978-12-20Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 12
Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 Printed by Anvil Printers Ltd. (TU) London. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office Five weeks after they were called out with virtually no notice by their leaders, bakery workers last week found the carpet pulled from under them.
After a succession of almost unparallelled "left' speeches, and apparently determined action from their officials who led a correct move to expel scabs from the union, the action was brought to an abrupt halt with a sell-out settlement only 3% higher than that offered before the strike.
No recommendation The decision of the union's National Executive to put the offer forward in a ballot with no recommendation effectively put the whole affair into the hands of the Tory press, which waged a conscious campaign of distortion.
Maddox Every capitalist paper set out to convey the impression that the vote was going heavily in favour of a return to work-and at least one branch clearly based their decision on their belief that the strike was all but over.
Yet this was not the case at all. 36 branches voted to eject the deal and 28 to abstain, with only 40 voting to accept the deal, which includes a commitment to work with scabs, cut manning levels and readmit expelled strikebreakers to the union.
The method of voting on the basis of branches not membership was itself a travesty of democracy with large bakeries effectively getting only the same voice as small bakeries.
The strike is now over. But bakers will have to live with this betrayal for a long time to come.
Left talk from General Secretary Maddox is no substitute for a principled leadership that is prepared to go onto the offensive against TUC sabotage of the struggle, and develop the independent strength of the rank and file in the struggle for jobs and living stanards.
We would like to thank Ann Ward and Carol Turner of Rye Express without whose cooperation this edition would not have been possible.