Trades Councils given no lead

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The annual conference of Trades Councils ended at Harrogate on Sunday without giving any clear lead to the labour movement on fighting the forthcoming Tory attacks on the closed shop, picketing, union democracy and benefits to strikers' families.

Emergency motion no. 1, whilst registering "total opposition" to the Tory government's intention to shift the balance of power "further" towards the employers, simply called on the General Council of the TUC to:

"refuse to co-operate in any way with these proposals and to mount a campaign to ensure they never reach the statute book"

Conference chairman Terry Parry of the FBU however, defended recent talks between the TUC and Tory Employment Secretary James Prior with the claim "we only went there to tell them it was not on"

No discussion Although the platform carried this motion without serious challenge-mainiy because hardly any discussion was allowed on it-they did not have all their own way.

Early in the conference a motion to make available a register of trades council secretaries' addresses was carried against the platform.

Later several sections of the report submitted by the Trades Council Joint Consultation Committee were remitted with strong opposition from the platform.

Proscribed

Most significantly, they were defeated on section. 15 of the TCJCC report which would have effectively proscribed Trades Council support to the Campaign Against Criminal UNION DUES 1o. Trespass Law.

Hounslow secretary Pete Rowlands successfully secured the reference back by a slim margin of 21 votes in the teeth of opposition from the platform.

Later the platform were defeated when they asked conference to remit a m lotion condemning the documer it "A Better Way"

Right wingers

The document, drawn up by right wingers such as Terry Dutty, Tom Jackson, Geoffrey Drain and Ken Thomas, was a set of Thatcherite proposals amounting to permanent wage control and so-called 'trade union reform' The platform argued that because the signatories were in a personal capacity the union leaders involved had the right to sign it.

A WSL member, however, pointed out that the "Better Way" was not simply a "maverick" document written by a group of right wingers but reflected the whole method of It stood midway in the direct line of continuity between the Labour Party/TUC Liaison Committee document and the Concordat.

That Concordat had been accepted by the General Council of the TUC without authority, and then used by Callaghan in electioneering broadcasts to boast that Labour was more able than the Tories to control the working class.

A clear break from such treachery was needed in favour of policies based exclusively on the independent interests of the working class, he asserted.

A motion on "technological change" , which pointed to the unemployment created by such developments as silicon chips, was carried.

• Seconding the mation, Jack Dromey made a spirited defence Ofsballl AT THE He said it was right to support import controls to protect the working class im imperialist Britain against unemployment in the same way that it was right to support those fighting for national liberation against imperialism!

He went on to defend the NEB "a step towards socialism"

Section 36 of the report dealt with facilities for the Alan Thornett, delegate from the Oxford Trades Council contrasted the strength of the report to the total inability of the TUC to implement it.

It had, he said, become "a monument to the division between theory and practice".

Whilst publishing the report on provision for the under-fives the TUC had acquiesced with wholesale cuts in nursery provision, education in general and the whole of the social services.

He said the struggle in Oxford to defend nursery provision had shown that only direct action was effective.

A further rebuff to the platform came soon after with the platform's failure to obtain the remission of a motion from the Oxfordshire County Association which called for an end to the present system of appointments to Regional Health Authorities and to "replace it with democratically elected representatives of the community and all those involved in the NHS' The motion was carried overwhelmingly.

• An Emergency Motion on the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital condemned the Islington Area Health Authority for its "current, back door attempt to close the EGA on the grounds of insufficient nursing cover".

It failed to mention the EGA occupation, which followed a WSL initiative in 1976 and which was decisive in defeating the first plans made to close the hospital.

Nor was mention made of the crucial question of strike action throughout the London health service and no opportunity was given to discuss the motion from the floor. membership.

However, the recent pay struggles have quickly given the membership a far greater sense of their identity as a section of the organised working class movement, as was shown by many of the decisions taken by its Annual Delegate Conference at Eastbourne last week.

Censure vote

There was strong censure of Generai Secretary Bili McCall and the National Executive Committee over their handling of the one-day pay strike on April 2.

The leadership's attempts to defuse the dispute by unilateral acceptance of an offer a day or so before the strike without full consultation of the NEC or the membership was the subject of harsh criticism and a motion from the floor of 'No confidence' in McCall.

Scabs A third of the members of the NEC had actually scabbed on the 2 April strike and of those who stood for re election two did not succeed and others