Broad Left's record

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dominant coalition of Militant, started in 1972 by SWP With 552 members suspen- Communist Party and supporters and others on the ded in Glasgow, union vice- Tribunites. left. Stalinist) and Terry Adams, a crack and give way when the stood candidates in CPSA There is a long history of factional struggles in the CPSA. The right wing had absolute control of the union in the fifties and sixties and the left only started to re-emerge in 1970.

The Broad Left started as an NEC caucus which was controlled by the Stalinists and Tribune supporters.

It functioned solely as an election machine. The first Broad Left conference, held in Manchester in March 1977, forced the left to cooperate in a more open and democratic way.

A national committee was elected, a newspaper Broadside was published and regional Broad Left groups were set up.

The Redder Tape group was It produced a paper and national elections though its main aim was to organise the rank and file in the branches.

Though attempts have been made to have an active campaigning Broad Left it has never been anything but an election machine.

The only major campaign the Broad Left has waged since its inception was the campaign in 1977 against the victimisation of a full time officer, Militant supporter Terry Adams.

The present Broad Left NEC's record over fighting the cuts in the past year, has been abysmal with the complete sellout of suspended members in DHSS Kenington and Nuneaton and DNS Glasgow.

No lead They have given no lead on the pay campaign and have recommended acceptance of a staged settlement.

The annual Broad Left conference has now become a mirror image of the union nothing is done about them for another year.

attend the conference solely to get on the Broad Left election list for the NEC and take little part in policy making.

Last November's conference passed a resolution from the Oxford group which called for a policy of all out strike action against the cuts and for occupations of offices threatened with closure.

The Broad Left NEC have done nothing to implement this resolution since the conference.

The Merseyside group put forward a resolution against immigration controls which called on CPSA members to black all work in connection with immigration controls.

Militant supporters argued against the resolution saying that it was "too advanced" for the membership and impossible to implement. They succeeded in voting down this resolution CPSA General Secretary Ken Thomas Redder Tape consider themselves a principled rank and file They have organised campaigns and produced a regular paper. When the Gibraltar dispute was sold out in 1977 they organised an occupation of the union headquarters.

Last year they held a cuts conference and they did campaign against this year's pay settlement by : leafleting branches. However the organisation is dominated by the SWP policy of rank and fileism which ignores the necessity to expose the left union leadership.

They fetishise unofficial' strikes and are reluctant to fight for leadership positions in the union.

At the last Redder Tape conference, which was poorly attended, there was much confusion aven between SWP members or election strategy. One delegate said: "We have credibility by not standing" while anothe argued that "The important thing about elections is to take