The Battle for Trotskyism

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Second edition of the opposition documents presented inside the WRP by the present leader ship of the Workers Socialist League Price £2.50 plus 20p postage and package from Workers Socialist League, BM Box 5277, With a new introduction London WCIV 6XX questions.

Over half the authorities did not reply.

Many expressed open bigotry, stating or implying that homosexuality was a threat to children.

And virtually all of them qualified their answers in one way or another.

Several replies could not bring themselves to utter the very words. Suffolk for example replied darkly that:

"these matters have not caused us any difficulties in the past."

Kingston-upon-Thames

claimed that:

"all teaching appointments that are made in this area are based on professional judgements, and considerations to which your questionnaire refers do not therefore apply."

It is hard to know if even "satisfactory" answers to the NCCL's questionnaire meant anything since one of the best, the one which sparked off the

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INDUSTRIAL NEWS LEYLAND ACTION COMMITTEE CONFERENCE Returned to office after five years of Labour Ten years ago BL workers were among the highest paid manual workers in the country. Today, we are among the lowest. We have had one thing after another forced on us-from Measured Day Work, the Ryder Plan, Participation, Corporate Bargaining, the Edwardes Plan, the victimisation of Derek Robinson, to redundancies and speed up.

This ycar we have had yet another wage cut-that is what 5% means when inflation is at 20%.

And for this privilege we have had to swallow 92 pages of strings.

We started out with a claim for £24, 35 hours and no strings. The company refused to negotiate from the beginning.

When Edwardes decided to impose the deal, the LCJNC and the convenors' conference refused to call a BL-wide strike even though they had & 60-40 majority in the ballot for action.

Edwardes Instead they passed the buck to the officials, who spent the rest of the time running away.

Terry Dutty, who gave himself 25%, no strings, instructed his members to work.

Moss Evans avoided

decision by promising to back any action taken by members. When the members responded he begged for peace. With more than 18,000 on strike he derailed the struggle with his pathetic agreement which changed nothing in the 92 page document. All that changed was:

1) Participation will be re-established.

2) The miserable, LCJNC, which has shown that it cannot fight its way out of a paper bag, will be restarted-with even more official control.

No wonder that the Tories and the employers think Edwardes is a hero.

He may not be able to walk on water but he certainly knows how to walk on door-mats. He has treated the unions in BL with contempt.

He has never negotiated. He simply tells the unions what he is going to do. The national officials refuse to lead a national fight against Edwardes.

The convenors, with a few honourable exceptions, rely on the officials, which is a face-saving way of surrendering.

Make no mistake. Edwardes is attacking the very existence of the unions in BL.

The victimisation of Derek Robinson was a direct attack on TEXT OF A LE ACTION COM LEAFLET united fight this time.

The LCJNC cannot be relied upon to do this. With the same officials in control as were responsible for this year's claim, we can expect only a repeat performance.

Remember, the only opposition from the union leadership was around the strings. None of them opposed the 5%. Next year we need a rise, not another cut.

A first step towards achieving these objectives is to get the negotiations under the control of the membership. For this we need a national conference of BL Cars, based on delegates from the plants to draw up a claim, to elect a leadership to pursue it, and to wage a campaign to get the membership solidly behind it.

We must break the cycle of defeat-for this we must change the way we approach the annual negotiations, and we need to change the leadership. :

This conference will discuss how to fight for the necessary changes, and what steps can be taken now towards a national delegate conference.

815 workers at Renold Chains, Coventry, are due to lose their jobs if the company carries out its plan to close the factory.

Management claims that reduced orders for metal timing chains made at the plant for the motor industry is one of the main reason the jobs must go.

It is clear that despite the brave words about "fighting to defend jobs at Renold" that were spoken by an AUEW official at the Day of Action demonstration in the city, the workers at Renolds must develop a totally different approach from that which is being advocated by the trade union bureaucracy.

Jim Gritin, Assistant Divisional Organiser of the AUEW has already accepted the central argument of the employers-viability.

He argues only that sufficient orders exist for another twelve month's production, and that if the plant were kept open during that time a discussion could be opened around alternative products.

In order to provide finance for the changeover to new products Griffin is trying to persuade the company to approve an application to the government for temporary short-time working compensation, and if that fails, for a Temporary: Employment Subsidy.

Under the first scheme, companies can receive 75% of wages for several months in order to avoid making workers redundant. Under the latter; the government pay £20 a week per worker for periods up to 12 months.

The limits of reformism shown graphically this Here we have a Tory government determined to back to the hilt the employers' drive to cut jobs-and the trade union bureaucracy can only come up with the solution of asking that same government to subsidize what it sees as an unproductive plant.

At a time of growing recession the trade union bureaucracy holds out the prospect of launching new products!

the books The first step in an alternative path to defend jobs is the demand for the opening of the company books.

Workers at the Coventry factory should elect a committee whose job it will be to investigate the company claims.

Every scrap of information must be gathered to give a com"viability' of the Coventry factory and the Renold group as a whole.

Such an investigation should be carried out totally independent from the interference of management.

All that is required from them is the information.

But if this is not to be an exercise in getting the workers to prove to their own satisfac tion that they have to sacrifice their jobs, opening the books must be part of a whole strategy to resist the bosses' offensive.

The best way to launch an investigation and a real fight to defend jobs is to do so from a position of strength-this means a policy of occupation.

Threat to all