Press Ralles Behind 'jim'

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TGWU negotiator Hawley: centralised control on pay Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, BM Registered as a'newspaper at the Post Office. Signed articles do A common cry has gone up in the last ten days; it is on the lips of right wing union leaders and on the pages of the gutter press.

The message is "stop the bickering in the Labour Party". But its real content is that socialists should abandon any struggle for democratisation of the Labour Party or for socialist policies and settle back comfortably as Callaghan and union bureaucrats slip on the straightjacket of a rigged "electoral college" to ensure the continuity of right wing leadership.

Bitter experience of five years of the last Labour government has underlined for millions of workers the harsh fact that the existing leadership has no serious alternative programme to resolve the economic crisis-and that it always turns to Tory-style cuts, closures and to wage controls as a means to prop up the decaying capitalist system.

British Leyland has issued national union officials with a document containing proposals that would bring to fruition two years of changes in negotiating procedures.

The new document, which only union bureaucrats and the Tory press have seen, proposes that all negotiations be conducted by national officials and the company.

The company's plan would mean that nobody who actually works in Leyland would represent the unions!

This would mean that Leyland would have moved in only two years from plant negotiations carried out by plant negotiating committees, in 34 separate plants, to total centralised bureaucratic control.

This management coup is Continued page 11 Unless these leaders and their policies are challenged and defeated, the re-election of a further Labour governm ent can hold out no promise of resolv ing the problems of unemployment, inflat ion and devastated social services.

Base of support

Recognising this, rank and file Labour Party members and workers driven into politics by the Tory offensive have provided a firm base of support for the left wing's campaign for democratic reforms in the Party.

Callaghan's base, on the other hana, consists of the right wing rump of the Parliamentary Labour Party and-more important-the bureaucratic leaders of the trade unions.

They cast their block votes against policies or leaders who they feel might trigger a wave of struggles which could Edwardes develop beyond the control of the union leaders and disrupt their deferential relationship with the employers and the Tory So isolated is this right wing camp from the mood of the rank and file in the unions and the Party that they have been forced to make some concessions on democratic reforms which have outraged the most diehard right wing MPs.

level inquiry, are precisely designed to reinforce the right wing grip on the leadership.

The plan is for no less than 50% of the votes to be monopolised by the PLP backwoodsmen; 25% by the union bureaucracy; and a mere 20% to be cast by constituency representatives who might reflect the mood of the members!

In other words the MPs need theoretically only to persuade one trade union representative to vote with them to secure the election of their chosen leader!

Left wingers have rejected this scheme as unacceptable and announced they are ready to fight on the issue-though they have long ago abandoned the necessary demand for the regular election of the leader at conference.

Viable leadership

Hence the growing campaign against "bickering". With the Thatcher government facing a mounting crisis, the Tory press wants a viable right wing Labour leadership ready if necessary to take over.

•The problem for the working class is not the squabbles but the refusal of any of Labour's 'lefts' to take up a campaign in the unions and Labour Party to oust the Callaghan clique and spell out programme of socialist policies to meet the crisis. Callaghan

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But their proposals on the new "elec- toral college" , as drawn up by the top-