TUC: no action on anti-union

Scan page 11

verbal opposition to this latest cosy collaboration established ing class, requires a new, revoluTory attack is through annoy- between employers and union tionary leadership in the trade ance at the prospect of it being bureaucrats over recent decades. unions and labour movement.

The logic of the Tories' Education Bill is now working- through with a vengeance in the county of Dorset-giving a preview of the things to come elsewhere in the country.

Using their new discretionary powers to vary the price and provision of school mealspowers which less than 12 months ago seemed a mere sick joke in the minds of a few extreme right wing Tories-the Dorset County Councillors agreed on Thursday to end school meals for all primary and middle school children thus sacking 700 school meal workers.

The demonstration mounted by parents and trade unionists against this horrendous decision was met by police who cleared petitioners out of the Council chamber.

The total lack of fight nationally by the major trade union involved -NUPE-was reflected by the plaintive cry of the local official, Paul Dunn, when he bleated:

"When the government announced its intention to change the Education Act it was not its intention to see the school meals service collapse"

Dunn is totally wrong. For MESON many reasons, this is precisely what the Tories do want.

A complete end to the wel fare state' with individual family units taking full responsibility for all care of children, the sick and the elderly, placing women firmly back in the home is a central plank of the Tory strategy to divide and weaken the working class.

Fory determination must be met with the determination of NUPE leader Fisher the trade union movement, leading parents and other community groups.

As long as the trade union leaders-including Alan Fisher of NUPE-avoid or dissipate the fight with half hearted work to rule' sanctions and allow jobs to be lost through 'natural wastage' and voluntary redundancy, the Tories will viciously proceed with their plans to end the whole state welfare system.

Encouraged by the complete refusal of the TUC leaders to mount any struggle to prevent the passage of James Prior's anti-union "Employment" Bill, the Tories are sticking the boot in.

It has been announced that the Bill will be supplemented by a code of practice limiting any picket line to a maximum of six people.

This proposal will not be passed through Parliament-but will simply be enforced by the Coming over and above the legal restrictions on picketing contained in the Employment Bill, this new move is designed to complete a full-scale scabs' Mass strength But the Tories know that in restricting the size and scope of picket lines they have the tacit support of many trade union leaders, who hate nothing more than the working class feeling and using its mass strength against the class enemy.

The Labour/TUC Concordat concluded by the Callaghan government proposed restrictions on picketing: and TGWU officials during the marathon unionisation struggle at Garners Steak Houses in London struck a secret deal with the police to limit picket lines to six strong.

The only way TUC leaders are likely to be driven into even verbal opposition to this latest Tory attack is through annoyance at the prospect of it being Basnett defied by their members in action.

Indeed it is largely the prospect of an upsurge in the class struggit unat enrages luc thent TITA leaders over Prior's second proposed code-to introduce a periodic review of existing closed shop arrangements, requiring an 80% ballot vote for them to continue.

GMWU leader Basnett complained that "this would destabilise industrial relations".

Indeed the Tories' course of confrontation does disrupt the It is forcing the TUC leaders to choose between either fighting for the removal of the Tory government or acting even more openly as defenders of a bankrupt and vicious capitalist class in a ruthless drive for profits.

Agenda

But a good indicator of the path the TUC leaders have chosen can be seen in the agenda for this year's TUC While a record 48 motions blast out heated anti-Tory rhetoric, there are unmistakeable moves towards a new wage-cutting "social contract" with the Labour leadership.

There is no hint of action to challenge or defy the Tory anti-union laws-and general calls to "fight the cuts" are detached from any practical proposals on action to be taken.

Only the Bakers Union calls for a campaign "to bring down the Tory government and bring to office a Labour government pledged to socialist policies contained in Clause 4 Part 4 of the Labour Party constitution".

Waste-basket

And with last year's TUC as a sorry example; it takes little imagination to predict that the Bakers Union motion is destined for Len Murray's waste-paper basket.

The struggle against the Tory anti-union laws, like the struggle against any of the present barrage of attacks on the work-