Why the Right Wing All Voted Wro

Scan page 7

The election for chairman of the 5/293 Cowley T&GWU Branch was national news. The day after the election millions of readers of the national press saw reports that Trotskyist Alan Thornett. defeated "moderate challenger" Tom White. But for hundreds of Workers Revolutionary Party members this description of White - a leading member of that party - must have come as a shock.

Unfortunately for them, cannot simply be put down to the normal slanders of the capitalist gutter press against militant workers, because when set against White's practice in the plant, it contains more than a grain of truth. Rather it is a measure of the deep degeneration and mortal crisis now convulsing the WRP.

It was no accident White received the 'moderate' label. Out of 142 members attending the AGM of the 5/293 Branch, 77 voted for Thornett. and 64 for White, the only other nominee. A breakdown of this vote shows how White, who is in constant personal contact with WRP General Secretary Gerry Healy, secured the entire right wing vote organised by fanatical anti-communist convenor Reg Parsons.

WITHDRAWN

Firstly, it was no coincidence that white was the only opposition to Thornett. Originally there were four nominees for the chairman's position - Blake withdrew, leaving Thornett, White and Paintin. But on the afternoon of the election the right wing had a problem - the antiThornett vote would be split if Paintin stood. After a hasty discussion the decision was taken by the right wing for Paintin to withdraw, and to throw full support behind White.

The right wing hoped that White would pull some militant votes from Thornett, whereas Paintin could only win the committed right wing.

In the event they overestimated White's credibility among militants. The meeting polarised completely the militants voting en bloc for Thornett, and every single right winger for White.

That this was the case is shown by the election for secretary where Parsons' right hand man Barson was defeated 81 votes to 54 by Frank Corti. The four extra votes for Corti over Thornett was the result of 3 Stalinists and a supporter, who though they voted with the right wing for White against Thornett, voted with the militants for Corti against Barson.

This is the most complete answer yet to Healy's fraudulent claim reiterated time after time in Workers Press that the WSL offers support to the Stalinists and their Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions. Given a clear choice between supporting leading WRP member (the bitterest enemies of the Stalinists according to Healy), or supporting a WSL candidate (who supposedly supports them 'uncritically'), they unhesitatingly vote for the WRP No wonder Workers Press has onl just reported the Branch election!

ANSWER

In our last edition of Socialist Press (in an article again taking up the WRP for entering White for the class collaborationist Ryder Committee in Cowley), we asked Healy to explain to his members how White's name appeared on Parsons' recommended list : of candidates for deputy convenor. Not only has Workers Press not answered this question - - it even suppressed all news of the convenor elections, which it still has not reported! And no disclaimer was issued from Parsons' list prior to the elections.

This is not through lack of opportunity. Parsons' list circulated the plant on Monday December 8th. The convenor election was held on Wednesday December 10th. So White and the WRP had two full days to leaflet the plant and separate himself from Parsons - if they had wanted to. Two editions of Workers Press were printed and sold on the factory gates - carrying not a word on White's position.

'LEFT'

The outcome of this was that Parsons stood for election as convenor with the advantage of having a 'left' on his published slate. The whole factory knew it had not been repudiated.

It was not until a week later, on December 15th, after the Socialist Press article reached WRP headquarters in Clapham High Street, that White began limited distribution of a letter dissociating himself from Parsons' list. This letter was not given out on the gate not carried in Workers Press, but given to selected individuals. It contained not a political word or a single riticism Parsons. We quote it in full: quote in full:

With reference to the letter written by Brother R. PARSONS, Senior Steward concerning the Deputy Senior Steward elections. I wish to completely disassociate myself from the list on the letter. I wish to make it clear that I had no part in the drawing up of the said letter. I do not believe that the membership should be insulted by myself or anyone else by telling them who to vote for in the forthcoming Deputy Senior Steward elections, as the membership have the right to choose seven (7) Deputy Stewards of their own choice from the total nominations. 15th December 1975 We emphasise the anti-political statement about "insulting members" by campaigning for a slate of candidates - because this line is deliberately chosen to attack the panel of militants who were campaigning on an anti-Parsons, anti-Ryder platform. White refuses to attack the right wing - but instead aims a blow at the left. The branch election shows how clearly the right wing got the message.

went.

Ryder - advocate of joint committees Of course Workers Press has not been totally silent on Cowley. On the contrary, it has provided further ammunition for the right wing by unstintingly supporting the Joint Union/Management investigation committee sent in under the Ryder set-up to head off the struggles of workers on the Princess track. convenors' recommendation for the setting up of this committee, and called for a report to be prepared instead by the Open the Books Committee. The convenors ignored this decision and sent in the joint committee, which was boycotted on the track by the stewards and members, and was only able to talk to foremen.

But when its report was published, the WRP, which had never given a word of support to the Open the Books Committee, put a leaflet into the plant praising the report and giving complete support to its findings! (The leaflet was a reprint of the article in Workers Press, November 26th). This WRP support came after the committees findings had been used by the T&GWU bureaucracy, through a press conference to boost the right wing and launch Parsons' election campaign.

The WRP leaflet thus. brings together in practice their support for Parsons and for Ryder. It also reveals starkly Healy's bitter hostility to the Open the Books Committee - which is in essence a struggle for elements of workers control and . the political independence of the working class. Driven into a corner on this question Healy not only rejects this policy, but supports instead the polar opposite - a joint management committee which directs towards class collaboration.

Headed "COWLEY SPEED-UP FRAUD EXPOSED", the leaflet began:

"Irrefutable evidence of design faults and plant malfunction fills the pages of a special report on working conditions inside British Leyland. The internal report exposes the jungle of management incompetence that surrounds production of the new Princess model at the Cowley, Oxford, car plant.

The document poses a question for Tory tycoon Lord Ryder of the National Enterprise Board (NEB): Will he now sack the management?"

GOOD MANAGEMENT?

Thus the WRP leads workers away from the fact that it is a management report, away from the report already published on the question by the Open the Books Committee, and instead towards the sterile ground of "bad management" - almost as if there are good managers!

Workers Press also conceals that the two "union representatives" who participated in the investigation were both extreme right wingers, as well as the fact that the report itself contains an attack on workers alleged absenteeism, which was splashed all over the local and national press. On the contrary, the leaflet claims that "Between the lines of the four page document is a catalogue of how Leyland's investment starved factories have been systematically bled for profit, and how workers are now being made to pay theprice Although the WRP are forced to STC is the Post Office, which the clear case for the firm to be North side refused to cooper with the inquiry, they quote one its most collaborationist sectio "There is a common conce amongst all that the qual standards of the ADO 71 (Prince must be improved in the intere of everyone if the future prosper of Cowley Assembly Plant is to preserved"

Healy's only criticism is to cla things are far worse on the pli than the joint inquiry indicates. I he follows this by announcing ti Workers Press "has a copy of document" which lists serie component faults and how le they have existed.

1 MONTH LATE!

Its not surprising Healy has last obtained such a docume since, a month earlier, thousand copies were published i distributed in the plant (causin stir in the national press) by • Open the Books Committee.

Only Healy's desperate grop for an alternative to the Open Books Committee could reduce WRP to this level. Indeed the lea even ends up in the absurd fash calling on "Leyland workers" demand an "opening of the bool What this must have meant to hundreds of Princess track worl who had rejected the report prai by Healy and fully supported Open the Books Committee only be guessed at. Whi complete lack of support amor militants in the plant must be indication.

SQUALID But what set the seal on Whi isolation at the branch was scene of him drinking at the si small table as Parsons in the | next to the factory immediat following the announcement Parsons' reelection as conver The squalid opportunism of Hea politics all lead to this conclusi We ask all WRP members : you prepared to tolerate this k of treachery being enacted by y leadership behind your backs w the WRP is made the tool of extreme right wing and Stalinists against the working c on the plant?

FIGHT

The time has come for V members to begin a fight to cha their leadership, and for demands of the Transitir Programme to be fought for in working class, not cynic exploited for propaganda purp LEAGUE PUBLIC MEETING AYLESBURY Tuesday, 6th January, 1976, 'The Plough and Harrow"

Stoke Road, Aylesbury.

is built? Why are the prof