Behind Cowley Witch-hunt
Socialist Press1976 1976-01-14Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 1 →
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Parsons - old lies for a new problem.
Police in Madrid arrested 20 alleged strike leaders in The unprecedented and hysterical witch-hunt of the Cowley elections carried out over the past week by every section of the mass media raises issues which confront the entire working class.
As thousands of workers are sacked in Chrysler and British Steel, every Tory, every employer, every social democrat and trade union leader knows that the working class will fight if given a lead and a perspective. Their entire existence is dedicated to preventing this developing.
There has never been a witchhunt like this one. All that is involved is seven positions for deputy convenors. Hundreds of such elections must take place every day. Yet the election is witch-hunted day after day by every section of the mass media.
WAGE BARGAINING
The working class face conditions where free collective wage bargaining is under attack. The standard of living is dropping fast and trade union bureaucrats see it as their job to search for ways to implement mass redundancies and speed-up without resistance.
The ruling class know that the emergence of a principled and determined leadership with a programme of action in defence of the basic rights of the working occupied churches, in most cases class, even if initially only in one plant, would develop into struggles to protect wages and jobs all over the country.
They know that in Cowley above all there is a real possibility of breaking the right wing against the employer's offensive, based on a demands which have already programme of raised the political consciousness in the factory to a high point.
If such a leadership emerged in Cowley, ruthlessly exposing each betrayal of the officials it could become the focus of national resistance and the cockpit of a concerted attack on the trade union bureaucracy.
This is the development the employers, the press, the bureaucracy and the Labour government are desperate to head off. They want to secure a leadership in Cowley which will, in line with the policies of the Labour *Allow management and the press to pre-determine union *Abandon free wage bargaining *Sell out all factory agreements *Actively assist in smashing the workforce and speeding production through the Ryder participation committees.
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