O Answer to Ballot Complaints

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UNITED OM Stoke Plant PH AỦ SA-HA wAg. txR: -7.-10 tại Di nện 308: 301 = AUEW Convenor Simpson .

We carried in the previous edition of Socialist Press a detailed account of the struggle for an inqi iry into elections for Regional Committee, National Committee and General Executive of the Midlands Region 0f the Transport and General Workers Union. We were convinced then and are convinced now that serious questions of democracy had arisen in that election.

The calls for an inquiry into what were claimed to be "impossibly high votes" were side stepped by the bureaucracy who called a fresh ballot while refusing to reveal any figures or documents from the previous vote. ballot had been called not because claimed that the new there was anything wrong but because of a slight "technical infringement'. This turned out to be the destruction of the evidence, after the complaints were made, by the right wing in the branch concerned British Leyland Cowley Body Plant.

In the reballot the bureaucracy have acted in an even more high handed and blatant way than the first time.

Again the results were seemingly impossible. The scrutineers, havıng been selected by those subject to question in the previous ballot ‹while the Branch Officers adamantly refused to allow an election for the positions) claimed a 67% poll. Workers in the plant collected evidence to show that the poll was in fact substantially lower.

The clearest example is Jack Adams from MG Abingdon. In the first poll he was claimed to have received 6,134 votes.

HUNDRED Yet it was conclusively established that only a few hundred workers took part in the Body Plant vote.

The bureaucracy argued that his votes came from the rest of the Region, which seemed very unlikely since he was completely unknown.

In the second ballot Adams "polled" 2,798 in the Body Plant - a seemingly impossibly high figure.

But this meant that since his total vote was 3,198 he had only received 400 from the rest of the region!

This result clearly shows that between the two ballots there are over 5,000 completely unaccountable votes.

But the matter doesn't end ree there. After the Body Plant result was announced the T&GWU 5/293 Assembly Plant branch representing 3,500 members sent an urgent resolution to the Regional scrutineers again asking for an inquiry into the impossibly high votes.

In support of this request the branch pointed brestionable aspects of ballotting ry the Body Plant.

Firstly the officials had refused requests that a system to introduced to check the number of people voting.

Secondly • the 5/293 branch complained that for the 2 days which elapsed between the ballot and the count, the uncounted ballot papers together with the unused ballot papers were locked in the private office of the candidate Bill Roche - while Roche himself held the key!

Not only • was this resolution ignored by the Regional scrutineers who went ahead with the count and declared the tesult. The resolution and letters sent by individual members have not to this day been acknowledged.

We say that a full inquiry must be initiated by the National Executive of the TGWU into both of these ballots and into the handling of the issue by the Regional Committee.

USED

The T&GWU is being used by Jones as the main lever, through wage control, for attacks by the Labour Government upon the working class. Whilst vague speeches are being made against unemployment the reality is that the T&GWU leadership acquiesces with it.

None of these attacks can be fought or the strength of the TGWU used to defend the working class without a constant fight to break the grip of the non-elected bureaucracy and the manipulation through which they retain control.

We therefore repeat our call for the following policies to be fought for within the T&GWU:

End secret ballots - open to ali kinds of manipulation by the full time bureaucracy. For elections by show of hands at branch meetings where candidates have equal right to speak.

Where ballots do take place, we demand the election of scrutineers from the rank and file member and and for voting figures procedures to be open for inspection by workers at any time.

New rules for the automatic removal from all office of any scrutineer involved in a corrupt ballot must be adopted.