Rule 14 Wrp Backs Tuc

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LETTER TO SOCIALIST WORKE We note that Socialist Worker has consistently pointed out the dangers of Rule 14 and the need to fight it, although without saying how this In some Trade Union branches (eg ASTMS, Charing Cross), affiliated to Camden Trades Council, however, Is members have urged acceptance of the blackmail letter from the Camden Trades Council Secretary, which stipulates that only those branches supporting the rule will be admitted to If your idea of struggle against Rule 14 is to capitulate at the bureaucracy's first slap, you will be in no position to give a lead and, worse still, you will badly let down other trade councils who have thrown out the We believe a united fight of all trades councils whould be waged the rule - but such a fight cannot even begin if delegates who in We ask that you make clear your position; in particular:

(1) Will you oppose signing an undertaking that branches support (2) Will you fight Rule 14 up to and beyond the point where the (3) Will you actively support the All-London Campaign against Rule 14 launched by Camden Trades Council delegates (including IS members) and The retreat from principled politics on the part of the Workers Revolutionary Party has in recent weeks assumed the character of a rout.

Not oaly do the WRP leaders suppress democratic discussion within their own organisation, exclude members of other political tendencies in the workers movement from their meetings and generally besmirch the name of Trotskyism in their 'everyday practice. They have now joined the right wing, the TUC bureaucracy and the Stalinists in support of the new anti-democratic rule 14 in trades councils.

We have held back in iecent issues from reporting various instances of WRP members and supporters voting in favour of rule Perhaps there was some mistake, we thought. Perhaps they were mandated by their union branches, we thought. But no.

The Teal position was put forward by Cyril Smith - a leading member of the WRP - at a meeting of the Charing Cross ASTMS on April. 14th.

Those who oppose rule 14, he told the astonished branch members, are trying to tear apart the trades councils'. In Lambeth, where he is a delegate, they had passed it without anybody worrying. Those delegates to other To 'Socialist Worker' from Dear Brother/Sister, We are delegates to the oppose Rule 14. As you know, the majority rule at the Council's AGM.

should be done.

the May Delegate Meeting.

rule.

oppose Rule 14 refuse to do so in practice..

14?

suspends and disattiliates Trades Councis!

work for its meeting on May 6th?

(4) What steps will you take on behalf of excluded from Trades Councils because of their fraternally, Geoff Bell Rosemarv Bur trades councils who were proposing opposition to the TUC were simply putting the head of the working class in a noose.

This is exactly the argument of every Stalinist and bureaucrat who wants to avoid a fight.

RESPECTABILITY

Smith knows this well enough. So why is it that he now moves in behind the policies of the TUC bureaucracy? Is it to do with the desperate efforts of the WRP to get going their new Daily News Line, with all the veneer of respectability that will be necessary for them to make the paper pay? Is there a link between this 'non-political' paper and the sharp shift to opportunism of the WRP in the workers movement? • Readers of Socialist Press will not be surprised to discover that in the same meeting Smith spoke against a motion calling for a sliding scale of wages on the grounds that it was a diversion from the real problem of bringing down the Labour government. Truly, sectarianism and opportunism were never so closely married.

In addition to this in Dagenham Trades Council we have heard that the Secretary, who also supports the WRP, informed the TUC that the council had supported rule 14 without the matter ever having been discussed.

members delegated Camden Tradés Council who of delegates voted against the against theory any delegates who opposition to Rule 14?

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