Chairman's 3 Votes

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After the 293 branch elections last cember the right wing in the Oxford T&GWU have lost their majority on a committee crucial to the bureaucratic moves by which they hang on to their positions in the town -the District Automotive Committee.

A problem arose for them at the April meeting at which a delegate was to be elected to the annual policy conference of the T&GWU Automotive Group. There are 17 members on the Oxford District Committee, and only 7 can be relied upon to vote for the right wing.

With one object in mind - to stop Alan Thornett (a member of the Committee), from going to the conference - the right wing conducted the most amazing manoeuvie.

VOTES There were two nominations Alan Thornett and Reg Parsons. The vote for Parsons was taken irst, which attracted 7 votes from the floor of the meeting.

The chairman then announced that he would cast his personal vote as a delegate for Parsons - making 8.

The vote was then taken for Thornett, nine delegates raising their hands. The chairman then counted the 9 votes as 8, declared the result a draw, and gave his chairman's casting vote for Parsons, and declared him elected!

Having refused to allow a challenge to the chair he then closed the meeting, claiming 'pandemonium' had broken out.

Both the 5/293 branch and the 5/55 branches then sent delegations to the Regional Committee demanding that the vote be taken again, with covering letters from the branches in which the 9 delegates who voted for Thornett were named.

The letter pointed out that each of the 9 were prepared to make a statement on how he voted.

NO REPLY A month later, when the May meeting assembled, the Regional Committee had not replied to the branches.

The tactic of the right wing was to get the minutes accepted as a true record, and then claim that this ratified the election.

When the minutes were not accepted the right wing found a pretext to close the meeting.

The branches tien received a letter from Brian Mathers Regional Secretary, saying that since the letters from the branches contlicted with the minutes (which were written hu the rioht urina to Mathers suit their case) and since the May meeting had broken up with no decision having been taken and the conference was only 3 weeks away, which gave no time for a reelection - the Oxford District would have no delegate to the policy conference.

This disqualification of Parsons is a tacit admission by the Regional Committee that the right-wing manipulated the vote.

But they would sooner deprive the T&GWU car workers in Oxford of a delegate than face a reelection which Thornett could win.

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FOREMAN IN BRANCH - BY ORDER