[At their meeting on May 11th the Camden…]
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At their meeting on May 11th the Camden Trades Council voted 51-18 with 9 abstentions, to accept Rule 14, the new rule for Trades Councils brought in by the TUC to remove individuals and prevent support for any organisation opposed to TUC policies.
The vote on Camden Trades Council came only after a series of manoeuvres including the Stalinist Secretary of the Trades Council, Sid Gregory, with TUC backing, himself closing down the Trades Council and cancelling the April meeting.
He managed to get the vote at the May meeting by circularising all affiliated branches informing them that they could only reaffiliate if they brought a letter to the Trades Council saying that their branch was agreement with Rule 14.
If the TUC is prepared to go to such extremes to force the rule onto the Trades Councils which have not accepted it, then they and the right-wing on the Trades Councils are obviously going to use the rule to expel opposition or close down Trades Councils.
Already it is reported that the leadership of Sheffield Trades Council has used the rule to disaffiliate from the Working Women's Charter.
The Morning Star, paper of the Communist Party, broke its silence on Rule 14 on May 7th by reporting Stalinist Executive member of Camden Trades Council, Vic Heath, who said:
"Those who do have the best interest of the movement at heart should put their energies into winning their own trade union for deletion of Rule 14"
He then went on to attack all those on Camden Trades Counci who were actually doing anything about the rule.
But even these statements and positions are outdone by the WRI whose paper, The News Lineis the only paper on the left not to report the struggle taking place in Camden, and in fact has not carried a single word on Rule 14.
The threat is still on Camden Trades Council where the President has told the delegates of the five branches who didn't bring the necessary letter that they would not be admitted to the next meeting. If this occurs a further lobby of the Trades Council should be arranged.
The Camden Trades Council Defence Committee has organised a lobby of the Annual Conference of Trades Councils on May 22nd. We urge support for this lobby and SL members will continue to campaign for rejection of this rule by Trades Councils.