Right Splitting Aue
Socialist Press1976 1976-09-22Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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The dictatorial role of the extreme right wing majority in the leadership of the Engineering section of the AUEW is threatening to break up the unity between the giant union's four sections.
The AUEW was formed by amalgamating together sections representing engineering, construction, foundry and technical and supervisory workers.
But last week John Baldwin, general secretary of the construction section, brought into the open some of the tensions which have built beneath the surface.
Writing in the section's journal he states his patience is exhausted and he is contemplating the prospect of a merger with other big unions such as UCATT, the EEPTU or even the Boilermakers.
A rigorous test of Baldwin's patience was the behaviour of the engineering section's leadership at the AUEW Conference. In detiance of the agreement with the other sections, Scanlon instructed all 52 engineering delegates - an auto matic majority at the Conference to vote in line with the engineering section's decision to support the 42% pay deal.
The amalgamation agreement however specifies that delegates to the full conference should not be mandated by sections.
The upshot of this blatant manoeuvre was that the 4% deal was endorsed by a minority at the conference, while the majority abstained.
So in the name of winning paper acceptance of the wage-cutting pay deal, the right wing have now come to the brink of splitting Britain's second largest union.