As union leaders cave in

Scan page 4

One of the features of of the features of ccent industrial disputes nas •. 1. J:_ - de —- La-een the repeated intervention n behalf of the employers by he National Association for Freedom and its administraive director John Gouriet. ! When the Executive of the Inion of Post Office Workers astructed its members to boycott outh Africa for a week it was the IAFF that sought and gained a These Tories sit comfortably with their big business colleagues including Sir Frank Taylor (of Taylor Woodrow), Lord de L'Isle (Chairman of Phoenix Assurance), Hugh Astor (of Hambro's Bank) and Sir Paul Chambers (former chairman of ICI).

SOCIAL DEMOCRAT

But these extreme right wing elements are only too pleased to extend freedom in the columns of their paper, Free Nation, to 'social democrats' such as Dr. Stephen Haseler of the Social Democratic Alliance.

The attitude of such a grouping as NAFF to trade unions is predictable. Its particular wrath reserved for the closed shop, and it has assisted several groups of antiunionists to resist closed shop agreements.

Its members interlink with Aims of Industry, the organisation which runs a comprehensive blacklist of left-wing militants and is financed by right wing industrial giants such as GKN.

Aims of Industry is in turn closely linked with True-Mid, the notorious right wing organisation in the engineering union where 3,000 members are said to contribute fl a month towards ensuring the election of right wing officials.

OPPOSITE

NAFF's attitude to the right to join a union of course is the opposite to its view of the right "not to belong" '. It has consistently helped employers in their attempt to victimise workers trying to join and establish trade unions.

• It often tries to gain favour with scab workers by going on at length about the excesses of the bureaucratic trade union bosses.

But it is well to remember that its greatest fury is unleashed at those who genuinely defy the union bureaucracy for trade union principles such as the postal workers at Cricklewood.

The NAFF has many of the Police attack mass picket at Randolph Hotel same policies as obviously_ fascist groups such as the National Front.

SOPHISTICATED

But it is far more sophisticated in the tactics it uses through the courts and the media and in the way it influences large sections of the right wing of the Tory Party.

Its monetary resources are clearly immense and it is fast becoming the most mobile and organised expression of the extreme right wing sections of the ruling class.

Without a mass organisation, however it at present lacks the forces needed to carry through its programme in the face of working class opposition.

APPARENT STRENGTH Its apparent strength at the moment rests on the unwillingness of trade union officials-at local or national level to defy its court injunctions and its organised scabs.

Given firm and principled leadership, the working class could sweep aside the interventions of NAFF and its tame courts on every occasion.

NAFF Administrative Director Gouriet: links with fascists and CIA.