Lessons Frum Desoutter Sell-out

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Last Monday week the 60 or so workers who had stayed on at the Desoutter plant in North London went back to work-their spirits still high despite the blows dealt them the previous week by the local AUEW leadership.

The strikers returned to work without their convenor Fred Hopper, and without securing their central demand-full union recognition for the purposes of collective The document which formed the basis of the return can rightly be called a model of bureaucratic betrayal. Only "individual" union recognition is conceded, and nowhere are there any references to elected shop stewards or union representatives.

. union noticeboard is to be provided-but all notices are first to be submitted to management for vetting.

And capping this is the open declaration that the AUEW recognise management's right to run its enterprise in such a way as to secure "maximum efficiency"

HARDSHIP

It may seem surprising that workers who stayed out for 20 weeks through great financial hardship should go back to work with so little to show for it.

In truth, though, the return was forced on the workers by a series of measures enacted by the bureaucracy throughout the strike.

In the first place the AUEWlocaliy as well as nationallylifted not a finger to impose national blacking on Desoutters' tools, despite the fact that even the threat of such a move would have quickly brought the employer to heel.

The Executive Council-on which the Desoutter workers were allegedly represented by Maoist and Comperign for Densoci invites trade unionis THE PAY This argument-on the sur ace reasonable enough-was false to the core.

The balance of forces was dictated not by the numbers on the picket line, but by the blacking which was undoubtedly hitting the employer hard. (From all accounts the wages bill for security alone was astronomical).

PRESSURES

Faced with such pressures and lacking a strike leadership sufficiently experienced in dealing with such manoeuvres, the strikers voted to accept the document as the basis of a return.

The following Thursday they agreed to return minus the convenor.

Even though they returned empty handed in terms of full union recognition, they go back aware now of how their own District Committee will act in the future.

Moreover, McLoughlin's argument actually begged the question why so many had returned. The answer lay in the question of finance, which McLoughlin with his cronies on the London North District tried to cut off throughout the dispute.

But to draw out the full lessons of the strike it is necessary for the Desoutter workers to go beyond mere awareness of how the bureaucracy will act, to a full understanding of why they act as they do.

We must begin an analysis of the bureaucracy from the point of view of classes, not from consideration of any individual bureaucrat's personal characteristics.

In Socialist Press we have consistently argued that the bureaucracy in no way reflect or fight for the interests of the working class.

Instead they form a social stratum which is entirely hostile to Try in the Laboar i to discuss OFFENSIVE DESNTE independent working class activity ence of the capitalist class within working class organisations.

FIGHT

Right throughout the Desoutter strike ...we argued that this break could only be effected by sharply fighting against the bureaucracy, by boxing them into a corner and by forcing them to provide the materials needed to win the strike.

And in the course of such a struggle we pointed out that a new leadership could be built capable of ousting the bureaucracy.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) on the contrary, proposed a purely organisational response to the political question of how to purge the trade unions of the The SWP went on to argue that т MULL "alienate" those elements on the District Committee who were "sympathetic" to the strike.

Individual Committee members did certainly vote for a district levy; but the District Committee as a body voted the levy down.

By not • ceaselessly exposing where the District Committee stood the SWP actually covered up what the Committee were doing.

BYPASS

They argued that all one had to do was to by-pass the District Committee, to organise at rank-and-file level and to establish direct links between workers in different factories.

Such a solution appeared very attractive to the strikers since it confronted with sellouts a=3 betrayals.

Such a response was ant s entirely inadequate, for it merels allowed the local bureaucrats ic perform their work unhindered.

The bureaucracy are the ball and chain which hold the workers movement back. And just as one cannot get rid of a ball and chair by pretending it is not there, so one cannot get rid of the trade unicr bureaucracy by ignoring it.

CUTTING THROAT

The last strike committee leatlet (produced by SW Litho) carried a statement saying that the London North District were in favour of blacking.

At that very point the District Committee were in reality cutting the strike's throat.

Equally amazing was the poststrike report in Socialist Worker (8 October). The AUEW Executive Council was mildly scolded for its "inability" to "take any decision on blacking".

The very headline of the report speaks volumes; blandly stating "Desoutter Strike Ends", , whereas in reality it was coldly and cynically sold out.

And nowhere in the article is there any reference to the fact that it was the Communist Party who dominated the London North District Committee; instead there are nostalgic references to the London North's past militancy.

What this militancy actually consisted of is unclear-but what is undeniable is that this reputation was gained in a period when even Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon were considered red devils!

The Desoutters sell out is the latest in a long list which extends from the hotel disputes to the current struggles at Grunwicks and Murphys.

STRANGLEHOLD

Every worker must seriously study precisely why and how the strikes were betrayed; but such a study must be used as the basis of a fresh onslaught against the capitalist class and their bureaucratic agents within the workers' movement.

The question is how to free the existing trade union movement from the stranglehold of the Offering the strikers a new address in Seven Sisters Road is not enough. As Trotsky said:

"It is necessary to seek our the masses where they are and to lead them."

This is one of the major lessors of the Desoutters strike and one which the workers there mus: seriously grasp. other so called lefts were condemning them as splitting the working class.

If the working class is to unite it must now do so on a programme which declares its independence

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