AUEW workers betrayed

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"We are not just a movement for democracy. We show how the attacks on democracy are a result of the attempts to hold back, pressure of the That was how Tony Richarason, from the Organising Committee oi the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement, drew the relation between the two main themes of the third conferencewages and bureaucratic control.

He told 200 delegates and visitors in Birmingham that the alternative put forward by the CDLM was more than a series of correct demands:

"The alternative we put is that of no common interest with the employer: the independence of the working class from the employer."

OPEN ALLIANCE

It was a theme that was echoed from speaker after speaker who described how strike after strike, whether over pay, union recognition or the closed shop turned the union officials into open alliance with the employer.

Richardson said that the 12 month rule was important because it demonstrated the union leaders' collaboration.

The pressure of the class on pay had forced them to shift towards productivity deals and incentive schemes, used to divert away from major claims.

EXPLOSIVE

The Communist Party had argued for 'unity'. In fact they held back the class while struggles against pay controls collapsed.

The situation remained explosive. Councils of action could support struggles over pay.

"You cannot say that tomorrow there will definitely be an explosion and mass struggle in the working class but in no way can it be excluded as a possibility. We put forward a policy that can develop all sections of the labour movement into the struggle."

Alan Gager, treasurer of the sirike committee at the London Mick Rawlinson, delegated from the Aylesbury and District Trades Union Council, and a member of the Fire Brigade Union, outlined how the pressure for strike action had grown from the demands of the annual delegates conference in May. His branch would move a demand for a sliding scale of wages to be added to the wage rise at a special delegate conference called for next month.

CHALLENGE

The feeling in the fire service was such that the second all out strike of firemen since the war was on the cards.

"My branch has endorsed the policies of the CDLM and gave me support to take them to the recall conference. The sliding scale of wages will confront the executive of our union with something they have not previously encountered.

"This is going to blow the ten per cent limit sky high. It's going to challenge the government."

Alan Thornett, TGWU 5/293 branch, pointed out that the sliding scale of wages demand-it met since the expiry of Heath's threshold rises-would have yielded pay rises of around £62 a week to every worker.

The main resolutions proposed by the CDLM Organising Committee were all carried. The conference will fight for the working class to struggle against the 12 month rule and the 10% pay limit, putting instead the demand for the sliding scale of wages.

Conference rejected productivity deals and will campaign for the breaking of the coalition and the removal of the Callaghan-Healey leadership of the Labour Party.

It has also pledged itself to fight for the abolition of cash limits in the public sector-to be replaced by a sliding scale of public expenditure to compensate for rising costs.

And delegates pledged themselves to fight for equal pay and a £60 minimum wage.

On recognition disputes the conference called for full support to the Grunwick mass pickets, a campaign for the cutting off of all services to the factory and support committees based on trades councils and labour movement bodies.

In the event of Ward closing the factory the conference calls for nationalisation under workers management without compensatiohe sell out of the strike was condemned.

The conference will campaign for intervention into the Rank and File committee to put forward this The discuss remitted committee.

of the 200-strong conference The conference called for a London conference of hotel workers to be called by the CDLM to strengthen the Metropole strike and to campaign for other hotels to put in their own wage demands and back them with strike action.

It called for full support for the demonstration in Birmingham on October 29 'for the right of women to free. safe and legal abortion' CONFERENCE question of a conference to unionisation fights at and Sandersons : 'as to the organis ng Jim Black, deputy convenor at Desoutter (speaking in a personal capacity), outlined the betrayal of the strike for union recognition after 20 weeks. The question of blacking and a district levy to finance the strike were continually rejected on the AUEW district committee.

The hypocrisy of those on the committee who voted against it was clearly spelled out.

"I heard one of these same people who had spoken against the levy, on the Grunwick picket line speaking to the mass picket, saying the TGWU and APEX should do everything in their power to bring it to a successful conclusion."

A. Mullarkey, of the TGWU 955 branch-a supporter of the separate section for tunnel miners-told the conference that members of his branch who had occupied the Murphy's site in London faced up to five years jail for ignoring the injunction taken out against them.

But the tunnellers were preparing: an all-out strike to win an agreement on the employment of union members. In London alone 220 out of the 300 members were out of work.

The conference collected £164. Of this £50 was given to the Metropole strikers and the bulk of the remainder was set aside to prepare a leaflet to be distributed in every Leyland factory opposing the Company's corporate bargaining proposals.

The story of four strikes for union récognition in Trust Houses Forte hotels at Sheffield, Birmingham and Oxford and at the Linton Lodge Hotel, Oxford.

Essential reading for an understanding of the struggles for union recognition and pay.

Published by the Hotel and Catering Workers National Action Committee, copies can be obtained from the action committee or from Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Park Hi, London NW5 1HR.

Cost 35p each (32pp)

15p pap.

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be on the agenda, to draw in the whole working class in an area to