[the Grunwick strikers bears out the WSL's analysis…]

Scan page 9

the Grunwick strikers bears out the WSL's analysis of the bureaucracy in the unions.

No fight These officials are So concerned to preserve their Voting should take place the open in meetings, open to all members.

Each candidate should be given the right to be present and appeal for support on equal terms at such meetings. Only voting in this way can end the situation in which the whole electoral machinery is controlled by the trade union bureaucrats themselves.

The fight for union democtacy is an integral part of the fight for the new leadership; a leadership- that fights transitional demands, such as the linking pay to prices under workers' control, as the alternative to capitalist crisis and wage cutting.

Record of fighting

That such demands-which both answer the burning needs of workers and also open up the prospect of a struggle against capitalism itself-can Win a response from workers, was shown in the recent elections at British Leyland Cowley.

There, militants with record of fighting for such policies, were elected • to senior positions despite bureaucratic opposition and witch-hunting. (Significantly, the Cowley workers had organised a guard to ensure no interference with • the ballot boxes);

For the WSL, the fight for our programme in the unions, and for the action necessary to implement it, is indispensable to the preparation of the working class for power.

The alternative is TROTSKY Ont Revolution £1.75 plus 25p Transitional Programme 30p plus 10p Defence of Marxism £1.75 plus 25p volution Betrayed £2.05 plus LENIN Etc be Done? 25p plus 25p plus 15p Communism 20p plus 15p Available from WSL 31, Dartmouth Park Hill London NW5 1HR

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to defend a sacked worker with the obvious and scarcely concealed collaboration of Buckle and Parsons.

At the mass meeting called to defend - them Parsons defended the management's action whilst Buckle said that a strike would result in the permanent closure of the plant.

Second blow

Despite mistin voted them down supported the four, shutting down the North Works.

The decision of this meeting was the second maior blow against the right wing. Although they were able to bring an end to the strike after two weeks with the announcement of a Regional Inquiry, Parsons had lost his support in the North Works and he was never to regain it.

The bureaucracy held the inquiry back until December and withheld its findings until Aprill 1977.

They then turned it to their own advantage and used it as the framework for the final stage of Buckle's plan.

The report found the four stewards guilty and withdrev mendations endorsed.

The meetings turned into the third major blow against the right wing. On the day shift Buckle and Parsons were jeered. and abused when they refused to allow Thornett; Corti and O'Sullivan to speak as officers of, the existing branches to answer the stream of lies and witch-hunting coming from the platform.

Buckle got over the problem by claiming that the meeting had voted in favour of his proposals when no vote had actually been taken.

Minority pressured

The result of all this was a disaster. Although Leyland invested hundreds thousands of pounds in the new branch, releasing 30 hand picked right wing stewards from their job on full pay to work full time for three months recruiting into the new branch only a minority of workers could be pressured into joining.

The failure of this operation posed a difficult problem for . the right wing. The biennial election for convenor was looming in December and