Force Tg U to Drop Cowley Charges

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Cowley transport drivers present petition to Region 5 Secretary Brian Mathers outside the inquiry on Tuesday.

This is why TGWU mistaken. It leads away from officials cannot allow any the only real defence against independent voice to be bureaucracy-the hostility of heard within the union. A the membership to their nuinsinlad land Santan 1L - officiald actinn There are no gains whatever for steel workers in the latest contemptible sell-out package signed last week by leaders of the 65,000 strong Iron and Steel Trades Confederation.

Wage increases are held between 6-10%-meaning that some sections of workers won't even get a 10% rise, after two years of wage-slashing pay policy.

Massive price

But in return for this paltry settlement the British Steel Corporation has extracted a massive price.

*THOUSANDS of jobs will be axed through the closure of Beswick and so-called "high cost"" plants-with full cooperation from union bureaucrats.

*WORK-MEASURED productivity schemes will be introduced with union cooperation. Their aim is to slash manning levels in those plants left intact.

*"'INTERNATIONAL" manning levels will be enforced as new plants are opened up. This means attempting to lower steelworkers conditions to the worst levels in the world.

*UNION OFFICIALS will assist management to victimise and discipline unofficial strikes, poor timekeeping and absenteeism.

This vicious bosses charter runs parallel to the no-strike clauses being forced onto union members in the shipbuilding industry, and embodied in British Leyland's fake "security of earnings" deal.

And as in these other industries, the Lib-Lab government is pressing the employers forward into an all-out onslaught on jobs and working conditions in its effort to restore the profitability of British capitalism.

Key to these plans is the reactionary role of the union leaderswho have in each case been sucked into the apparatus of management, and now act only to police their own members on the shop floor.

Independence

To fight these attacks workers must begin by insisting on the independence of the trade union movement-and struggle for a clear break from all forms of In place of class collaboration aimed at maximising private profit, workers must take up the fight for trade union committees to open the books of these "nationalised" concerns to show the necessity to expropriate the privately owned suppliers, manufacturers and banks that all stand to gain from mass sackings and speed-up.

And they must fight to break the Lib-Lab coalition that is the organising centre of the bosses' offensive.

A full scale McCarthyite witch-hunt is underway in Cowley where TGWU Region 5 Commembers charged by the Oxford District Finance and General Purposes Committee.

Included among those charged are newly reelected Cowley Assembly Plant convenor Bob Fryer and three newly reelected deputy convenors-Frank Corti, Tom White and Alan Thornett.

Thornett has already been recommended for expulsion and Corti and White for removal from all office for life. Recommendations on the remaining six have not been publicly revealed.

Major charge

The major large advanced is that of " campaigning against elected and unelected officials of the union"

The whole set-up is a brazen attack on the rights of all TGWU members. It makes it a punishable offence to disagree with the union leadership.

The clear message from the TGWU leadership to the union's two million members who may want to express their views on official policies is "pay up and shut up"

There is certainly no chance of a fair hearing for those summoned before the present inquiry.

Kangaroo The first day of the "hearing" has just concluded as we go to press, confirming that the Regional Inquiry is just as much a bureaucratic Kangaroo Court as the District F&GP inquiry that preceded it Alan Thornett In that inquiry the same people laid the charges, conducted the hearing, decided the verdict, and pronounced sentence. Those sentences are the basis of the current inquiry.

The 'prosecution' remains in the "hearing" the whole time, discussing with the "judge" and "jury". Questioning is being carried out almost exclusively by District Secretary David Buckle, JP. There is no right to cross-examine.

Those charged are brought in one by one, interrogated and told to leave. Only the "judge" and "jury" and prosecution know the whole of the proceedings.

Corroborating "evidence" is being called from the Oxford District F&GP bureaucrats, who remain cloistered with the Regional officials. It appears that chosen right wing witnesses are being called.

These proceedings surpass even the bureaucratic lengths of the 1974 Regional Inquiry -which decided to remove elected Senior Stewa rd Bob Fryer and Deputy Senior Steward Alan Thornett from office, after a campaign against them carried out by extreme right winger Reg Parsons.

Nobody then suggested that to campaign against elected union representatives opened up the prospect of expulsion from the union.

Nor were any charges laid when Jack Adams the right wing senior steward at MG Abingdon went into the local Oxford Mail with a letter attacking the newly reelected left wing leadership in the Cowley Assembly Plant last December.

Opponent

The reason for this discriminatory treatment is clear. Bob Fryer is well known as an opponent of 'worker participation' in Leyland, and was the only Leyland convenor to attack the Edwardes plan for speed-up and sackings when it was announced last month.

Alan Thornett is well known as an opponent of all forms of wage control ard class collaboration, and led a fight at the TGWU conference last year for a sliding scale of wages to protect against inflation.

The Edwardes plan has already brought the closure of Speke. Its meaning is clear. And behind Edwardes stands the Lib-Lab government with its determined plan to step up the exploitation of the working class as a whole.

Speed-up Yet the 17 week strike against speed-up at Speke demonstrated clearly that the Leyland workforce is determined to defend jobs and conditions.

Annie Hall reviewed Break the Coalition.

Defend Basic Rights US miners ballot .. principled lead from the Cowley Assembly plant could find a huge response among Leyland workers.

Now, after four years of removal from office, harassment, splitting of union branches, disbanding of committees and orchestrated press witch-hunts have failed to prevent the re-election of a left wing leadership in Cowley, the officials feel forced to undertake this unprecedented inquiry.

No-one safe If this attack succeeds, then no militant will be safe within the TGWU. Anyone opposing the line of the officials publicly or privately is liable to be expelled from the union on trumped up charges.

There must be an immediate campaign throughout the union to demand the dropping of these charges. Within the Assembly Plant itself the membership must be fully informed of the way their elected leaders are being victimised by their own union.

Thornett's section last week decided on a day's strike action to lobby the Regional Inquiry-which was only called off on the personal intervention of Bob Fryer.

This approach Strike leader interviewed Back Back Petition To ensure that they demonstrate their support for Thornett, transport drivers have now elected a twelve man delegation to lobby the Inquiry, armed with a petition signed by nearly every member on the section (see There is no answer and many dangers in the bid by Frank Corti to get the courts to prevent the union inquiry.

We are opposed to any attempt to involve the bourgeois courts in the unions. The problem of bureaucracy is one to be solved by the workers' movement, not legal writs.

Broad based

We call for a broadly based defence campaign directed through stewards committees, branches and other TGWU bodies to force the dropping of all charges and defend democratic rights.

Resolutions condemning the Kangaroo Court proceedings must be sent at once to Transport House, London and to Region 5 headquarters in Birmingham. We suggest copies to be sent to Frank Corti, TGWU 5/293 Branch Secretary, 4, Queen's Close, Botley, Oxford.

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houte NO As go to press it seems certain that ASLEF tr ain drivers will press ahea d with the one-day strike called by their in pursuit of

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