Garners Conference Strikes a Blow Against Officiai Sabotage

Scan page 11

the conference called and sponsored by the strike committee, the TGWU Region 1, SE Region TUC and the Greater London Association of Trades Councils.

For different reasons both strikers and the TGWU bureaucracy have been aware of its crucial importance for some time.

For the strikers it represents a major oppor tunity to take their policies of Saturday mass pickets, blacking of suppliers to the company and demands for a regional levy into wider layers of workers; and a chance to commit to action all the major labour movement bodies sponsoring the conference.

Threat

Such policies are inevitably opposed by union officials who see them as a threat to the stranglehold they have exerted on the strike and to the balance of forces with the employers on which their bureaucratic privileges depend.

For this reason TGWU Catering Officer George Abrahams and the assorted bureaucrats who had sponsored the conference viewed it with some apprehension.

After it had been called a newly elected strike committee had emerged, fighting to mobilise the TGWU around these policies.

The assembled platform of left talkers now faced the danger of being committed to action to win the strike.

To forestall this threat the bureaucracy used two tactics in the conference.

Watering down

On the one hand hey contin led their well-e tablished practice of watering down the actual policies of the strike committee into demands for 'financial donations'. , 'strong pickets' and outside help from other unions on blacking.

Obviously under tremendous pressure from the TGWU bureaucracy, strikers' leader Rahman did not call in his report for mass picketing (even though the last strike committee bulletin advertised the conference as discussing ways to build the mass pickets).

Adoption

He called instead on trade unionists to "adopt a steak house" for regular picketing. He ignored the question of a Regional financial levy and called instead for the conference rank and file to come forward with suggestions for raising finance.

The question of blacking was also turned away from the TGWU representatives on the platform, into asking what suggestions other unions had for blacking.

The rogues gallery of left talkers on the platform (which included George Abrahams, Brian Nicholson, General Executive Council (GEC) member, Jack Dromey of the SE Region TUC and Labour 'left' Sydney Bidwell) then spent 1½ hours commiting their organisations to this emasculated policy, and praising the TGWU leaders for their conduct of the strike.

Abraham's claim that the strike committee controlled the running of the strike and that the TGWU leaders responded to their wishes conveniently overlooked the fact that no letter had been circulated to TGWU branches Dromey containing the actual policies of the strike committee.

Abrahams himself had blocked support for a regional levy in the 1/647 International Workers branch of the TGWU and had earlier tiate a return to work in exchange for an ACAS inquiry.

Abrahams finished his speech lyingly claiming that the TGWU hai i done everything possible to back the company.

Move Nicholson related how the TGWU had decided to "move into the industry in a big way" and that the Garners struggle had the "100% backing" of the GEC-for what this is worth in practice.

Dromey's left blather was marked by his assertion that this strike was further proof that the black and brown workers that had fought at Grunwick and Garner were the 'cream of our movement' Yet throughout the meeting, Dromey had been sitting next to Sydney Bidwell, the so-called left Labour MP who has endorsed the racist recommendations of the Parliamentary Select Committee-which plans to harass, drive out or bar the entry of these same "black and brown' workers.

Bidwell, having had the effrontery to sit on a platform including seven union members of the strike committee scurried from the meeting before he could be challenged.

Sharp edge The sharp edge to the meeting however came from the contributors from the floor.

These immediately went beyond the policy limitations imposed by the platform and posed the question not of what the rank and file were going to do to win the strike but what the bureaucracy on the platform' especially from Region 1 of the TGWU, were going to do to win the strike.

This came first with divisions in the bureaucracy itself.

Eric Rechnits, GEC member and Region 1 Committee member whose area covers Smithfield meat market, contradicted Abraham's claim that everything had been done to black Garners.

He said he hadn't heard of the conference until an hour before it started. As far as he knew no blacking action had been taken at Smithfield.

Pledge

He then pledged himself and the Regional Committee to black all those companies that supply Garners with delegate from • the GWU 5/833 Branch.

He contrasted the strength of the membership in current recognition disputes (Grunwick out for over 18 months; Sandersons out for a year) with the sabotage and betrayals of the TGWU Blacking He related the way in which the Executive of the TGWU had recently refused to implement a national blacking of Sandersons and had left their members isolated at Grunwicks.

He then went on to focus on the policies that would prevent such a betrayal in the Garners dispute in calling for the sponsors and especially representatives of the TGWU present to support Rechnits's call for secondary blacking of supplies to Garners.

He then asked whether the TGWU would support the call from the then current strike committee bulletin for mass picketing which was in no way the same as Dromey's proposal of 'major picketing'.

But rather than making appeals to other unions for money he demanded to know whether TGWU representatives in the meeting would support the call for a regional levy.

conference He finished by proposing there should be a recall conference in six weeks if the strike wasn't won.

This drew an angry response from Nicholson who completely defended the leadership of the TGWU and refused to support the call for a regional levy on the spurious grounds that if they gave it to Garners they would have to give it to everyone.

In closing the conference. Abrahams read his intended press statement which was amended from the floor to include the demand that the sponsors should commit themselves to a recall conference in six weeks time if the strike was not won.

The outcome of the conference is of major significance not merely to the Garners strike but to all the other recognition strikes being fought at the moment.

"Drowning in support while thirsting for action" was Mrs Desai's description of the Grunwick strike at a similar conference held last year, sponsored and attended by many of the left talkers who attended this conference.

Unlike last year, however, the Garners strikers refused to be drowned in the empty rhetoric of the likes of Dromey and Nicholson.

Despite the fact that the final press statement did not commit the sponsors to all the policies of the strike c Committee the bureaucracy y vere forced to go beyond the policy limitations they had sought to impose.

• Leading members of the TGWU at regional and executive level were forced to commit themselves in public to 1) blacking of suppliers who continue to deliver to Garners, 2) to concede that they weren't opposed to mass picketing in principle and to promise the mobilisation of large delegations on picket lines and finance for the strike.

Independence That these bureaucrats were forced to make these concessions is a reflection of the growing independence from the full time officials of certain sections of the leadership of the strike.

The bitter lessons that these workers have learnt is that they have to fight their own leadership every inch of the way in getting support for the strike and defeat the employers.

'The way forward for the strike leadership is clear. The bureaucracy have to be kept to the pledges they made at the conference and made to account for their failure at the recall conference.

The fight for a regional levy and mass picketing has to be renewed within the TGWU 1/647 Branch and within Region 1 e: the TGWU and connected with the struggles continuir: at Grunwicks and Sanders::

Scan page 12

SOCILST PRESS As we go to press, it appears that British Leyland management are standing by their decision to reject the final appeal against the sacking. of finger lifted in his defence by the AUEW and TUC officials he has served so slavishly.

And the way in which Leyland have moved against Power indicates the huge dangers to the independence of the trade union movement that are contained in the growing system of expensespaid 'participation' and other committees within Leyland and other industries.

There is no independent voice equipped to check on the facts of the expenses paid out to the convenors • HERE

----- pull-quotes -----

JABEN 1OR

sought, without strike com- mittee permission, to nego-