Final Declaration of the Workers' Control Conference

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Tesseract OCR) from a scan of a duplicated typescript and has not been corrected. Each article was cut at its title, found from the issue’s own contents page, with the scan’s page numbers marked. Expect misread words. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: title found on the page (contents.tsv, printed page 8; match 0.58); uncorrected Tesseract OCR of a duplicated typescript.

page 9 of the scan

This is a critical time for the trade union movement. A Labour Government, which was raised to office by millions of trade union members and socialists, is at present administering a policy which could, in the absence of firm resistance and viable alternative policies, result in the tragic defeat of the working class and all ite unrealised aspirations., In the event of such a setback, the freedom of the Labour Movement itself will be placed in grave jeopardy.

Therefore, this conference resolves to declare ita convivtion that anessential condition of democracy is that trade uions must be free to protect and advance the interests of their members, and that socialism is unthinkable in any society unless this freedom is upheld.

The crucial trade union freedom, upon which all others rest, is the right to strike, Without it the trade unions can only continue their existence on a servile basis. We therefore reject all Governmental attempts to restrict, control, or set aside that right. We call upon all trade unionists to defend it.

In this situation the view is reinforced that democratic controls ean only be defended if they are systematically extended throughout the unions themselves, the political movement of Labour, and national and local government, as well as into education and every form of industry and work. These controls will be built in the day-to-day struggles of workers in their organisations and at their places of work.

This Conference therefore calls upon workers everywhere, no matt— er what their occupation, to form workera’ control groups to develop democratic consciousness, winning support for workers’ control in all existing labour organisations, challenging undemocratic actions wherever they occur, and extending workers'control over industry and the economy itself, through uniting workers' control groups into a national force in the socialist movement.

Only if the working people stake their claim to power inside the Labour Movement can the Labour Government be held to ite electoral promises, and the Labour Movement take up again the advance to socialism.

Nottingham, March 3lst 1968

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WORERRS' CONTROL- WHAT WEXT?

by Ken Tarbuck and Chris Arthur

An analysis of the meaning of the demand for workers'

~ A ten page pamphlet 7d post free