Photo the movement. Eventually this procew will lead to the prospect of a 'left"
Labour Government.
The problems for the CP, however, is their dependence on the left' trade union leaders like Scanion and Jones. When the 'lefts" like Scanlon and Jones are prepared to deliver the goous, as they did over In Place of Strife and the Industrial Relations ACt, tuen the Cl will be prepared to organise huge and militant LCDTU's and take independent initiatives for strike action too. The problem i that since 1972, the 'left" leaders (with the predictable exception of Scanlon's flash-in-the-pan NIRC strike last year) have not delivered any goods Scanlon and Jones in particular did nothing to launch action against the various phases of the Tories incomes policy.
Since Labour came in, Jack Jones is revealed nor just as a staunch defender of the social contract, but as one of its principal urchitects Scanlon withdrew opposition at the TUC conference last September and its just settled the national engineering pay claim ut £10 below the figure for the national minimum being campaigned fur by the CP. Meanwhile, arch right-winger John Bord is almost certain to capture the powerful general secretary's post in the AUEW BUREAUCRACY No doubt such warthy gentlemen have their uwn reasons for tarnishing their image as the darlings too dear and concede the demands of of the left and the CP. After all, power in the late "50s and early 60% When the big struggles against In Place of Strife and the Industrial Relations Act came along they couldn't afford to ignore the militants who had pur them at the top of the pile in the Transport and Engineering Unions. Even so, it was Jones who tested the wrath of his own dockland militants when he eventually sold them out with the Jones Aldington Agreement in 1972.
both Jones and Scanion became established and secure in their pos itions and could afford to be less sensitive to the demands of their own militants and the "pressure politics of the CP's industrial machine in the T&GWU and AUEW.
become 'independent' of his shopfloor militanis, but the stakes in the class struptle are now higher than in the period 1969-74. When Government policies are being set by the need to help the ruling class shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working class trough intiation and unemploy ment, the lefta" in the TUC are very uware that mobilising their 'big battaliona' leads inevitably to confrontation with a Labour Govcrument. It's all very well for the "lefts' to make Sunday speeches about the need to purge the Labou Government of the "right wingen" Tas Scargill did at a rocent Yorkshire Miners" Council), but the mobilisation of the whole movement in the factories and localities is u different cup of ten altogether. But time moves on. Eventually, one day.
Not only has Jones in particular These are the real reasuns behind the present problems of the CP.
They've lost the guarantees of supp ort from the trade union 'lefts: On the Slinewsbury issue, Therefore there was a lot more "hard graft to be done before the CP could smell success. This is why they have sat so hparily on the campaign and taken it step-by-step through the laborious process of building up slow support amongst trade union officialdom and the "left" Labour MI's -first UCATT and the T&G WU, then the campaien for a TUC backed lobby of Parliament, and now the final push for TUC-sponsored strike action, even if only for This explains the arument of Stan Barlowe (UCATT, Birmingham) at the LCDTU last week that "Shrewsbury was different from the PontonFille Five. Then the mass movement was ready. Over Stewsbury it had to be carefully created... What he meant was that the nass movement had to be slowly created on the CPs The arguments and tactics of the Communist Party are fine if you really believe socialism is uchievable through Parliament If you support the parlismentary road Iben, as a colsequence, you have to also suppon ine Crs near destruction of the Shrewsbury campaign and che present demoralisation, particularly in the building trade unions, as a result of ineffective 'protest' action which bas dragged on for over 18 months Effective action could have been huiet and the pickets could now be out of jail. It would have taken lone the Communist Party right down the line. The resolution they passed said they key need is united rank and füe pressure to win the TUC and Labour Government to chinge course now.
Only 17 delepates refused to vote for the resolution. Fourteen of those were trade unionists belonging to the to isolate themselves and walked out, to the delight of the CP, when the platform refused to send the whole of the collection to the Glasgos: dustcart drivers The LODTU stands in dire danger of being killed off by the politics of the CP. Militants can only sare it by fighting for it to become a read camp agning organisution against the ruling class. But that fight now and in the future depends on the forces of the revolutionary left demonstrating un alternative and effective line to the pseudo socialisit of the Communist Party and their left-Labour supporters Sam Boyd ******** Another article in the near future will disouss the perspectives for working toward ; the emergincy of a revolutionary current in the trade unions and an alternative to Stalinism and the politics of Labour
adapt into şervice industries. This is not a disaster for workers while The oil industry is squeezing at traditional industries that it cannot
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IMG who abstained. A similar num ber of delegates from the Internat- ional Socialists mistakenly decided