The Broad Left Organising Committee conference in Sheffield on 24 March will be the most important meeting of the left in the trade unions for some time. Fifteen hundred delegates are expected. JOHN ROSS looks at the issues confronting the conference.
going to see the biggest challenge to the British unions in more than half a century. The beyond the struggles in support of the NUM and defence of Liverpool City Council.
so enormous, their nature is still often not grasped by the left. It is worth going beyond the Tories detailed proposals to examine their overall strategy.
laws — mised for 1985/86 two key proposals. Both aim to change the character of the trade union movement.
shop unless 80 per cent of workers vote for lt. political funds for unions unless there is a majority ballot in favour of them. A third proposal, already leaked for next year, is to restrict or eliminate the right to strike in Taken together they conerent strategy.
the last round to the Tebbit laws, was to stop solidarity action by unions.
been used against the SOGAT over the BPCC dispute, and successful limitation rights since the 1927 Trades Disputes Act.
miners or the Ford against the day of action on GCHQ -enging these laws.
union organisation.
Tory attacks aims to break up the structure of the labour movement itself. dramatic implications workers were in closed shops. government wants Huluck WE ALL BROKE THE LAW WHEN WE FOUGHT FOR nave THE RIGHTS YOU HAVE TODAY!
created The next eighteen months are Tory attacks go But because the shifts involved are The present round of Tebbit/King with another installment pro- are centred on The first step is to outlaw the closed The second one is to abolish milion -But a further essential services. add up lo ago.
The first measure, already taken in This first round of laws has now NGA, against the second step against the NUJ. It has been the first of trade union ty.
While the previous round of Tebbit laws still cannot be used against the Split workers Tebbit has stopped smaller or weaker sections of workers successfully challWhilst the first installment of Tebbit laws weakened union solidarity it did not alter the character of existing The next round of The attack on the closed shop has unions.
for membership. In 1978 over five million The that Murray, Basnett, Duffy and Chapple. The TUC's 'new realists' By attacks on the closed shop, and other measures, the goal is to take two TUC to three million members out of the trade unions over a five year period.
The fall in trade union membership since 1979 is still limited. The decline is from 12.5 million to slightly under 10 - although this is a twenty per cent fall. It is the first decline in trade union membership since the 1930s.
decline to around seven million would mean a cut back of ty. forty per cent since its peak five years That would really weaken the unions on an altogether different scale.
The new laws are a direct threat to the effective existence of a number of public sector and white collar unions. NUPE and COHSE have been targetted for particular government attacks.
The proposal on political funds is For breaks up l labour movement. By 1983 one third of the membership of the TUC was unions not affiliated to the Labour ParWith 70 per cent of ASTMS contracting out of paying the political levy and over fifty percent contracting out in unions like the NGA and SOGAT, Thatcher is now very confident she will win some of the political fund ballots.
The aim of this is not lust to under mine the finances of the Labour Party. It is to change the character of the With maybe half the TUC ultimately in non-affiliated unions, and therefore with the permanent threat of a split of the trade union movement on political lines, it would be the right wing, often non-affiliated, unions that would dictate the character of the The structural changes in the method of election of the Genera Council made at the 1983 Congress, and the policy changes that followed it, snow mae valenn cicarly The authors of the 'new realism' - Murray, Chapple, Graham, Duffy - are prepared to weaken the present scope of relations between the TUC and the Labour Par-