back up their emands for political freedom, while important moves were made towards the buildhand of Franco's butchers.
Last Wednesday (11 June) the workers of the Basque country gave the Spanish dictatorship their reply to the wave of terror that has been raging for the past two months.
Despite the systematic arrest and torture of suspected political oppositionists, the bombings and violent attacks carried out by the unofficial right-wing group (Guerrillas of Christ the King'), and the presence throughout the region of thousands of armed police and plainclothes cops, 100,000 workers responded to the call of the workers' commissions and revolutionary left goups and struck to show their determination to fight the dictatorship's 'state of emergency' Strike call The regime made a desperate last attempt to intimidate workers from taking up the strike call. For weeks before the strike plainclothes political police were crawling all over the coun to: ANDREW WIARD (Report) Last week the tottering Franco dictatorship was pushed yet closer towarcs the cliff's edge. One hundred thousand workers in the Basque country defied the reign of terror and went on strike to ing of an international campaign of solidarity with those fighting the fascist regime.
But the regime is still prepared to wreak bloody havoc in its dying days. Its latest criminal plot is a plan to bring two Basque militants - Garmendia and Echevarria - before a military court and murder them. These two militants have now been moved from the Carabanchel prison outside Madrid to Burgos in the Basque country, where they are to be tried. The prosecution, in its official submission to the court, has demanded the death sentence.
The Basque workers have already shown their determination to fight for the lives of Garmendia and Echevarria - and will undoubtedly do so again in the weeks ahead. taken up iy the workers movement around the world. Only international solidarity can stay the try, and on the day of the strike itself groups of armed semi-military police were to be seen every where.
Chris Balfour Road blocks and police searches were mounted outside the major citles, and on the main road to Madrid traffic was forced to queue for two miles as armed police searched vehicles and checked identities. In the city of San Sebastian armed police units patrolled the central market to stop any attempt at a shopping boycott, and attempts to hold demonstrations in two cities were ruthlessly broken up by baton charges.
The correspondent of the Paris daily Le Monde gave a detailed picture of the way in which the strike ununfolded in different parts of the country. Writing from Eibar, an industrial city in the heart of the Bas Their example must be ies admit that 80% of the workers struck, he says:
ordinary....Even the grey-uniformed cy in the Basque country"
workers of the Alpha factory did not start up the belt that drives the sewing machines. The Lambretta workers also folded their arms. The rest followed. In most of the tactoried in ided to strike on the spot.
followed this example. On 11 June a general strike while the state of emergency was still in effect.
to have been more or less important Zanu senevana. que country where even the authorit"At first nothing seems out of the Civil Guard, automatic pistols on their hips, standing on the pavement, are no surprise: it's just the "state of emergenFolded arms But this Wednesday morning the if you want to"
the city, assemblies took place and decThe young apprentices in the professional schools Eibar took up the challenge: to launch *The workers mobilisation seems La simple glance"
slick.
stop work" orship's attempt to try to murder Basque militants Jose Antonio Garmendia and Angel Otaegui Echevarria. ish workers down. It will take a lot more than a second-hand king and a cardboard capitalist 'democracy' to
BUREAUCRATIC MANOEUVRES.. — bureaucracy/workers' democracy how unions conduct their own affairs.
The sudden burst of sympathy in the capitalist press for 'trade union • democracy' is completely hypocritical. There was never any publicity, let alone defence of militants in the AUEW when Scanlon's right-wing predecessor Carron was carrying out his witch-hunts. In those days the press were keener to defend the right of trade union "leaders' to control the shop floor affairs of the unions. The whole aim of the press campaign, of course, has always been to support the most pro-capitalist sections inside the unions - in particular the right wing inside the AUEW.
John Weakley, one of the two South Wales members of the National Committee disqualified from voting on the postal ballot/branch ballot issue, knew he could rely on "outside' help in his campaign against Scanlon's decision. Rather than campaigning for an enquiry established by the workers' movement to look into the decision, he went instead to the capitalist courts.
PRESS HYSTERIA The very union that led the fight against the Industrial Relations Act and its Court found itself put in the dock not by the Tory Government but by a section of its own membership. At the same time as fuelling press hysteria, the right wing have been campaigning up and down the union to pass resolutions against Scanlon.
It is in this very campaign to "safeguard union democracy' that these people have exposed how truly truly undemocratic they really are. Last week, Birmingham West AUEW District Committee passed a resolution condemning Scanlon's casting vote. In order to get the matter discussed, the right wing removed standing orders so that their is the most blatant act of state interference in the trade union movement since the days of the Industrial Relations Act. It vveakley-relied on outside help resolution could be taken before normal union business was dealt But when a resolution moved by an IMG memher was put to Birmingham East District Committee the next week, the right-wing chairperson insisted that it could enly be discussed after all business items.
As a result it was never discussed, No doubt this had something to do with the fact that the resolution condemned the right wing for using the capitalist state to "settle' internal union matters.
But the Communist Party inspired 'Broad Left' has done nothaign. virtually nothing about this fund-. amental issue. Indeed the 'lefts"
Rules Revision Conference to get the credentials of Weakley and his fellow South Wales delegate, Graham Healy, withdrawn.
DEMOCRACY four and a half weeks of National Committee and Rules Revision meetings before challenging the South Wales delegates' credentials, completely exposing their bureaucratic notion of how to lead the union. On far more fundamental issues such as amalgamation, which the right-wing defeated on a 27-25 credentials. It was only when the the 'left' moved.
nor postal ballots, put forward by left and right respectively, guarantee union democracy. The postal ballot means that the membership are unaware of whom they are voting for, and are therefore open to intervene on behalf of the moderates such as Boyd. On the other hand branch balloting is unrepresentative - only about 10 per cent tions - and is recognised as such by the membership at large. ing to combat the right-wing campThe Morning Star has said paved the way to their own defeat by their blatant manoeuvring at the The so-called "lefts' waited for their politics.
Best debate.
vote, the left kept silent about these election process was challenged that In reality, neither branch ballots campaign. press smear campaigns which always of the members vote in AUEW elecThe only effective answer to the Scanion-lack of class leadership right wing demagogy about union democracy' is for voting to take place in the factories after election material has been distributed to all the membership and the candidates have addressed either factory or area mass meetings to put forward This would ensure both a higher turn-out and the fullThe whole membership would be involved in deciding the key issues facing the union and the officials subsequently elected would have a real base of support.
CLASS LEAD
Amongst the rank and file there is quite a feeling for such a method of election; and militants should campaign for this in the union as the most effective means of undermining the impact of the right wing's Above all, militants are beginning to realise that the present lack of support for the Scanlon leadership arises not from the method of election but from the lack of class leadership by the Broad Left. The sell-out of the Manchester engineering occupations in 1972, the retreats on the national claim in 1973-4, the Boyd-backed by press smear campaign vacillations in the fight against the Industrial Relations Act, the retreat over the Social Contract at last year's TUC, and this latest bureaucratic manoeuvring - these are the real reasons behind the declining support for the Scanlon leadership in the union.
Although it will be necessary to defend Scanlon against the right wing and the witch-hunting of the press, this will only be credibly done by pursuing independent class policies inside the union. These • clear and unequivocal rejection of of the Social Contract and any other form of wage restraint; • submission of a national nil-norm threshold claim to the Engineering Employers' Federation to protect all members living standards and any wage increase from the ravages of inflation; • the organisation of factory occ upations to meet redundancies and the demand for nationalisatron under workers control of all companies creating redundancies or receiving Government aid such as Ferranti and Herbert Machine Tools; • the election of all union officials by factory votes after a full and democratic debate The right of immediate recall by the member ship of such officials.
John Graham (Birmingham AUEW)
----- pull-quotes -----
JERNATIONAL MARVIDI GROUP FORWARD TO
SPANISH REVOLUTION
FREL EVA FORES AND ALL
..OR The decision by the High Court whereby branch balloting will be illegal in the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers
sets a precedent which if ignored by the trade union movement could quite easily lead to much more drastic legislation on
LIMITED red weekly 19 june 1975