in the NHS, or the Troops Out MoveAt its annual general meeting in February, Camden Trades Council refused to accept the rule. This did not prevent supporters of Rule 14 from raising the matter again, although this was entirely unconstitutional. And for a second time Rule Frantic It was at this point that members of the Communist Party on the Trades Council - who in supporting Rule 14 had acted as the TUC's policemen - now became the TUC's informers. Frantic phone calls by secretary Sid Gregory and chairman Bill Lloyd broke the news to the TUC. In return for this act of informing, the TUC gave Gregory and Lloyd a free rein to deal with the opponents of Rule 14.
Their first step was to 'suspend' the Trades Council - a suspension later approved not surprisingly by the bureaucrats of the TUC. Gregory and Lloyd then cancelled the April meeting of the Trades Council and the Executive Committee, but called a meeting last week with the single aim of ensuring capitulation to the TUC.
These manouvres fell totally outside the constitution of the Trades Council, and this cynical disregard for all the standards of working class democracy was completed when Gregory attempted to rig the meeting by saying that only those who supported the rule would be admitted. Indeed, the meeting itself displayed as nakedly as was possible just what Rule 14 means, and the dangers it represents for the entire trades council movement; because the entire evening was a tarcical travesty of everything the working class movement stands for.
Shouted At the start of the meeting, chairman Lloyd stated that the gathering was not one of the Trades Council but to 'reconvene' it. When asked then what the status of the meeting was, and on whose authority it had been called, Lloyd shouted: I am Above: LEN BLOOD, who polled 7,684 votes; Below: STEPHEN PERKIN-won 9,904 JOHN STURROCK poll.
talist press barons. The recent first round election for the post of Assistant General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (Engineering Section) saw 17,588 votes go to candidates put up by the revolutionary lent Stephen Perkin, a Coventry member of the Workers Revolutionary Party won 9,904 votes; while Len Blood, a candidate for the International Socialists' front group Engineers Charter, won 7,684. The poll was topped by right-winger John Weakley with 82,094 votes. In the second round he will run off against Broad Left candidate Bol Wright, who came second with 63,723 votes. A total of 255,906 votes were cast in the first round, a 29.7 per cent The margin of nearly 20,000 votes between Weakley and Wright was only to be expected. Wright's involvement in selling the redundancies at Chrysler, his acceptance of Ryder and participation at British Leyland, and his Terusal to come our open agams incomes policy has left the door wide open to the right wing and the capiGovernment's anti-working class policies that Red Weekly called for a vote for candidate to be announced).
The most important task. though is to organise the opposition of those prepared to fight the right wing. This means working for unity in action with the many militants who still support the Broad Left. Discontent The IS, by setting up their own separate front organsation, only isolate Themse ves tom such mutants, une WRP's attitude is even more sectarian -one of their members commented in a recent issue of their paper News Line: Just as we can beat the Broad Left, we can beat the right wing'. They do not differentiate between Weakley and when ue second round or vounk. whereas Red Weekly calls on all militants to vote for Wright against the right-wing offensive.
What is necessary is to take initiauves - against incomes poncy, teame ancies and the cuts - which can draw in the large number of Broad Left mill tants prepared to fight the right wing. The 26 May Day of Action, and the lobbies of the special TUC on 16 June and the TUC Congress in September, aTe ODOuS TOcUses.
Where militants can be organised outsdetne broad certo uno suca policies - as in Birmingham and Wolverhampton - then clearly this snowd be done. But such groups should have a central aim of mobilising inside the Broad Left and the AUEW as a whole.
Such a process can give a real meaning to the standing of candidates against the Broad Left. Without such a campaign. the votes cast against the Broad Left will simply remain a passive opposition or discontent. Ene key last now is to transform the discontent shown in the recent election results into action against the Government's right-wing policies.
John Graham (Birmingham AUEW)