cies of the Callaghan-Healey leadership of the Labour Party.
The weakness of the campaign has been that it consistently ignores the central problem facing those workers wno wisn to buno sucn ar opposition movement. HOW IS ossible to organise in action those ancis — a vast maronity - who bill place some trust in the bureaucrats of the trade unions and Labour arty, who still retain illusions that formist politics - whether they be Stalinist some way working class?
Shied The RTWC and its principle backers. the International Socialists, mere snied away mom unis question The unfortunate fact is that most workers who wish to fight back against the cuts and unemployment do not support the politics of IS. Yet all nominations for officers of the campaign from the Conference Arrangements Committee are memthe state of the opposition to Government policies, or is it just another stunt to build the Socialist Workers Party?
ns narrow ane sectaran con ception of how to build such opposition has been reflected in the lack of democracy within the RTWC. The 'military discipline' of the September hignt to work maren and tne initial decision to exclude resolutions from delegating bodies at this conference were a denial of the basic principles of WOrKerS democracy which must form the basis for a fight back. The decision to allow amendments to tne main deciaration 1s therefore a step forward, though it is still far less adequate than allowing alternative resolutions.
Why did you support the lobby of the TUC?
Obviously with the present unemploymene studuon i nau no nestanon u saying that the lobby should be supported, irrespective of who organised it, because the intention of the lobby was the manne LO SUDDOrL gerting Inen banner up tnere was a smal but necessary step in starting to tell our Executive and TUC delegates that there were grass-roots bodies of some imporan tance beginning to develop the fight against unemployment.
With the decisions of the TUC conference to aceept the Social Contract and the decline in working class living standards. how do you see the oppositionists within the labour movement beginning to build action against these policies?
I think that this is going to be a very long term problem. What you've got to recognise is that it's already established in the TUC, and now through the Labour Party conference, that they'll hold down the wages of working people well into 1977.
I think what it's done for us is to give us time to build up the alternative to ensure that the policy does not continue. There are already signs that shop stewards bodies and indeed the membership are aisO gradually beginning to challenge the results of these policies. So it's up to the shop stewards movements now to start to put out alternative strategies to the present ones.
Last March the Assembly on Unemployment, called by the North London CSEU, drew together 3,000 delegates in opposition to unemployment. A body with such rank-and-file support could give a potential national lead in coordinating such a mobilisation. /Do you think That the Assemon snoure De recaned, ano if so, on what basis?
Yes, I think they should be recalled. In fact, as I understand it, there is an opinion afoot that the conference was going to be recalled by its organisers. I like think that if it's going to be reconvened, it must be for a purpose. 1 believe this conference needs some plan of action to narness more or me labour movemen than it's got to date.
Besides actively supporting all. factions that are campaigning, and Joining in a Broad Left movement, should campaign within the official LabThe stewards sees policies beginning. the labour movement. on?
is important and should be supported. the conference JOHN BLACKLEY is Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers convenor at the Rolls Royce aerospace plant in Filton, Bristol. A delegate to the TUC Congress, he is also a featured speaker at the 'Public Forum' against cuts and unemployment being organised by Bristol activists next Monday. Here he explains to Red Weekly how he the fight back against the Government's opposition requires the broadest possible discussion of views among those committed to a fight against Labour's Tory policies. We hope that this interview and others we plan for future issues, will help to promote such a discussion throughout and get these bodies to commit themselves Within the AUEW on a national level there is substantial disilusionment with the Broad Left. Many militants, both in the rank-and-file and the leadership -such as Mike Cooley and Ernie Roberts -are supporting the Engineering Voice paper which has opened itself up for debate on the way forward for the left in Do you see such a debate as being part of a process of drawing together the left after its recent defeats by the right, in a perspective of opposition to unemployment, defence of living standards and so Yes, I think so. It Engineering Voice can use its influence within the AUEW in the elections and stand more progressive sation and speed-up? candidates, and at least not fragment the left when it comes to voting, that in itself What we've got to compete with is ine so-calca bobuar Dress now oceing to recognise the significance of the moves that the left has been making. I think they've been worried about some of the gains which we have made in the past, and now were naing the run power or Ene press interfering in the ballots and supporting right wing candidates. We must have actions underwav which will mean going to Many of the workers in the aerospace and shipbuilding industries are faced with unemployment, despite the Government proposals for nanonansanon. Acrospace stewards have been in the forefront of developing alternative plans for the industry, and could play a vital role in winning the workforce to campaigning for such plans to be accepted as the basis of a planned, nationalised industry under workers Do you feel such a plan, opposing all redundancies and demanding tal the available work be shared out without a decline in living standards, could begin to involve the workforce, under the steward leadership, in a campaign to implement these proposals, as against management's present disastrous attempts at rationaliYes. At the beginning of the year, we called a factory gate meeting, and we put it to them that we should call upon both the Government and the executive to call a halt to any movement of labour within Kolls kovce ane ine aircrarindustry We then stated that everyone's present job should be maintained and guaranteed until the airframe side of the industry had been organised into the so-called Aerospace Corporation. We even argued that the engines side should be integrated into this new aerospace corporation. force voice which can link up with government and the management which are TIMETOIS corporate strategy should then be hammered out that affects the livelihoods of our members in the future. And until that is completed every bit of policy brought about by private capital and by management should be shelved.
We've got Rolls Royce under a mer chant banker chairman absolnca by ent Government. As a merchant banker, and true to his own class, he deplores any form of state or national control o companies. He's also working with a mandate from the Government which says: you will manage Rolls Royce as a state-owned company under normal co mmercial laws. So we're back again to the old yardstick of profits before people.
Nobody in the political field of the Labour Party/Government and nobody in the trade union leadership seemed to bo paying any heed to the present situation. They were expecting us shop stewards to sit back and accept this concept of the industrv. So what have we got? Blantvr being closed, sit-ins and fights taking place. Dundonald to follow very soon Then presumably Fairford.
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We do not agree with all the points made by Bro. Blackley. But the task of building a class struggle