Witch-hun

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IN the run-up to elections for senior TGWU shop steward in BL's Cowley Assembly plant yet another witchhunt has been launched by the right wing.

Two years ago, during the last elections right wingers aided by the Communist Party mounted a press and leafletting campaign witch-hunting the plant's left wing leadership over their defence of the Irish republican struggle: their "crime" had been to support the right of Provisional Sinn lein to march through Oxford.

This time TGWU District Secretary Buckle has used the pages of the scurrilously anti-union Oxford Journal to launch accusations that "left wing Trotskyists" are "stirring up race hatred at British Leyland"

Buckle's allegations centre on a wave of written complaints tabled by black workers in the plant to the Commission for Racial Equality against the brazenly racialist behaviour of the plant's chief security officer Ray Coxon.

Such complaints were "stupid", , declares an arrogant Buckle. He claims that was "attempts by left wingers to orchestrate a protest "which led to the delay between the initial angry walkouts over Coxon's actions last September and the complaints being brought.

Incapable

*The extreme left wingers have jumped on the bandwagon," insists Buckle -Who plainly believes that black workers are incapable of thinking for themselves or organising their own campaigns. "They're exploiting the blacks for political reasons."

Of course nobody has been "exploiting" the legitmate anger of Cowley's black workers at the continued presence of Covon in in the plant. And if his removal is a "political" question, then every principled socialist and trade unionist should endorse such politics.

Indeed TGWU convenor Bob Fryer fought hard at the time for a mass meeting and a 24-hour stoppage by the whole plant demanding Coxon's removal.

Cynical

Buckle, on the other hand, in a desperate bid to weaken the support of the left wing in the plant, is prepared cynically to attack a struggle by black workers to assert-in however limited a way -their rights.

By thus sabotaging the complaints, Buckle effectively lines up himself-and the TGWU-with BL's racist management, and sabotages the TGWU's official policy at the time of the dispute, which was to support the call for Coxon's removal.

This action has met an angry response from the biggest union branch in the plant-the 5/293 Branchwhich has decided to challenge Buckle's conduct through the machinery of the union. GOVERNMENT Pamphlet 40p plus postage from Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8

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