They'll Keep the White Flag Flying Here

Scan page 7

ARMS were waved. Cheques were brandished. Cliches tripped off tongues - tired old allusions to swords and sabres, weapons and armouries, firing lines and battlegrounds; not standing idly by, winning hearts and minds, and the unity of this great movement of ours...

But above the stage-managed deliberations of the TUC conference of union executives fluttered the white flag of surrender to Tebbit's anti-union laws.

Len Murray made this clear in his opening speech, when he deliberately began to talk of the Tebbit Act:

"I say the Act, because realistically nothing we decide today will stop the Government from putting its Bill on the Statute Book this summer."

Outrage

Nobody who spoke disagreed with Murray. Like him they were surprised and outraged that after all the TUC leaders have done to prevent the development of mass struggle against the Thatcher government, they should now be subject to new legal attacks.

"It is the Government» which has picked this fight", argued Murray. •The trade union movement has not picked a fight with emplogers - or the Government. We koo» what damage thai could cause."

Rank and file trade urionists of course know misi damage has been czec to their living sa-cats social services = ISTE ibe IUC = alaboradion with the Tories.

Yet the eight point plan adopted at the conference does not end that collaboration. Recommendation seven calls on trade union members to boycott tribunals only when they are discussing cases arising from Tebbit's closed shop restrictions. In every Duffy claimed the i other respect it remains *business as usual' between union leaders, employers and the Tory goverpment at all levels.

Certainly as long as union officials continue to bob-do with ite IT E all 785T brise bosse Despers ite fall force of Ware and io jai mus righte ad Interests Meatatue. I case anyone is tempied to take seriously the vague threats by Scargill and others of industrial action to support a union under attack, Murray made clear that what the TUC is proposing is not solidarity with sections of workers in •The General Council will, as they always do, deal with unions lie. union officials], not with individuals or groups of workers. And the support they give cannot be unconditional: there will be so blank cheques So unJons officials can here confid.

DOcE positive headers in asso to i a responsible There say well be sisuasion from shich me will basE to extricate anions: that mould not be the first time that the General Council have had to advise a union to draw back from a no-win situation" [!!!!] Bluster No wonder, then, that with this plan on the table the Wembley conference centre witnessed such rare unanimity of the bureaucrats from the extreme right and one-time left.

After Scargill's bluster - remininscent of vintage Gormley speeches -Terry Duffy moved Is 0n ibe act. claimite credit 1*500E ::

Been = Reia Granthar cares ica: e Eghting i=d mus: D0s be irittered azar on lega custs. while VALGO's Geoffrer Drain reminded the conference of the strikes over the Pentonville Five!

All were confident that the eight-point plan (to which no alternatives were allowed and which could not be referred back, or amended by the conference) would be passed unanimously - and that, once passed, they would be obliged to do nothing more than pay a few thousand pounds into a 'Campaign

HARRY SLOAN gives the flavour of the April 5 TUC conference of Executives.

Empty hall, empty speeches.. and Defence Fund' Nobody laughed when Murray solemnly pronounced that 'this is a formidable programc= 1: 02 2• 55: C=MS• et arund ine hall sporting credentials. being warmly gretted by Sid Weighell and other officials - while rank and file trade unionists lobby= ing the conference were kept firmly on the vutside.

But for trade unionists on the shop floor in industry and the public sector the TUC decision is no laughing matter. It is a major betrayal - the cost of which we could still be carrying many years hence.

The urgency of a campaign to stop the retreat and mobilise for all-out action against Tebbit could not be clearer. by an idiot fu sound fury,