'Sacred principles are at stake' > Strike cal Following the NUR Executive's

Scan page 4

strike call Socialist Organiser spoke strike call Socialist Organiser spoke

Do you think Weighell will use the NUR conference to head off the strike on pay?

Well, the strike starts on the first day of the conference so he can't stop it happening. But you can't tell exactly the balance of views at the conference -it's a mystery and an enigma.

There are a lot of new delegates, so it is possible that there may be some promising surprises. A lot of our members - even quite non-political, nonmilitant members - have been quite embarrassed by the amount of humble pie the NUR leadership has been eating in the last year or SO.

How do you account for the size of the 17-6 vote for strike action on the Executive? Would you think management's retreat over the workshop closures was a factor?

No. The initial vote for industrial action was taken several weeks ago. What was put off was the form. And despite what Sid Weighell has been saying, the fact is that a clear consensus on the Executive has been that the kind of guerrilla warfare he has been promoting has been nothing more than fighting with tulips!

There was nothing particularly new about the vote. In fact there were two people absent and one in the chair who would probably have voted for industrial action as well. On the Executive there is a hard-core of half a dozen who will support Weighell no matter what he does.

They were the six against the strike.

How do you assess the mood of the membership on the strike?

Initial reports suggest no opposition to it. Several sacred principles are involved. There is the fact that the anniversary date is moved from April to September - people see that as a permanent precedent: it's half-way towards not making an offer at all!

There is the size of the offer itself - 3% over the year. And finally there is what the BR Board wants. Nobody is under any illusion that the suspension of the workshop closures is anything but temporary. All of the workshop representatives supported the strike, by the way, including three people from Swindon, Horwich and Shildon.

They all know tht at the very best all the Board will come back with is ''alternative" proposals which spread the harm rather than concentrating it.

And the other point of course is that the Board has hung its banner on one-man trains.

Can I ask you about the question of Weighell's witch-hunt against you and the Militant? Do you get any guage of how the conference will go?

There is no way of knowing which way it will go. It could go for anything from endorsing the Executive position - which is against his attempts to witch-hunt me - to voting the expulsion of everyone involved!

What Weighell has done is shot his bolt: he has defined Militant as "Tony Benn and all his supporters" Well, if you remember, last year 25 delegates at the NUR conference voted to support Benn in the Deputy Leadership election.

So is he saying that a third of the NUR conference delegates should be expelled? And presumably he also means a majority of the national executive should be expelled! This is if he is going to pursue it to its illogical conclusions!

I have heard that some of the branches which have appealed against the Executive's decision have done so on the basis of false information. They • were under the impression that those accused had actually put their names to the Militant letter which went round to NUR branches. That would actually have been a breach of rule.

It is interesting that apparently Sid Weighell in his most recent speech was implying that he would like to see the rules changed to get Militant put out of the union.

I don't think he's ever met a Militant supporter in his life to be honest. No I mean that! He accused me of being a Militant supporter until I pointed out that he sponsored me as a PPC against Tony Mulhearne from the Militant Editorial Board!

He accused Brighton branch of being Militant, while there's not a Militant supporter in the branch.

If he does go for a rule change then it would do us a favour because it makes it clear what he means: that in conditions of a closed shop you cannot work on the railways îf you do not agree with Sid Weighell!

What was this meeting of Branch Secretaries that Weighell claimed gave him an ovation?

It is an unofficial body, outside the rules of the union, called the Council of Branch Secretaries. It is attended by only around 100 out of 580 branch secretaries.

It's interesting that by making his conference pitch there Sid is going to an unofficial body to campaign against the democratic decisions of the national executive!

What is the future for the growing rail Broad Left? If we can survive the next few years there are big possibilities. The Beeching years have meant that there is a big gap, between the older leaders and the rank and file. All most all the top officials are due to retire in the next five years. The "officer corps" of the NUR - including many branch secretaries - must be renewed, while many of the NCOs - the rank and file activists, are younger and far more militant.

Time is on our side.

Scan page 5

THE good news started before we arrived at Newcastle for the National Labour Women's Conference: the hall had to be changed because the number of delegates and observers who had registered far exceeded expectations.

Altogether, 600 delegates attended: twice that of last year. The women's organisation of the Labour Party is obviously the fastest growing and the most dynamic part of the Party.

On the main policy issues the Conference was fairly united. However, important resolutions on the conference theme of "Disarmament and Development" were passed, and included a call for withdrawal from NATO (passed overwhelmingly against opposition from the platform) 8100 unilateral disarmament.

On other issues also, the Women's Conference showed itself ready to go further with socialist policies than the main Annual Conference.

We passed a call to commit the next Labour Conference to introduce a statutory minimum wage, linked to the cost of living (again with 'reservations from the platform), and for Cue nationalisation with special provision for women's committees deal with research into women's health needs.

The discussion on the Tebbit so-called Employment Bill also showed that the women's sections of the Party were in no doubt as to how this Bill should be treated: the resolution that was passed unanimously included a pledge that:

"should these vicious proposals become law, we will give our total support to all trade unionists who break the law"

On youth unemployment, conference voted by a 2-1 majority to totally oppse the Youth Opportunities Programme and support the YOPs Trainees Union Rights Campaign. The platform opposed this resolution with the dubious argument that YOPs was 'better than nothing' for school-leavers.

Important resolutions on Women and Employment were passed overwhelmingly. The most compre5, 21 JUNI 1980 campaign les Women's Fighttack Highes hensive of these called for changes in the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination legislation to allow positive action in employment and the repeal of all exempted categories (which notoriously include all state benefits, allowing the government to discriminate against women in supplementary and other benefits).

It also called for the legal definition of equal pay to be changed to allow inclusion of the concept of 'equal pay for work of equal value' . At present, equal pay legislation only applies where men and women do the same work - so that the vast majority of women's jobs, which are done by women only, are excluded.

Conference voted to condemn the Labour leadership's support for Thatcher's war in the South At teen to gotes to Votes was opposed by the Women's • Committee. Gerry Byrne, an SO and Women's Fightback supporter, delegate from Putney Women's Section pointed to Michael Foot's craven support for Thatcher's war and demanded that the British Fleet be withdrawn.

Despite the slaughter raging in the Middle East while the conference was going on - there was no time for an emergency resolution on the Middle East. This may have had something to do with the fact that Gwyneth Dunwoody, an NEC member on the National Women's Committee is a supporter of the Friends of Israel.

So some good resolutions were passed. But for many of us, the really important debate was not on these policies: because we know that the Labour Party as a whole, the NEC, or the PLP are under no obligation to pay any attention to what the women's conference does, says or decides.

For us, the most important debate was on the women's organisation, and the 40 or so resolutions aimed at giving it a place in the decsion-making structures of the party, and giving it an effective voice. It was at this point that the unity of the conference broke down: with a clear division that was, unfortunately between the older women party members and the younger women with recent experience of the Women's Liberation Movement.

There were four main for fAr delegates could spend in the bar!).

Secondly, we wanted the women's section of the NEC to be elected by the women's conference, and accountable to it. At present, the women's seats on the NEC are the property of the annual conference - and only 11% of the delegates last year were women.

These seats do not go to the women most committed to feminism and the policies of the women's organistion, but to the women the male trade union bosses want to appoint.

Elected

Thirdly, we wanted the national women's committee to be elected by and accountable to the women's conference. At present the committee is elécted by a complicated and mysterious ballot that most of women' s sections never seem to see. There are also five places for NEC members: last year two of these were men. A national women's committee committed to the policies of the women's organisation has to be elected at the women's conference:

Fourthly, we wanted to noon (when many delegates would have lett) to Sunday. We won that battle but were still left with little over an hour for discussion on which nearly a quarter of the resolutions were tabled!

We did get an extension of half an hour — but regretted it when the chairperson, Anne Davis tried to prevent anyone from speaking in the 'open debate' in favour of any of these positions. Speaker after speaker, (many of them Militant tendency supporters) got up to oppose positive discrimination, saying that the alternative was for women to work harder in our constituency parties.

Clearly, it's our fault that we're underrepresented in the party! Some of the trade union delegates opposed the women's conference election of NEC members, on the grounds, apparently, that they wanted their votes to be exercised by their male leaders.

The conference was obviously polarised: and a great deal of heat was generated by the hostile and bureaucratic attitude ABORTION RIGHTS CAMPAIGN AGM Sat. 26 June at Lambeth Town Hall, SW2.

11am - 4pm.

Creche available.

of the chairperson, who not only rigged the debate in favour of speeches against the proposals, but ended by misquoting a resolution in the middle of calling a vote.

The votes were close -but we won three out of four. Women's seats on the NEC elected by Women's Conference; positive discrimination in favour of women on parliamentary shortlists; and resolutions from women's conference to annual conference. We lost the vote on electing our National Women's Committee from conference, on a show of hands.

This is a victory - but unless we push these positions through so the NEC has to take notice of and act on them they'll mean nothing. Constitutional amendments need to be drafted and fought for at Labour Party annual conference - fought for by the Thursday For further details nhone f70 6459 or 582 2955 entire women's organisation. An indication of the preparations for a fight were given in the elections of the Conference Arrangements Committee for next year's conference - five out of a slate of six women put forward by Women's Fightback and the CLPD's Women's Action Committee were elected.

And we'll make sure that next year the child care arrangements are improved. They were completely unsatisfactory this year and delegates were forced to bring their children into the hall to demand an improvement.

The CAC and chairperson replied by blaming the mothers for not registering in advance - but even if it was true which was vehemently denied by the mothers - it doesn't explain why there were hardly any toys and no outings were arranged.

----- pull-quotes -----

the pharmaceutical indus- try under workers' control,

CTiC NOV

men's rch

HT TO CHOOSE