Get the other Goldings!

Scan page 2

DON'T just elect new leaders. Watch them, call them to account, demand that they fight and where necessary replace The labour movement can only be turned into a real fighting machine if these lessons are learned. And the struggles for left wing policies and leadership in the Labour Party can only be won insofar as the fight is waged in the The removal of John Golding, 'Political Organiser" of the Post Office Engineering Union from his trade union seat on Labour's NEC vividly illustrates these points.

The POEU Broad Left secured a majority on the Union's Executive at this year's conference by winning the support of an increasingly radicalised rank and file concerned to fight the Tories' privatisation of British Telecom.

But within the Broad Left there remained great trepidation on how to proceed. Its campaign on privatisation has been far from a total, dynamic switch of line from the previous course And there were those on the Broad Left who shrank from a confrontation over Golding's nomination to the Labour NEC. Some - including Communist Party members -favoured nominating him in order to avoid "going too far" Only a small minority was firmly committed to oppose Appalled at this prospect, and keen to test the mettle of the new leadership, leading Broad Left activists called them to order, and made it clear that the nomination was a crunch issue. Those Broad Left members on the Executive who failed to vote against Golding would be publicly criticised and Having thus been put on the spot, ten of the Broad Left members on the POEU Executive were eventually mustered Key to this fight were the bigger London branches of the POEU, which have made big strides towards widening the involvement of rank and file members in union activity, with mass attendances at branch meetings held during working hours. Golding has not been ousted by any conspiratorial clique, but by the representatives of an awakening membership that is seeking the means and the leadership to defend In this, the POEU offers a valuable model to the workers' movement. The participatory workers' democracy of wellattended branch meetings is the polar opposite of - and the best answer to - Tebbit's model "democracy" based on balloting the most passive and ill-informed sections Equally, the success in putting at least a temporary stop to Golding's role on Labour's NEC shows the need to fight in other unions for opposition to the witch-hunt and for control over "delegates'' and 'representatives'' who cast block votes and organise without reference to the unions' rank and The Labour Party right wing, largely isolated from the rank and file in the constituencies, relies for its power not on force or quality of argument, but upon the stitched-up bureaucratic support from trade union figures such as Golding.

To chip away at the foundations of this corrupt trade union base and establish accountability could bring Golding's fellow witch-hunters crashing down, and fundamentally alter the conditions in the labour movement as a whole.

But this cannot be done without a sharp fight. The right wing will not simply roll over and play dead. The POEU experience shows that even within Broad Lefts there is still a need to struggle for a firm line and against compromises which could neuter the fight against the right wing.

These and related issues will figure prominently in the discussion on Broad Lefts at Socialist Organiser's 'How to Fight the Tories' conference on September 17. We urge all readers moves, introduced the novel concept of selling off council housing by the block, and now them when they don't.

they have announced in a paper to the housing policy committee "a very cautious first step" - to municipal Rachmanism!

They are targetting five local estates as "sales areas" whenever a home becomes vacant on one of these estates there will be no possibility of another tenant renting it, it will immediately be put on the open market.

Tenants on these estates will also be given more rapid transfers to other properties so that their homes can be sold. Naturally these estates are on the more desirable end of council property - pleasant, brickof the right wing.

built houses, many with gardens, rather than leaky tower blocks.

imagination doesn't take much to foresee the consequences of this policy.

Golding.

opposed.