TGWU: A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT
Socialist Organiser1980sFighting for union democracy
Transcribed by hand from the printed page.
DEMOCRACY is a dangerous thing. It is described in the Oxford Dictionary as "government by the people". It means that those at the top represent the interests of, and are accountable to, those whom they represent. That sounds innocent enough, so why all the fuss?
Yet, as everyone knows, the democratic reforms inside the Labour Party have rocked the labour movement to its very foundations.
It is because it is a direct challenge to bureaucracy, the system which retains all control in the hands of a privileged minority, who represent their own interests and not those of the working class.
Nowhere is this more true than in the TGWU where the impact of the reforms inside the Labour Party have caused a deep crisis in the union.
It is certainly ironic that the union which cast its 1¼ million block vote in favour of the Labour Party's democratic reforms not only defends its unelected army of full time officials, but is completely unable to conduct a simple democratic procedure in its own ranks even when the issue is how to cast its block vote on the new democratic reforms themselves.
Its delegation to the Labour Party conference, with powers to cast 1¼ million votes under the new democratic reforms, is unrepresentative in the extreme.
It is filled out with unelected national officers together with regional officials and sponsored MPs.
How they come to be representing the union is beyond comprehension.
This may be ironic, but it is not surprising. The TGWU has never had a democratic structure. Yet its weight and influence in the labour movement is crucial.
It is a vast union of nearly two million members in 16 different trade groups and 11 Regions, making it more like a TUC than an individual union.
Some of its Regions are like large unions in themselves. The London Region has half a million members and the Midlands Region has 350,000 members covering a vast industrial area.
Stand
With such power, the TGWU alone could, if it took a determined stand, decide the fate of governments. But that power has never been used. The union is kept split and divided by a rule book designed to neutralise that very strength.
Such a state of affairs is perpetuated through the power and influence of the vast network of unelected officials and the lack of any real way through which the membership can express themselves or change things.
The only full time official subject to election is the General Secretary, and he or she (in reality, he) is elected for life, under the formula "during the pleasure of the General Executive Council". This to an alarming extent concentrates power in a few hands.
There were only five General Secretaries between the founding of the union in 1922 and the retirement of Jack Jones in 1978.
They were Ernest Bevin, Arthur Deakin, Arthur Tiffin, Frank Cousins and Jack Jones.
Since Tiffin was a sick man and held office for only ten months, it was in reality four General secretaries in 56 years.
Ask a TGWU official about this and he (it is 99.5% certain to be a he) will tell you that the General Secretary and all the army of non-elected executive officers, national officers, regional secretaries, regional officers and district officials are in fact responsible to and controlled by their respective constitutional committee, the members of which are elected lay members.
In reality the full time officials effectively run the union and are careful to keep all the levers of power in their own hands.
Full-time
Most committees meet once a quarter and discuss agendas prepared and controlled by full-time officers. Control of information, apparatus, finance and patronage usually allows a General Secretary, National Secretary or Regional Secretary to mould and control a committee to their own requirements.
Stamp
Indeed they are ready and willing to use their power and authority to stamp on anyone who challenges their control.
The TGWU disciplinary procedure is custom-built for such action.
In November 1977 myself and 8 others of the newly-elected leadership of BL's Cowley Assembly Plant were disciplined by a self-appointed tribunal set up by the Oxford District Committee — with the full authority of the Region.
The tribunal was comprised entirely of those right wingers who had supported the unsuccessful slate in the elections.
It was a blatant attempt to achieve through disciplinary action what the bureaucracy had failed to achieve in the shopfloor ballot.
We were allowed no rights whatsoever. Whilst we were denied even the right to call witnesses in our own defence, the tribunal called witnesses and heard them in our absence.
Then they cross-examined us on the 'evidence' which we had been denied the opportunity to hear!
When we successfully challenged the validity of the District Committee tribunal, we were charged and summonsed before an identical set-up under the auspices of the Regional Committee.
That we remain in the union and in our jobs is no thanks to the democracy of the TGWU but to the consistent support of the members we represent.
We put proposals to change this disciplinary procedure — an ideal witch-hunter's charter — to the union's rules revision conference. Our proposals were voted down — on the recommendation of the leadership!
Rule
The reason such a state of affairs has continued for so long gets back to that nasty word "democracy".
Perhaps the most urgent issue facing TGWU members within their own union at the present time is the reform of the notorious methods by which the Regional Committees, national committees and General Executive Council are elected.
This issue is particularly urgent at the present time since nominations for the current biennial elections close on October 15 and the "elections" will take place in December.
The rule book allows two methods of election, by so-called secret ballot or by an electoral conference in which a handful of people decide on committee members without the knowledge of the membership.
In this way 650 or so delegates are elected to the lay committees in the union. In many cases the membership are not even aware that it is happening.
Ballots are under the control of branches and branch officers, but there is no serious control over them. Quantities of ballot papers are sent to the branch secretary who is required to fill in the results on a return sheet and send it to Region.
There is no counting by Region of either used or unused ballot papers. The ballot papers are unmarked and unnumbered, the only safeguard the rule book calls for is a mark on the membership card — which is no safeguard at all.
The obvious looseness of the system is often taken in the TGWU as backdoor sanctioning of "block voting" — which is specifically barred under rule. But since the system is tailor made to accommodate block voting rather than prevent it, many branch secretaries probably draw their own conclusions.
Even the choice of name — "block voting" — shows an attitude. What is involved is not merely block voting but ballot-rigging — casting someone else's vote for them.
Calling it "block voting" almost legitimises it — since actual blockvoting is a legitimate form of voting at many conferences.
Certainly "blockvoting" — or corruption, or whatever — appears to be widespread in the union.
Cast
In the elections in Region 5, four years ago, for Regional Committee, National Committee and GEC, Alan Law, a Regional Officer and Secretary of the massive 5/35 lorry drivers' branch in the Midlands, personally cast all 13,000 votes allocated to his members for the people of his choice.
When challenged by the press he said he had "not had time" to organise a ballot and would do the same again. To Alan Law it was the natural thing to do.
In one of the large cars branches in Cowley, members were able to prove that whilst only 255 members actually voted, the branch secretary had returned about 6,000 votes for each of the three candidates he supported.
Appeals to the Region produced a fresh election, but no action could be taken against the right wing offenders because of a "technicality". The "technicality" was that all the ballot papers, used and unused, had been destroyed — contrary to rule — as soon as the complaint was made!
Everyone knows that ballot rigging is not viewed seriously in the TGWU. The only penalty for "block voting" is the disqualification of the branch vote!
Address
On top of this, even if a proper ballot is taken, no one else knows who they are voting for, since, apart from the General Secretary election, election addresses are not allowed.
This means that even if the ballot is democratic, the members are confronted with a baffling list of names — most of which they won't know.
They have no means of knowing even elementary facts about the candidates, where they come from, where they work, how long they have been in the union — let alone what policies they stand for.
The branch of which I am president, the 5/293 BL Cowley Assembly Plant branch, has a long record of fighting for democratic reform, not just in words but in practice.
For the past four years we have introduced ballot procedures into the plant which go a very long way towards a foolproof system.
We used this experience in the resolution which we sent to last year's rules revision conference.
Stubs
We called for a new system based on consecutively numbered ballot papers attached to unnumbered stubs. The member would put his or her union card number on the stub, sign it, and vote with the numbered ballot paper.
The votes cast must then equal the number of signed stubs. This, when added to the number of unused papers, would have to equal the total block of numbered papers allocated to the branch. It is a simple and effective system.
Post
Unfortunately our branch had no delegate at the rules revision conference to press our resolution, — since our ballot papers were "lost in the post" and the replacement papers arrived the day after the closing date!
We were told by Region that since it was so important that rules were adhered to during an election no provision could be made to receive our votes late.
To counter the loss of a delegate we handed a statement to each delegate as they arrived at the conference, urging other delegates to support it.
Now is the time to press these issues again in the union.
Democracy is proving not only to be dangerous but infectious as well. From the Labour Party it has spilled over into the unions — from who controls the union's block votes to who controls the union itself.
We should take full advantage of this. There are a number of practical things which TGWU members can do now.
■ Find out who has been nominated for the various committees in your Region for the December elections. Check their records and make them known amongst those you work with.
■ Go to your branch and raise the election. Ask how it is going to be conducted and how it will be scrutinised.
■ Ensure the rules are carried out. Suggest safeguards to ensure a democratic ballot of electoral conferences and raise any malpractices with Region.
■ Pass resolutions in your branch calling for democratic reform. The next rules conference is in 1986, but a lot can be done without rule changes. The Regions have the powers to improve ballot procedures. They have powers to produce election addresses if they so decide.
Such changes would change the union from top to bottom. Already the impact of the Labour Party deputy leadership election has politicised the union.
The policy of keeping the union politically colourless is being challenged. Top officials such as Kitson have had to declare where they stand in a way they have never had to do in the past. Others like Ron Todd have shown to be on the left of the union.
Elections in the union would accelerate that process. It would create new conditions to fight for a leadership prepared to defend the interests of the membership in a way which has not been the case before.