Newsline attacks Cowley convenor
Socialist Organiser1980sWRP record of support for right wing
Transcribed by hand from the printed page.
THE Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), has a long history in the Cowley car plants. From 1966 until 1974 the WRP and its forerunner, the Socialist Labour League, had a very large group of members in Cowley. They included important sections of the trade union leadership in several plants with a principled record.
Early in 1974 an opposition developed inside the WRP which challenged the increasingly wild sectarianism and paranoid political line of the Gerry Healy leadership. Alan Thornett and Tony Richardson, as leading militants in the Cowley plants, were at the centre of the opposition.
It resulted in their ruthless suppression by the vicious and bureaucratic internal regime of the WRP (see Battle for Trotskyism, Folrose Books). They were expelled in December 1974 along with 200 others from the WRP's Western Region just before they were to present their views to the WRP annual conference.
One member
Of the 200 expelled, 70 later formed the nucleus of the Workers Socialist League. Of the rest, a few joined other tendencies while the majority went out of politics after the experience.
At the time of the expulsions the WRP had over 100 members in the Oxford area. Only one stayed in the WRP after the experience — Tom White, a full-time deputy senior steward in the Assembly Plant.
Since the expulsions Healy has put considerable resources — including frequent visits to Oxford — into keeping his lone Cowley member inside the WRP ranks. He has kept White on the WRP Central Committee to this day despite his obvious inability to rebuild a Cowley Branch. Healy hangs on hoping new conditions will arise where his foothold can be used against the Workers Socialist League.
Now Healy's paper, the Newsline, is running a campaign against TGWU Convenor Bob Fryer.
This has centred on a very bad decision of Fryers to allow management to redraft a leaflet he had written to the membership as a condition of them authorising its distribution.
Socialist Organiser would also criticise Fryer for such an action which undoubtedly creates a very dangerous precedent; but the WRP and Tom White are in no position to take Fryer up on such a matter.
Fryer in his 20 years as convenor has established a far better record than Tom White. Fryer stuck to his guns during the 3½ years following his removal from office in 1974 — a major move by Jack Jones and the leadership of the TGWU at that time.
Reg Parsons, an extreme right winger was installed as convenor of the plant in the midst of a huge witch-hunt against the left which received national prominence.
White's record in that period was deplorable. When 'Worker Participation' committees were brought into BL in the Autumn of 1975 the WRP verbally opposed them. But when Healy found that this disrupted his relationship with a leading right wing supporter of Parsons whom he was hoping to recruit, White stood for election for the participation committees and was elected a stand-in delegate — despite the hostility of the labour force to the scheme. Healy's paper at the time, Workers Press, carried a whole page article theorising the correctness of White's move.
A few weeks later the WRP supported a Joint Management-'Participation' Committee set up to investigate "quality and performance" on the Princess track. Although workers on the track struck and marched to Parsons' office protesting about the joint investigation, the Workers Press (November 26) praised its findings.
Such positions didn't go unnoticed by Reg Parsons and the right wing. A few weeks later were the biennial elections for convenor and deputy convenor in the plant.
Parsons won the election for convenor and published a recommended list for the election of the deputy senior stewards. Tom White was on it, with a glowing write-up from rabid anti-Trotskyist Parsons.
White gave out a few copies of a token statement dissociating himself from the list — when it was too late to make any difference and after Socialist Press had challenged the issue.
The same month, the elections for the officers of the TGWU 5/293 branch were held.
This was the branch which had been set up at the time of the 1974 witch-hunt and been used as a right wing base against the left. A left victory therefore would be a major blow against the right.
Alan Thornett was standing as the left candidate with a very good chance of winning.
There were 140 members at the highly charged meeting with the press and TV outside. There were three candidates for President — Thornett, Albert Paintin — a Parsons supporter, and Tom White of the WRP.
Support White
After hasty discussions on the odds, Parsons & the right wing decided to withdraw Paintin and throw their full support behind White!
They figured that White would stand a better chance since his past left-wing record might split a few votes from the left, whilst Paintin would only get the right wing vote.
In the event the whole left vote quite clearly went to Thornett and the whole right wing, including Parsons personally solidly voted for White, giving Thornett victory by 77 votes to 64.
Because the elections were given national coverage by the media, millions of readers of the national press saw reports that "Trotskyist" Alan Thornett had defeated "moderate challenger" Tom White.
Thornett's victory at the branch was followed two years later in December 1977 with a complete victory for the left in the convenor and deputy convenor elections. Fryer was re-elected convenor. Promptly Jack Jones and the TGWU bureaucracy, who had originally installed Parsons, laid trumped up charges in a move to expel the new leadership from the union and put the defeated Parsons back in control.
Nine stewards — including Tom White — were charged. One of the reasons White was included was because he had been elected as a member of the 5/293 committee and most of the charges were based on articles written in the 5/293 Branch Report which was published in the plant at the time by the branch committee.
By March 1980 it looked as if the victimisation would succeed. Jack Jones and the bureaucrats in Region 5 were absolutely determined, two kangaroo-courts had been carried out, the defendents found predictably 'guilty' and the sentences announced.
The only problem was the support the nine had amongst the membership in the plant and the broad campaign which had developed throughout the TGWU including a successful conference in defence of the nine — which the WRP refused to support.
Then, at the most crucial point of the struggle, Tom White wrote a letter to the TGWU officials resigning from the branch committee and denouncing the other eight as guilty as charged!
He fully accepted that the Branch News articles were contrary to rule 11, under which the nine were charged and absolved himself by saying he had been faced with a built-in majority on the committee!
Such a treacherous and cowardly letter could only be intended to get Thornett and the others expelled from the union and therefore sacked from the plant.
Before the Newsline talks about "dangerous precedents" they should comment on the precedent involved in White's letter. And before they criticise Fryer for allowing management to censor his letter they should say why they approved of TGWU bureaucrats censoring publications like Branch News by the use of rule 11?
White's letter was the result of a decision taken at the highest level in the WRP. It was designed to use the right wing TGWU leadership and BL management to eliminate those with whom they disagree.
Fortunately they failed.