Witch-hunters break the rules: Loser 'elected'
Socialist Organiser1980sBill Peters looks at some strange manoeuvres by TGWU officials in the Midlands
Transcribed by hand from the printed page.
ONE THING can be said about the right wing — at least the right wing in TGWU Region 5: once they start a witch-hunt, they never give up!
For eight years they have been trying to destroy the left wing in BL's Cowley Assembly plant. In 1974 the plant leadership was removed by a Regional Committee inquiry and the method of election was changed in order to install a right-wing convenor. The powerful TGWU branch in the plant was split up twice, once in 1974 and again in 1977.
In December 1977 the right wing lost the convenor position to the left. Then in January this year they suffered the final blow — the entire left slate for convenor and five deputy convenors was elected and the right wing wiped out.
Now, eight months after that election, Brian Mathers, regional secretary of Region 5, has moved to reverse that defeat in a move which is scandalous even if measured against his own notorious record in such matters.
The method of election was determined in 1974. There would be a shop floor ballot for convenor followed by a second shop floor ballot for seven deputy convenors (since reduced to five). Obviously the winner of the first ballot would be the convenor, and seven (or five) votes in the second would establish the deputies. It worked that way in 1975, 1977, 1979, and in January of this year.
Now Mathers has ruled, as a result of representations from the right wing branch, the 5/837, that the key position of first deputy convenor will not be held by the deputy with the highest vote, as in the past, but by the runner-up in the convenor's election!
The runner-up, of course, was the right-wing candidate — who received a derisory vote against the left.
He then stood in the deputies' elections — and failed even to win one of the five positions ballotted for.
The reaction in the plant has been one of outrage. Which is not surprising, since the effect of Mathers' decision is that the right wing candidate, on the basis of losing both elections, is elevated to the second highest position in the plant.
When the issue was discussed at the Region 5 TGWU Broad Left, members from Cowley reported that the other branches in the plant had requested urgent meetings with Mathers to discuss his move, which was totally unacceptable to them.
They said that if this did not result in the reversal of the decision, a campaign would be launched throughout the union.