Scenting an anti-left witch-hunt: the press discovers TGWU ballot rigging
Socialist Viewpoint1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
ALAN THORNETT looks at the current press campaign to unseat Ron Todd as TGWU General Secretary, and explains the long history of TGWU ballot-rigging.
AS we go to press it looks as if there will be a fresh ballot for the new general secretary of the giant Transport and General Workers Union.
It is a serious eror for Evans to have backed down in this way. The current campaign for a rerun of last year's ballot was first motivated by Frank (now Lord) Chapple and pursued by his employer, the Daily Mail. The media has now ceated the conditions where a fight could overturn the previous result and replace Ron Todd as General Secretary elect.
This situation now has serious implications for the whole of the labour movement. Wright would swing the TGWU to the hard right and line the union up with Terry Duffy or worse — he has been working with Frank Chapple and Eric Hammond on the project. Equally seriously it would give a huge boost to the campaign by the Tories and sections of the trade union hard right for confronting postal ballots in which the media would have a much increased influence over the workplaces. (Although the election of the T&G General Secretary as such would not be affected since it does not carry a vote.)
The whole situation is a creation of the media. It started initially with a proven case of ballot rigging in one of the TGWU's Bristol branches. There a 95% "turnout" figure led to complaints and subsequently an internal union inquiry. Two full time officals were sacked by the union and the branch secretary suspended from office for life.
The media started to float the issue to see what other complaints could be drummed up. That was successful and the issue escalated considerably. Complaints have been made over the conduct of the ballot in another Bristol branch and others in the London Region.
[Photograph. Caption: George Wright]
Most of the publicity recently has centred on the work the media has done in the North of Ireland. Region 11 recorded a 70% poll, clearly very difficult to achieve in that kind of ballot. The Observer has conducted a poll of T&G memebers there, as has Marplan. They both claim that these show that only 32% in fact participated in the ballot. They have interviewed shop stewards who claim that no ballot at all was conducted in their workplace.
Although none of that constitutes hard evidence the media is now claiming that a question mark is raised over enough votes to alter the outcome of the election if the alledgations were proven correct. Ron Todd was elected by 277,662 votes to 228,845 — a margin of 45,000 votes. In Ireland, Ron Todd received 55,000 votes against George Wright's 8,000.
More important, George Wright has now emerged personally into the fray and called for a fresh ballot — which gives the campaign new significance and new impetus. Although he stands as an individual member he is using his position as a full time appointed official to campaign from.
Nothing could be more hypocritical than Wright emerging as the saviour of democracy in the TGWU. There was a 61% "turnout" in Wales, where the vast majority of votes went to him. He was unknown at the time of the election, how did he get so many votes?
Moss Evans has now abandoned his previously correct response — prove the case and I will call a new election if the votes concerned are enough to affect the result — and cancelled his attendance at the Scottish TUC and intimated that he is about to call an emergency executive which will order a fresh election. It fits in with the shift to the right he appears to have taken in recent months.
The whole right-wing campaign against Ron Todd is sheet hypocrisy. They have known the nature of T&G ballot procedures for years and have sat back while the right wing in various sections of the union kept out left candidates by ballot rigging.
The media campaign is equally dishonest. They have known for years the nature of TGWU ballot procedures and the abuses which have taken place. They have never taken the issue up before because in most cases the left had been the victims of malpractice from the right.
Why all this sudden press interest in TGWU elections? These elections have been dubious for many years and the press have never shown the slightest interest.
In 1975, branch officials in the British Leyland Cowley Body Plant rigged the ballot to stop me getting on the union's Midlands Regional Committee, which at that time represented 350,000 members. The ballot rigging was not only proven but shown to have been on a massive scale.
I stood against Adams, an unknown right-wing candidate from the (now closed) MG car plant in Abingdon. At that time there were 6,500 TGWU members in the plant organised into the 5/60 branch, all the officers of which were magistrates.
Adams won the election with 6,134 votes. We were able to establish that almost all of these came from the Body Plant, and there was no possibility that they were cast legitimately by the members since the balloting had been monitored by militants in the plant.
It was easy to check. There were only two ballot boxes, which were placed in the main canteen for the one-hour lunch break on two consecutive days. Militants sat by the boxes and counted exactly how many voted — which was less than 200. It was in any case impossible for 6,000 people to vote in 2 hours — that would be almost one per second.
When the result was announced the branch secretary refused to reveal the individual voting figures for that individual branch (the election covered a geographical area involving a number of branches).
Complaints were made to the TGWU Midlands Regional Committee, who carried out a "preliminary investigation". The "investigation" found that a "technical infringement of the rules" had taken place, and a fresh election was ordered. The "technical infringement" they were referring to was that the branch officers had destroyed all the ballot papers to avoid scrutiny! Under the rules, the ballot papers must be kept for three months.
The Regional Committee ordered a fresh ballot of the whole electoral division, which they saw as meeting their responsibility and avoiding the possibility of legal action. But nothing was done to improve the system even in the re-run ballot, except that far more ballot boxes were used and the militants could not check them.
Although this was all public knowledge and it involved a huge car plant often in the news, the media only carried it as minimal local coverage.
In 1977 Alan Law, TGWU fulltime official in the Midlands Region dealing with the road haulage industry was caught red-handed casting the whole of the votes from the huge 5/35 branch, of which he was secretary, for candidates of his own choice. Law was asked to resign by the Midland Regional Committee after an inquiry found him guilty. Although the Sunday Times took the matter up there was no media campaign and no calls to change the balloting procedures in the TGWU which make such things so easy.
The reality is that TGWU leaders have supported and defended the existing ballot procedures over many years under conditions where they have always been open to the kind of campaign now being mounted. In fact there are no procedures in the TGWU which inhibit ballot-rigging in any significant way. In fact the procedures are so loose as to constitute an open invitation. In most cases un-numbered ballot papers are sent in bulk to branch officers who send back a return sheet with the results on it. The General Secretary's election is a slight exception to this, where cardboard ballot boxes are provided which are returned to Region. But there is nothing to ensure that it is the members who vote.
The right-wing have known this for years. So why all the campaigning now? It is true they are taking a lead from the Government, but the Tories were already active on the ballot issue in 1977 since they were preparing to make it a part of their election campaign.
There is an additional reason for their attitude this time. Now it is a matter of the right wing campaigning against the left. Today's moves, if they were successful, could significantly alter the balance in the trade union movement to the advantage of the right wing. In Cowley in 1975 it was the left battling against ballotrigging conducted by the right. Alan Law got a bit more attention since he had been portrayed as a "militant" element, although they knew that he was a part of the TGWU Midlands establishment.
Today the TGWU leadership has acted decisively in Bristol where there was hard evidenc of corruption. Since the Bristol branch votes could not alter the overall vote, they have cleaned up this obvious abuse.
T&G members must reject media interference into their union. They must campaign to return Ron Todd as General Secretary if there are fresh elections.
More than this, however, ballot procedures must be changed to prevent this kind of intervention in the future and provide a democratic election procedure within the union.
There have been attempts in the past to do this. The Cowley 5/293 branch campaigned for changes at the last TGWU Rules Revision Conference in 1980 (TGWU Rules Confernces are held every 6 years). The branch produced a leaflet advocating and explaining the changes it called for. It was handed to delegates at the door, and is reprinted here.
1. BALLOT VOTING Rule 13, motions 270 & 271
Leaflet issued by the Cowley 5/293 branch to delegates at the 1980 TGWU Rules Revision Conference, reprinted with the article.
It must be obvious to all that ballot voting procedures within the TGWU are in urgent need of tightening up. The union received adverse publicity over the Alan Law case in Region 5. He personally cast all 13,000 votes allocated to his branch to candidates of his own choice. He afterwards stated publicly that he had not had time to organise a ballot and declared quite openly that he would do the same again. Although Alan Law was dealt with by the Regional Committee, the basic problem was never tackled — the procedures which allowed him to do it so easily.
A similar case occurred in the elections for Regional Committee, National Committee and General Executive Committee in Region 5 in 1975. Evidence was produced by members of a large branch that whilst only 250 members actually voted, it became obvious that the scrutineers had returned votes of around 6,000. A Regional investigation concluded that they could not fully investigate because the ballot papers had been destroyed, contrary to rules, and they ordered fresh elections. But again the ballot procedures were never questioned.
The inescapable fact is that such cases are just the tip of a very large iceberg. Block voting, or officers voting on behalf of the members for candidates of their own choice, is far more wide-spread than the cases highlighted by the Regional scrutineers. More important, it is clear that present ballot procedures lend themselves so completely to such practices as to almost encourage them. Alan Law appeared to see nothing wrong with casting someone else's vote.
Under the present system, ballot papers, often in very imprecise quantities, are sent to branches who are simply required to send a return sheet to Region stating the votes cast for each candidate. No ballot papers or unused papers are required by Region. The ballot papers are unmarked and unidentifiable. All that is required is a stamp on the member's card which provides no serious check particularly in large branches with a high turnover. Regional scrutineers have therefore very little in front of them, and no way of knowing if or how a ballot was carried out.
In the recent ballot for General Secretary, there was some improvement in the system. Ballot papers were printed in book form with stubs, and the ballot papers required to be sent to Regional level for scrutiny. But this still fell far short of real safeguards. The papers and the stubs were unnumbered and there could still be no reliable check on who had filled them in.
We have developed a system of ballot voting for the position of convenor in our factory which safeguards to a very high degree the democratic rights of the members. The proposals we make in our motions are modelled on similar principles. The key to it would be consecutively numbered ballot papers attached to un-numbered stubs. The members would be required to put his or her membership number and signature on the stub and then cast a vote with the numbered ballot paper. The member's card would also be stamped. Scrutinising is then easy and complete. The numbers of votes cast must correspond to the numbers of signed stubs produced, and when added to the number of unused papers, correspond to the total block of numbered papers issued to the branch.
After the count, all ballot papers, stubs and unused papers should be sent to Regional office and retained for one month after the announcement of the result. This is important because under the current rule they should be retained for one month after the branch posts the results to the Region. This is likely to mean that by the time the results are announced — which is the most likely time for queries to be raised — the papers can be already destroyed. In declaring the result, details of all branch results should be included as a further safeguard, since it is very difficult to question results, even if there are apparent irregularities, unless branch results are known.
We very strongly urge conference delegates to support these motions.