TGWU to back wage controls? Todd's lurch to the right
Socialist Viewpoint1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
THE swing to the right in the trade union movement since the end of the miners' strike has been dramatic and obvious.
The TUC has abandoned its "opposition" to the anti-union laws and refused to discipline the yellow EETPU for its union busting role at Wapping. The AUEW has accepted Government money for ballots, and previously "left" unions like NUPE hve played a leading role in the wtich-hunt against Militant.
What may not have been so obvious, however, is the shift to the right in Britain's biggest union, the TGWU.
The fact is that since the victory of the "left" candidate, Ron Todd, in the election for General Secretary last year, the union has moved further to the right than any time since the latter years of the Jack Jones era, sending out echoes of the Arthur Deakin regime which ended in the late 1950s.
There was an organised right wing campaign around the elections for the union's National Executive last December, which resulted in a swing to the right. Walt Greendale, the left-wing national chair of the union, was defeated for his own place on the Executive and was replaced by the right-wing nominee Brian Nicholson.
Ron Todd has added his weight to the rightward move, with a lengthy article in the Daily Mirror supporting the witch-hunt against Militant — in flat contradiction to the policy adopted at last year's TGWU Biennial Delegate Conference. He condemned the seven Labour NEC members who walked out and stopped the disciplinary hearing against Militant.
It is no accident therefore that Todd and the National Executive have refused to discipline their scab members who are crossing print union picket lines and distributing Murdoch newspapers. At its last meeting the Executive instructed the drivers not to go into Wapping, but at the same time made it clear that there would be no disciplinary action even if they did.
Two weeks ago Todd announced that the union had made an important breakthrough and had managed to recruit the Queen Mother.
This week Todd has joined with other right wing union leaders to hint at some kind of incomes policy in the event of a future Labour Government. "If you want to see Labour in power there has to be a form of discipline exercised by us."
There could not be a more fundamental shift of the TGWU line than on incomes policy. The TGWU has had a consistent policy of free collective bargaining since Jack Jones was defeated on it at the 1979 Biennial Conference on the Isle of Man. At the 1981, 1983 and 1985 Conferences, free collective bargaining went through on the nod in resolutions moved by the National Executive. That the one-time "left" Ron Todd now challenges the long held and symbolic policy of the union serves to show the scale of the shift to the right which is taking place.
It is not just a matter, however, of an individual like Ron Todd collapsing to the right under the pressure of the job he has been elected to. His shift to the right is certainly remarkable; but it is linked into the political situation which has existed in the labour movement since the defeat of the miners' strike last year.
Since then a growing section of union leaders have concluded that industrial struggle will not win against the Thatcherites and that the only hope for the trade unions is in the election of a Labour Government at the approaching election.
At the same time the much-strengthened right wing in the Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is spelling out that the only way to win the election is for the Labour Party to shift to the right and the trade unions to present a moderate face.
It is under these political presures that the "left" speeches of the Todd election campaign have given way to the present situation within a few short months.