*We have organised this conference of nearly 1300 delegates in under four weeks. If anyone else can do the same they'll be doing a service to the whole trade union movement." And most people agreed with Jim Hiles, secretary of the LCDTU, that the Committee had really done very well. One thing they overlooked maybe was this question: why on earth was it necessary to call an emergency conference at only four weeks notice when anyone could see that the TUC's policy of non-cooperation was a dead letter, and that the working class would be faced with the Act?
The failure of the LCDTU did not lie in its lack of numbers; it lay in the refusal of the organisers to allow, and the failure of two-thirds of the delegates to see the necessity for, a discussion on the struggle to come, and the Liaison Committee's crucial place in it. Bill Jones ruled from the chair at the start that the Committee had decided there would be no resolutions submitted but only a declaration from the committee itself. This declaration attacked the "right wing' retreat in the TUC as a betrayal of the interests of the movement, called for total defiance of the Act and solidarity with those so doing and proposed a one day strike on 5 Sept.or whenever the TUC could be recalled. It made a call for the recall of Congress which should refuse to carry out the instructions of any Court set up under the Act and should launch a campaige against it, should boy cott any dealings with the Government while the Act a operative and expel any affiliated Linica not complying with Congress policy. It called on the next Labour Government to repeal the Act.
It also made a passing reference to the setting up of local Liaison Committees. However in this case actions spoke louder than words. Various local LCDTUs did in fact try to get delegates to the confertace and some had cata worked out propam mies for the LCDTU (see The Red Mole, 43). All of these however were refused not merely speaking rights but also delegate status. This type of thing hardly indicates on the part of the organisers of the LCDTU any teal willingness to set up local groups.
In fact the Glasgow programme was spoken to, but in the atmosphere of verbal militancy in the hall that day there was not one jot of difference between it and what most other speakers had been saying as to what the Liaison Committee's programme should be. Certainly an IS comrade said, "We must have resolutions which can be discussed and thrashed out to make a programme to smash the Act". But this doesn't exactly advance the discussion very far! If the IS has a programme then why did it not present it to conference when one of its members actually had the chance to speak. And if, as a glance at the I.S. leaflet put out at conference would show, its programme differs from the "Declaration' largely on the (important) question of actually setting up local Committees and coordinating them nationally, then they should not be calling for the "discussion" and "thrashing out" of a programme.
In terms of size the conference was bigger than recent ones although the majority of the delegates were still grouped around the CP and the Morning Star, Nevertheless the fact that there were more people there meant that the delegates were not hardened out completely around the CP's positions. Some at least became increasingly irritated when it became clear that the CP regarded the very holding of the conference as an end in itself and it was neither going to permit any real debate of the CP's line nor to allow any real criticism of "left" trade union leaders.
The way the CP operated was to turn the conference into a show. All the big names were pulled onto the speaking platform including some who were not in the CP such as the convenor of the London Airport Joint Shop Stewards Committee or Derrick Fullick an ASLEF steward at Waterloo Station. Certainly it was interesting to hear accounts of particular struggles; certainly the mood was militant with plenty of thunder being hurled at the TUC, the Law, the Tories ("The wait and see brigade have been completely exTory attack on the working class"). There were even hints of further activity-"This conference is the launching pad of activity". One speaker from Firth Brown in Sheffield described the actual mechanism of the Act to conference "The point is that they hope to get the trade union leaders to press down on the rank and file".
But the overall mood was one of selfcongratulation on the Committee's struggle against In Place of Strife and the Bill (helping to force the March 71 special TUC conference) and on the conference itself-"When was the last conference to fill not only the body of the hall but a good section of the seats upstairs as well?"
The one division at conference came precisely on whether those who had written resolutions should get preference on the speakers' list. The applause that an IMG comrade received on moving this motion forced Bill Jones to take a vote (though even then he confused the resolution so much that it had to be put twice). A good third of conference supported this motion and showed that at least they wanted a discussion on where to go from here instead of a series of speeches on 'look what we've done, boys"
The worst, speech, that by Dick Etheridge from Longbridge, Birmingham, summed up all the things which many of the delegates are in fact beginning to break away from. Steeped in localism, he spoke about how the Midlands could become a depressed area as if they should somehow have a special right to a job when most of the delegates came from areas which already had a huge number of unemployed, unless all officers are elected not selected, With amazing arrogance he proceeded to tell delegates, many of whom, like the miners, have just emerged from a battle to secure a wage of just over £20, that the next wage claim at Longbridge was for E52 without indicating any way that the strength this indicated could be used to benefit the entire working class. With the self-confidence of a car worker whose formation was in the booming '50s and early '60s he told conference that "The shopstewards movement was far too strong to be smashed" and finally he had the insensitivity to quote the most bitter enemy of the working class, Churchill, in a throw-away last line which was both pointless and not a little nationalist.
While that conference displayed an immense militancy to defend the trade-union movement, to fight against any attempt to shackle the ability to fight for wages and conditions in the shape of a law or anything else, it also, with equal resolve, refused to define what the enemy was; it refused to work out a strategy for victory, it refused to recognise that as we wrote in our leaflet:The LCDTU should seek to win the political leadership of the unions. What this means is becoming an organisation that fights within the trade-unions on a programme to turn the unions against the capitalist state. For the unions can only defend themselves against interference from the state by going on the offensive against the capitalist state, including its legal machinery. If the LCDTU puts forward a clear perspective on this key issue, then all trade unionists will look to it for leadership on all the other issues they face." No one who accepts that this is the way the struggle must be fought could possibly quote Churchill-the arch preserver of British capitalism. Only someone, in the CP or not, with a deeply ingrained attachment to bourgeois democracy, Parliament, the lot, and willing to fight only within that framework instead of seeing the necessity to challenge it could speak in this way.
It is only by getting the real politics of the situation clear that we can take a clear position on the other major problems facing the working class. How can you oppose any form of incomes policy unless it is recognised that whether it be negotiated by a Labour or Tory government, with the TUC and Jones in tow or not, an incomes policy will be in the interest not of 'the nation' but of the ruling class. It is the bourgeoisie who rule "the nation". It is their state and they use it in their interests. Again, the trade unions cannot be turned into real organisations of struggle along these lines. unless their leaders are under rank and file control, unless the rank and file is involved, unless the main decisions are taken at mass meetings or by directly elected representatives. The failure of this LCDTU conference does not mean all is over or that revolutionary workers must not do everything to try to change the nature of the committee and its political aims. But what an opportunity was missed; not just at the conference, but just one week later during the docks strike over the court order for the imprisonment of Steer, Turner and Williams. Where was the LCDTU then? Was it organising workers all over the country into its committees of solidarity? Had it prepared them over the past period through agitation and explanation? Was it able to point the way forward after the sham appeal court decision had given the bourgeoisie a respite? Was it able to explain to the workers that this was no time to drop one's guard and that the ruling class were waiting only for that? No they didn't, nor do they want to, nor can they, because the LCDTU had not prepared even itself at that conference by forging any clear policy it could fight for within the working class. J.Watts