I.S. MEMBERS WRITE:
•As members of IS and Camden Trades Council EC, we deny the implication from Geoff Bell & Co ('Open Letter to socialist Worker, in Red Weekly, 22 April), that we have stopped fighting Rule 14.
Our tactics in Camden are geared to the peculiarities of Camden, yet they misleadingly fail to mention these pec uliarities, and indeed have shown little appreciation or tneir sioniticance.
Geoff Bell, for instance, argued that Camden should continue detying the TUC as Clay Cross defied the Government - an absurd analogy. We support the idea of trades councils holding out where possible and in situations where they will be able to continue operating in defiance of the TUC. Unfortunately Camden is not sucn a situation at present. No amount of windy rhetoric can hide the fact that whereas Clay Cross was solid, our Trades Council is split down the middle and the secretary is doing the TUC's dirty work for it.
The secretary - Sid Gregory, a CP member - actively pusned the Foc to suspend Camden, making acceptance or Mule 14 the condition or entry to the 11 May delegate meeting. He did this to weaken the left; left delegates excluding themselves would restore the Dioc once enoved.
Accepting the entrance condition is not an issue of principle but a matter Of course IS supports the 7 May meeting [called by Camden delegates to launch an all-London campaign against Rule 14-at Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq. at 7.30pm. But we don't accept counterposng a condon wide campaion to tne perhaps less glamorous local struggle. Support from Camden for a wider cam paign means removing Gregory and changing the balance inside the Council. His removal would be a warning to other unpaid bureaucrats who collaborate with the TUC's anti-democratic manoeuvres.
vost brancnes win terr celecates including signatories or the open Letter nave voted to accept Hule 14 under pro test as the only way of now continuing the fight against it inside Camden Trades Council.
Hopefully we will have the voting sureneun on may to insist maran cele gates be allowed in; to remove Gregory; and pass the resolution for joint action with other councils leading to a national campaign against Rule 14 within trades councils and trade unions. - JAMES ANDERSON, ALAISTER HATCHETT, NIGEL SIEDERER. Council was the que position to wage a Londonwide campaign against Rule 14. But IS delegates grasp the wider issues at stake. first trades council issue at stake. suspended; it was therefore in a uniwere so wrapped up in the bureaucratic goings on in their own backyard that they failed to StanG.
The major failing for which the revoo deredates on camaen trades counci! to understand what is the fundamental The issue is not the manoeuvrings of Sid Gregory, the aim is not to sacrifice all on the tentative hope that the left' can control Camden Trad es Council. Such a view of the fight Camden Trades Council has waged against Rule 14 is parochial in the extreme.
•tameen races counci was Ine mrs! trades council suspended; it was therefore in a unique position to wage a London-wide campaign against Rule 14. And this is what the majority of members of the Trades Council left caucus - including two IS members - supported at a meeting or tat caucus, nere was an appreciation that whatever the 'peculiarities' of Camden, the essential task was not to remove this or that unpaid bureaucrat - the essential task was to give a lead which could draw into action all those other trades councils wno nave retectea nure 14.
Unhappily the majority of /S dele gates failed to appreciate this fact. They were so wrapped up in the bureaucratic goings on of their own backyard that they failed to grasp the wider issues at What is more, by giving in to the tactic of signing the letter, the IS delegates nave given the green nignt to every ourer TUC policeman up and down the coun try to mourge in tne same tactics when ever they are faced with opposition. Gregory's tactics have paid off - wheth er or not he himself is removed - because 4S members in branch after branch have been led to urge the necessity of capitulating at the first hurdle.
The comrades writing from Darlington were probably unaware of such devel opments - but these, rather inan Tine articles in Socialist Worker, are the facts which matter in assessing IS's attitude co-ordinate action nationally when the TUC first announced Rule 14 in October 1975.
When Rule 14 came before Darlington Trades Council in Early February, neither Red Weekly nor Socialist Worker had yet picked it up. An IMG com rade did move reiection, only to be told that this would mean expulsion from the roc cauent on the noo the comrade -reluctantwy vorpo tor the rure wante successfully moving that a letter of protest be sent to the TUC. But the case of Carden is entirely different.
We conclude with two points. Red Weekly is happy to print these letters trom is mempers. we are curte wiling to let our readers judge just who has waged the most consistent campaign -not against Sid Gregory, but against Rule 14. But sadly Socialist Worker has not adopted this attitude.
In the past six weeks it has publish ed letters supporting Zionism, comparing the Provisional IRA to Spanish Fasc ists. ano anacking a woman sagar co choose. Socialist Worker seems quite nabov to Duous such mont wine fetters. but when IS's much heralded ability to Tiont is questioned. me letter remain. unpublished.
Secondly, we would draw the atten tion of IS members to an important historical parallel; that of the 1920s, when the TUC threatened to ban trades coun cils which remained affiliated to the Minority Movement. The CP urged trade councils under its influence to accept this proscription on the basis that they would then be in a better position to campaign against the ban. But the only result of their action was to hasten the decline of the MM.
We can only hope that IS's similar ad vice over Rule 14 wil not mortally damage tne campaign tnat must be waged against this latest TUC proscription.