The Campaign for Democracy in the Trade Unions', initiated by the Workers Socialist League, has organised a recall conference in Birmingham for 27 March. The first conference of the campaign, held last October, had serious shortcomings.
The organisers have never made clear whether they see this campaign as a broad-based united front or a conference of advanced militants. The idea that it could be the former was always a non starter - the basis of the campaign has always been a full action programme encompassing an array of demands from those relating to women's rights and the fight against racism to the question of democracy in the unions.
Despite their continuing confusion on these two opposing aims of the conference, the organisers have made a number of changes which allow this conference to be widely built amongst advanced workers.
Firstly, the steering committee of the conference has agreed that political organisations supporting the conference can build for the conference along their own lines.
Secondly, they have agreed that the floor of the conference and the AFTER WEEKS of pressure from strikers at the Randolph and Linton Lodge hotels Transport and General Workers Union has finally accepted the call for action.
The strikes, now in their eleventh and ninth week; are over union recognition and victimisation, and last week the District Committee of the TGW unanimously agreed to the demand for national blacking of the hotel owners- - Trust mouses rorte But still the union drags its feet. Bert Ray, a TGWU official from London, has refused to implement the blacking decision before trying to arrange talks with management. Local officials have already obstructed sympathetic action at the Trust House Forte-run Gardner Merchants canteen in Cowley. Yet immediate and widespread action is the way to win the dispute. and workers mustn't allow the union bureauvoting on resolutions and action will be open to individual militants as well as delegates. Finally, they have agreed to table 'action reso lutions' which can inform the work of those militants attracted to the conterence On this basis Red Weekly wil make a serious commitment Lo 27 March. We will throw our weignt bening the conterence and urge our supporters to build it.
The issue of 'democracy which hitherto figured as the centre piece of the campaien has been rele gated. It now appears alongside the other demands of the action programme. This fits in with the stated goal of achieving the highest unity amongst the most politically However, in place of the previous concentration on democracy, a goal of a broad based united front on wages is advanced. Bu the campaign and the conference cannot fulfil both tasks. A group ing of advanced workers around an acnon programme cannot Te place the necessity of building wid er united fronts inside the Us Any caucuses which come out of the conterence should reintorce not substitute for, the already exisung tormanons which aim to in Oxford, the jor ine strikers be a political alternative not an or ganisational one to the reformists.
To that extent we endorse the organisers call for a conference to take up the struggle for an ternative programme against the treacherous social contract defen ded by ine Labour TUC CAUCUSES In the run-up to the conference Red Weekly will be fighting for the campaign to develop revolutionary caucuses around the key issues facing the working class. It is important that there should be the most effective united revolutionary intervention in the summer union conferences. Such unity can b built around joint resolutions and campaigns to back class struggle candidates in union elections, such as the present campaign to back Alan Thornett in the elections for TGWU general secretary.
This can be the beginning of a wider fight for the revolutionary programme among vanguard wor kers. The conference offers an op portunity for the entire far left to debate the various tactics inside the mass organisanions ANNA LARKIN & ALAN BATES Indeed the question of a labour movement boycott of Trust House Forte has been raised in Parliament by Sheffield Labour MP Martin Flannery, in whose con stituency there is another hotel strike taking place. Bu Oxford Labour MP Evan Luard has failed to show the slightest interest in the Oxford disputes This is all the more scandalous since harassment of Oxford hotel pickets has been a constant feature of the strikes. Anonymous threats of violence have been re ceived by the Linton Lodge strikers and nine pickets have so far been arrested. Two of the four cases to have reached the courts have been thrown out, but the more serious charges have yet to be heard Supe st, ese idly fine cal, is desperately ee been and the pickets have been arrested. Send donations to: TGWU, 5/670 branch