Bernard's blind eye | IMGpapers 1976

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 4-5 of 5; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 3 of the scan

BERNARD LEVIN, Britain's most famous expert in whatever he should choose to comment on, chose last Tuesday to devote not inconsiderable space in The Times to the hotly debated question of postal balloting for union officials in the engineers AUEW.

Of course Levin does not bother to mention the LUTIOnS where officials are elected for life, or appointed, or indeed where elections themselves are a rarity. For instance he does not seem concerned that Jack Jones has been elected TOI life - reemen at General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union and appoints all other TGWU officials.

Levin's concern with trade union democracy only goes as far as his concern that the full-time officials in the AUEW and other unions should be right-wing moderates. To that end the device of postal balloting is very useful to the ruling class.

By forcing union members to vote in isolation in their homes, where tney are much more susceptible to the ever increas ing red-baiting in the press, the hand of the right wing is strengthened. Particularly in a citation where the Broad Left has failed to the Sunday Mirror By falling for the bait set by the right and calling for an end to 'outside interference", the Broad Left simply sets itself up for further accusations of being undemocratic. The real problem with union elections is not that the press and organisations like Truemid slander left-wing candidates. The real problem is the lack of union organisation in the limited circulation election addresses, the lack of rights tendencies to campaign openly for candidates, the confining of discussion to poorly attended branch meetings.

Only a fight for genuine workers democ racy in the unions can banish the influence of the Levins and Wyatts. It means fighting for:

* the free circulation of all election addresses:

* the right of tendencies to campaign openly for candidates, whether of the left or * voting to take place in factory ballots after mass meetings have been held to discuss the platform of the contending candidates:

* the right of recall by the membership of

page 4 of the scan

4 RED WEEKLY 23 September 1976