anion members as possible.
a so allows mass ia to directly intervene in ballot. Terry Duffy, the -wing president of the Union, LICCHER er through the postal ballot em, and his main support e from the national press. The press was able to reach ly more workers than the quated voting methods of AUEW. ( the full sing of the media; Duffy Idn't lose.
oderates' ballots, imposed ler by the union leaders or government, always favour more tale 'moderates' are usually people who support icies like the Edwardes' the rationalisation of building Zanu steel, cuts, controls like the cial Contract'.
The likes those who support cres. As wiln pickeung, Ine sed shop. of tacles that stands in the way hose policies. VOTING in a miners' union ballot. These ballots controlled by the NUM and are accompanied by mass meetings Many union branch meetbecause during the last Labour government they were used to support the attacks of that government.
In the Labour Party, the debate is over who controls the activities of the Parliamentary We have of Labour Party official; for the right to re-call them, the active participation of the full membership in this process.
Many of the leaders of the trade unions and the Labour Party have authority accountability. Mass meetings, workplace ballots controlled by accountability of MPs to the Labour Party conference are all ways of conducting that fight.
The battle against Prior is democracy, not less. It is a fight against restrictions of trade whether from the Tories or the labour leaders. to fight for the every union and and for strategy, without breaking unionism. and the sympathising more the unionists.
soldiers and militia 'terrorism' deputy conconsider 01 Я Lama's strongly militant.
only two who utilised FIAT-government reinstatement.
and workforce's deal PRIOR's proposals for 'reforming' the unions are just part of the Tory strategy for undermining working class resistance to its policies.
sacking convenor Derel Robinson at British Leyland fits in with that and corresponds developments in the car industry in Italy, where the government is similarly preoccupied with the strength At the giant Fiat car plant in Turin, 61 union have been sacked for "terrorism' Brigades. Fiat Turin, like Longbridge in Britain, is one of the biggest factories in Italy and a stronghold not only of union militancy but also of the far left organisations.
Since the sackings, in early October, Turin has been an occupied city with thousands of drafted in to On 16 October the unions organised an assembly of five thousand shop stewards from the Fiat plant to debate the way forward in defence of the victimised militants. The meeting was marked by a heated debate between Lama, leader of the Communist dominated CGIL, the largest Italian union federation, and Caforio. one of the victimised militants and a member of the Italian Trotskyist organisation, GCR.
Although Catorio's call for a general strike was loudly cheered, the meeting voted for proposal for nation-wide two-hour stoppages by all engineering workers. two-hour stoppages took place on 23 October, involving hundreds of thousands of workers these two for discussion on how to fight the sackings:
Unfortuantely, the Communist Party used the meetings to denounce terrorism as the 'main tactic coincided and demobilised the building of mass action to win The CP's response was not new. For months. alongside the Socialist Party, it had campaigned against terrorism and the far left, creating the was the background to the victimisation of the FIAT militants. It is this campaign which has enabled the government 1o get away militarily occupying Turin, and for the bosses in Venice and Pordenone to use strong-arm tactics against strike-pickets.
work-load through speed-up.
recent trades threats of redundancy.
allegedly bi-lingual paper called 'Fiat-Seat — Complicated combat Italian labour laws, 1t5 aborious have been These place to gain reinstatement.
Levlandisobvious
further were widespread La decisive attack, unthinkable even two years ago.
the day after the sackings, effectively Fia!" + which The Turin episode is part of an international offensive by the Fiat group to restructure its operations in the face of the world-wide recession in the car industry. This involves a drive to both rationalise through redundancies and increase the Fiat's Spanishbased subsidiary, Seat, has transferred most of its operations to Italy and started a speed-up campaign. This has led to a series of strikes and Car worker militants from the LCR, the Spanish section of the Fourth International, and the Italian CGR are beginning to campaign to co-ordinate an international response to the Fiat-Seat offensive, and have produced a joint - Stessa Lotta — Misma Lucha' (Fiat-Seat, the Same Struggle).
The struggle to re-instate the 61 militants in Turin has been complicated by the nature of the which enable dismissed workers to sue their employers through the courts. Unlike industrial tribunals in Britain, the Italian courts have the power to order employers to re-instate unjustly dismissed workers, which is what the courts have done in the Turin case.
Fiat responded by promptly re-sacking the militants and now the case is once again making way through courts. IT 1 unlikely that the judges will be able to impose their will on the immensely powerful Agnelli family who control Fiat. Meanwhile the workers de-mobilised and becomes increasingly unlikely that a big struggle will take The parallel with Since the 'hot autumn' of 1969, when there occupations, the Italian working class has been among the most militant in Europe. Now the Italian bosses are opening up which would have been The sackings at Fiat are just the beginning;
4,500 redundancies wère announced at the Oliverti factory in the La at PASTE ParThe struggle is not only hampered by cheir refusal to initiate the kind of mass action necessary to counter the employers, but their years of tacit support for right-wing Christian Democracy, and their extraordinary position of blaming Italy's crisis on the 'terrorists' rather than the bosses, is preparing the road to defeat.
Socialist Challenge 13 December 1979 page 9