At a time of watershed in the class struggle, when the Government has announced Phase 3, the ALEW has been fined £75,000, and the Shrewsbury trial has got under way, the Liaison Committee for Defence of Trade Unions held its most unimpressive conference for over two years last Saturday.
At the last LCDTU Conference over 1,000 delegates swore that the defeats over Phase 2 would not be repeated, and that the campaign ıgainst Phase 3 would be planned in such a way as to overcome the deficiencies. But only half that number met in the Beaver Hall last Saturday.
Militants have not found in the LCDTU a viable alternative to the political leadership which they for fear of issuing a blank shot. As Bernard once thought that Scanlon and Jones could provide. The LCDTU has not anticipated the inactivity of the TU bureaucracy, or led the rank and file in taking the necessary initiatives when the bureaucrats inevitahly defaulted. SHREWSBURY At the recent Liverpool Conference on the Shrewsbury 24, over 800 delegates expressed unanimous enthusiasm for a struggle to smash the trials. Kevin Halpin, speaking for the LCDTU, said that Shrewsbury would be the main item on the agenda of last week's meeting. Yet it attracted fewer delegates than the Liverpool Conference, despite the other strategically important items which were to be discussed. What was needed at Liverpool was a plan of campaign: definite dates for strike action, local meetings, a panel of speakers, a powerful coordinating committee, elc. to bring the struggle to a climax similar to the victory over the Pentonville Five, No such pian emerged at Liverpool, yet Halpin didn't promise that the LCDTU would fill the gap. Militants could only conclude that the LCDTU would do nothing more than pass another resolution of support (as duly happened).
Of course on Saturday Halpin did speak about the need to strike in sympathy with the 24; but who is going to call sach action? The trade union bureaucrats, left and right, are not even pretending to plan any action. Yet Haipin failed to pose the possibility of the LCDTU Itself calling unofficial strikes over Shrewsbury. NO INDEPENDENCE The lack of leadership from the LCDTU results from the failure of the Communist Party to develop it into an active and democratic body able to take initiatives in its own name, within a long term independent strategy. pulling the mass of the trade union movement behind it. Only in the carly days of the fight trikes, and once the left" trade union leaders started to take token action the LCDTU disappeared as an independent force. When the NIRC sequestered E100,000 last week, Scanion said that engineering workers "might be called upon' to give tangible evidence of their 'desire to defend the Union. This ambiguous formula could be interpreted as a promise to call industrial action later on, or as an encouragement to those who winted to pass resolutions demanding action from the EC. Either way, if any action came, this move ensured that it would be late in the day. Leading CP speakers, at the LCDTU meeting. far from criticising this manoeuvre, tried to claim that Scanlon had failed to make a call Panter from Manchester said: You cannot expect the leadership to make a call unleas they are reasonably certain that they are going to get the support of the rank and file.! For the CP the main task was to lobby the NIRC on Monday, and the EC on Tuesday; but what was really required was immediate national strike action.
FOSTERING ILLUSIONS Actually Scanlon was not looking for 'indications of support.' He was looking for assistance in fostering the illasion that no was filing lo lead only hecause his troops were on leave. This was the task which the CP took upon itself at the LCDTU, Yet many speakers at the LCDTU itself inadverTently proved that there was support, Several groups of building workers announced that they had already decided to strike on Monday. and Tony McClelland of the Liverpool Trades Council seemed certain of cnough support when he boasted that with tone word from the Executive we will shut Merseyside down? NO CONCRETE ACTION The discussion on Phase 3 proceeded on similar lines, There were calls for unity between the engineering workers and the miners, The need to mobilise the Labour movement against the anti-union laws was stressed over and over again. But rather than sketching out an independent series of actions, the only concrete suggestion was for a day of action and a mass lobby of the TUC, apparentiy all important, which has yet to be recalled.
The paralysis of the LCDTU reflects the fact that aithough the CP wants to fight Phase 3, the left" bureaucracy to whom it concedes political leadership of the working class, has no intention of fighting. Even Lawrence Daly's call for an emergency TUC Congress was not supported by Scanlon, and Jack Joaes has INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT AB Meeting after NIRC picket on Monday — a substitute for strike action fought a long battie to stay at No. 10. Furthermore, with the partial exception of the miners, the bureaucracy is not even preparing the struggle over the crucial wage claims. The AUEW Executive Committee, for example, has not implemented the National Committee's instruction to carry out a campaign of publicity and preparation for the struggle over the wage claim.
LOCAL MEETINGS What is needed in this situation is for the rank and file in the localities to call conferenoes and shop stewards meetings and toset up committoas to prepare for the struggle. The CP will not [Maire Drumm and Ruairi O Bradaigh at Ard Fheis British goverument for the Dublin bombings. but neither made any referenes to the bomb ings in Britain, aithough a statement read out by O Consill repeated the warning given in September that: 'Our foroes will strike when and wherever it is deemed necessary, opportune and advantageous."
DEEP PROBLEMS The Ard Fheis pledged support to the leadership of the Republican Movement, and to the struggle in the North. But the resolutions on education, organisation and finance brought out most clearly the deep problems incing Sinn Fein. An ambitious educational programme nas recently been introduced and the need for this was evident in the extremely low political level of most of the specebes. Morcover, in discussing the problent of the inaclivity of many of the Cumauto (branches) in tbe South, there was much moral exhortation for Republicans to 'get on with the work', bur no perspective offered which could actually help to solve the problem.
It is a principle of modern psychiatry that you do not tell a depressed person to Pull yourself together', it is necessary to find out the eraser of the condition, Similarly it is in the political fine heino nursed that a movement will tind take action independently of the bureaucracy in the AUEW, nor will it develop the LCDTU into a body with the prestige necessary to call independent action on all the tasks of the day. The LCDTU has no democratic foundation in the working class movement, nor has it any local bodies which can act as an arena for discuston or propose resolutions to the national conferences, The LCDIU only leads militants to rely instead on the trade union bureaucracy, whose reformist politics consistently haustring the working class in the struggle against the ruling class. the roots of its organisational problems. NO BALANCE SHEET The Ard Fheis was not given a balance sheet of the three main projects launched by Sion Fein in the last year: the committees set up to campaign for regional goveroment in the tour provinces of Ireland; the Irish Civil Rights Association, and the Political Hostages Release Committee in the North, Not was there ay discussion of the most burning problem in the South-the moves to extradite Republicans to the North. The haplicit threats of military action are unlikely to blackmail the Government into retreat on this question, especially when there has been no development of mas opposition. In this context miliary action could he disastroar, and would open the door for confusion amongst the Southern population, and swinging Governmental repression. In order to meet the challenge of Free Scate repression the Provisionals will have to make a deep-going politica. turn, in volving a te asscastent of their entire programme ant strategy. The 1973 And heis did bet give an indication that the leadership at all understanda this, bur before the next one they will hav either met the challenge or be on the road to deteat