promoting the Social Contract.
To understand the G&M's role in support of Labour's Social Contract we need to look a little deeper at the slow and subtle transformation in the role of David Basnett, General-Secretary of the union since 1972.
Basnett has never been a flamboyant figure in the TUC. His name is not a household word like 'Jones' and "Scanion', Amongst the rightwingers —and Basnett is certainly that- he pales next to tne mutnless anti-working class mouthings of Frank Chapple from the Electriclan's Union.
Basnett is very much in the mould of the G&M "mafia. The top Jobs in the union have always been in the family. The names of Eccles:
ind Hayday tend to recur in the its of past officers. Lord Dukes preceded Lord Cooper as General Secretary before Basnett took over. Pukes was Cooper's uncle. David Sanelt has been a full-timer in the union since he left school. surpose, surprise, his father was uno a bureaucral in the GAM.
Basnett is a clever operator, On the TUC he's known as thoughtful ind a bit of an "intellectual. He's been in on the Social Contract since & was copolived by the Labour Party and the TUC. Basnett even has strong personal claims to being the originator of the Social Contract. Al the beginning of April 1973, he THE GENERAL AND MUNICIPAL WORKERS' UNION, NOW THE third biggest in the TUC after Jack Jones" Transport Workers and Hughie Scanion's Engineering Union, has set out to play a vital role in The G&M leaders are confident that they can control the membership within the wage restraint guidelines of the Social Contract. The militants in the union are aware that at present the militant opposition to the right-wing union officials is not organised cnough for the G&M to worry about any successful challenge to the Social Contract from its own ranks.
wrote an article for the Sunday Times called 'Britain's Workers Must Have a New Social Contract This became, to the last dot and comma, the Social Contract of the present Labour Government.
The jig-saw fits together when we remember that it was later in 1973 (still under the Tories) that Basnet. and Gladwin the G&M Southern Regional Secretary seconded the motion on the Social Contract af tire TUC Basnett increasingly steps forward into the limelight of "public debate and sells the Social Contract in a far mote reliable way than someone like one-time lefty, Jack Jones.
Hasnett's call goes out to the ruling class and to workers. In fact Its echoes po far deeper into the workers movement precisely because Basmetl is a trade union figure and not a Labour Minister Sike Michael-Foot.
Government will need all their nilies on the right-wing of the TUC to intervene directly in the workers' movement.
This is why Basnett's "dull' public image is being revamped. His colleagues at the G&M are in the media. After the October general ciection, he appeared in a "morning after post-mortem programme on TV. Such programes are usually reserved for press pundits and labour movement performers like Clive Jenkins of ASTMS and lan Mikardo of the Tribune Group.
unist Party, a long feature article commending the TUCs proposals class as key parts of the Social Contract Soon he will become the trade union spokesperson for Britain staying in the Common Market, moved and for spoiling image-building. So Basnett is cleverly streamlining the union to increase the power of the Head Office even more.
of the regional secretarica, who have fought for ycars to keep the Head Office machine out of their own regional empires.
REGIONAL BARONS Not that any of the regional Quite the reverse. But for Basnett The Labour the kind of power vested in the "regional barons at present. This strategy explains why Basnott is promoting regional and national urging him to get more "projection"
Fight days before the October clection Basnett even wrote in the Morning Star, paper of the Common worker-directors to the working Basnett is also shoring up his future in the G&.M. There's nothing like internal ructions in the union The problem for him is the power secretaries are particularly militant, a really top-down union can't afford shop stewards delerate conferences Known at the TUC as a bit of an "intellectual", Basnatt has strong personal claims to being the originator of the Social Contract in various industries. This move is quite informal and unusual, and, of course, no changes are being proposed to the rule-book. These industrial conferences can put pressure on the regional machines.
The Head Office, by appearing to support the shop floor demands can rain a base at regionul level and break up the autonomous empires of the regional bosses.
This will not happen overnight.
But already the Head Office as manoeuvring to get suppori, Recently Basnett treated the National Officers of the union to 2.4 litre Jaguar cars as one in the cye for the regional barons.
As Basnett blows his trumper harder, the wind of chance is wafting througe the arMWU. Militants should redouble their efforts to change its direction A start can be made by building support against the Social Con tract around the coming public sector claims, parlicularly for the gasworkers REAL WEAPONS The regional industrial conferences should he turned into real weapons against the Government's Social Contract by demanding that the officials are responsible and accountable to them, not to the manoeustes of the Head Office. In this way preparations can br made for elected strike committees to run the struggles when they break out.