Bus officials challenge for top TGWU job
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From our industrial correspondent
• Two busmen's leaders who are challenging for the general secretaryship of the 1.4mstrong Transport and General Workers Union in succession to Mr, Frank Cousins have launched a controversial attack on -personal" leadership of the Union.
Mr. Alan Thomson, TGWU national bus secretary, and his deputy, Mr. Larry Smith, national bus officer, are among 10 candidates for the vacant post when Mr. Cousins retires next September. If elected, Mr. Smith or Mr. Thomson would be the first bus official to lead the Union since the brief reign of Mr. Jock Tiffin in 1955.
They have made their platform a call for -collective leadership". In his election address, Aberdeen born Mr. Thomson says: "No one man is able to understand or realize the aims of an organization such as ours. . . to imagine this is possible is to suggest an industrial power complex and this is something I cannot accept,"
Mr. Smith, a 44-year-old ex-London busman, says: "There has been growing disquiet in recent years amongst many of our members that the leadership of a union of nearly 11m. men and women should be concentrated in the hands of one person for life. They believe that this situation no longer accords with the principle of self-government.
"I have allowed, my name to go forward for the election of general secretary solely for the purpose of giving our members the right to express their support for the principle of collective leadership in the Transport and
General Workers Union, "If elected, my first task would be to call for a special rules revision conference to change the rules, so that in future the office of general secretary should be by election of the membership for a period of four years and each general secretary should hold office for one period only."
Mr. Smith and Mr. Thomson deny any personal attack on Mr. Cousins' leadership. Mr. Smith says: "I have admired the policies of the present leadership which Frank Cousins personifies. It is an election on principle."
Voting begins on October 14 and goes on in the branches until November 9. The result is due to be announced on December 11. The favourite for the job is the Union's present assistant executive secretary, Mr. Jack Jones, a former docker. He argues that the TGWU is already working towards a wider democracy under Mr. Cousins.
A major controversy over Mr. Smith's candidature has arisen because Mr. Tony Corfeild, FGWU Political and Education Officer, has published at his own expense a 30-page booklet condemning the present system of leadership. This is being widely circulated in the union's branches.
As a result, Mr. Cousins may ask the TGWU executive committee to investigate allegations of "excess publicity" for Mr. Smith's campaign, although the booklet does not name any candidates or officials. Each candidate, according to the rules, is limited to a 500-word election address,