Are the reds now in the bed?
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JACK WOODS FORMER TGWU GROUP SECRETARY ASKS THE QUESTION
FOR FORTY years, 1929, to 1969, I was proud and privileged to lead and represent my fellow-tradeunionists in the Road Transport Section of the T & GWU, during which time, I served on all the top-level negotiating committees. On retiring, I was able to return to my previous occupation in the field of training.
Having witnessed recent events, I feel duty-bound to put before you the following, because I am increasingly appalled by the lack of leadership, and the self-destructive attitudes, which must inevitably result in huge redundancies and loss of earnings of those engaged in the industry.
I am specially concerned with the question of drivers crossing picket-lines. Those whose book it suits will attempt to discredit what I say, and label me a "strike breaker", but I challenge any one of the so-called "leaders' to public debate of the matter, on a person-to-person level.
Whenever a strike takes place in a manufacturing industry, workers in our industry are invariably called upon to lend support by refusing to cross picket-lines, which virtually amounts td joining the dispute. There is no consultation on the issues at stake, no pre-advice of starting dates or finishing dates, no opportunity to discuss the virtues of the stoppage nor the conditions for ending it.
We are just expected to show blind solidarity with our "brothers", irrespective of the expense to us. No wages if we don't operate; no strike-pay because we're not in dispute; difficulties with unemployment and social security benefits; in the limit, loss of our jobs through the lack of business for our employers.
Where is the trade-union official who can get money to pay drivers from a bankrupt firm? In my day, I adopted a simple formula to safeguard the interests of my members and the industry in which they earned their living. Whenever we were lasked not to cross a picket-line, I demanded the registration-numbers and owner's names, of any vehicles which were prevented from doing so, whether by force or persuasion. I was then able to ascertain how much drivers had lost in earnings, and sought t e agreement of the responsi le remarkable consistency in the reaction of these nrnons whenever this measure: was employed — they went stone-deaf! My own response to this was equally consistent — no deal!
If we automatically acceded to such requests, at the drop of every crack-pot's hat, some of my members would rarely have drawn a full week's pay. What a reward for pulling somebody else's chestnuts out of the fire!
Those were much simpler days than the present. Disputes raged on purely industrial issues which all workers understood and believed in, and looked to their unions to improve their conditions and safeguard their jobs. Nowadays, as the quiet majority are beginning to discover, they are being used more as pawns in political games played by union bosses. My advice to drivers caught up in present-day disputes is to insist on a return to the methods which I used to employ.
If anyone looks upon this advice as callous lack of concern for the problems of other trade-uniOnists, let him learn the follovVing facts:— As a T&GWU officer, the majority of contacts I had with the AU rW were by way of challenging their poaching, or attempted poaching, of our members. But I also vividly recall the head-on clash I had with Hugh (now Lord) Scanlon, on discovering that he had agreed with the employers' federation that my members should be classed as "semiskilled", for pay purposes! How many of his "nut and bolt" members and "machineminders" needed the skills demanded of a goods vehicle driver?
Neither can I forget the attitude of that most conservative of organisations, the NUM, to transport workers who didn't happen to belong to it.
Three times, I took the NCB to Industrial Courts in an endeavour to obtain concessionary coal for my members employed by them. But I found that the NUM had obtained a special clause in their North-Western agreement with the NCB under which only members of their union, irrespective of the nature, of their employment, would be entitled to this valuable "perk". To add insult to injury, they circularised T&GWU members with information that if they changed to NUM membership they could : get their concessionary coal!
At that time, in the Hanley/ Stoke area, where T&GWU men were employed by the NCB to deliver concessionary coal to NUM members, whilst being denied the same benefit for themselves. Vehicles were hired by the NUM from the NCB on very favourable terms, manned by their members, and utilised on these deliveries. This naturally resulted in redundancies of T&GW members in that area. Brotherly, indeed?
In the present situation, as the ISTC union has had no serious strike since 1926, I should have thought that they could easily have met the terms of my formula out of their addumulated kitty, and thus safeguard the jobs of my transport-union colleagues. But their traffic is all one-way, as usual.
I could quote countless examples of lorry-drivers being bamboozled into in volvement in other people's disputes, but there have been remarkably few instances of reciprocal support. Do we have to be the fall guys for everybody who is gullible enough to be used as fodder for the political career-militants and wreckers?
How else can you describe the pretenders who deliberately exploit the power of numbers for their own selfish ends! The T&GWU members want to keep a close watch on their antics.
Genuine trades unionists should not fall for the tricks of these men or their puppets, who will apparently stop at nothing in their efforts of selfinflation — not even at hoodwinking "their" members, who keep them in their lucrative jobs by posing as "progressives". Of course, the mass-media love them for their exaggerations and halftruths, and no doubt pay them well for their provocative appearances and destructive utterances. The selfrespecting majority — and they really are the majority — of trade unionists must be squirming in their seats whenever they pluck up the patience to listen to them. No wonder these so-called "leaders" fight shy of secret ballots of "their members".
Playing left-winger in politics and industrial relations pays off just as well as playing left-winger at Liverpool or Manchester United, and it is high time their game was rumbled by the workpeople whose union contributions enable them to keep doing it.