The Rank-and-Filers
By Our Industrial Correspondent
rr HE use in the press of the antiquarian term I 'Trotskyist' has obscured the real significance of the group of militants who have found a platform in Mr. Peter Fryer's weekly paper, the Newsletter, and an arena on the South Bank building site during the recent strike. Mr. Fryer left the staff of the Daily Worker after it had suppressed his despatches from Hungary; and he and his colleagues on the editorial board of the Newsletter mostly describe themselves as Marx- ists, qualifying this with 'non-Stalinist.' The title itself is not enough to put them beyond the Labour Party pale, although Transport House is keeping an anxious eye on their activities. A couple of unions in the building industry actually proscribed the first conference held by the 'rank- and-file' movement this week—a conference which was described by its organisers as having been 'much, much better than we expected.'
The fact that a building strike has provided the Newsletter with one of its first chances to catch general public attention is no coincidence. Move- ments of this kind thrive on unemployment, and building has been having a thin time since Mr. Thorneycroft's purge a little over a year ago. Its labour force is a changing one and therefore not easily susceptible to control by union head- quarters. It also conveniently contains a large minority of Irish immigrants, who find the Newsletter a less obviously sinful political mentor than the Daily Worker; most of the limelight has fallen on Mr. Brian Behan, because of his golden tongue, his prison sentence—against which he is appealing—and his relationship with the play- wright Brendan, who distributed money to his brother's fellow-pickets on the South Bank. But the Newsletter's weekly catalogues of militancy are riddled with other Irish names.
The theme of resistance to unemployment represents the principal streak of reality in the verbiage of the 'Charter of Workers' Demands' adopted by the conference. Nationalisation with- out compensation and attacks on the luxurious lives which union leaders live (with their Consul cars) may have been suitable enough as opiate for the conference masses, but the leaders know that their real strength lies in the talk of 'solidarity action' against dismissals.
The group has wisely realised that it would overplay its hand in attempting to organise a one-day national token strike itself; this now looks to have been just a good selling-point for reporters. But local stoppages in industries where there is redundancy should not be beyond its strength. It will be interesting during the next few months to watch developments in the docks, where recent Dock Labour Board figures have revealed a staggering amount of underemploy- ment. Large numbers of men are relying more on 'fall-back pay,' which in a completely work- less week amounts to a little over £6.
The rank-and-file conference boasted a num- ber of officials of the NASD (the 'blue union' in the docks) among its sponsors, and Mr. Gerry Healy, who has been painted as the real power behind the Fryer-Behan front, is well connected in the London and Liverpool docks.
The emergence of the new rank-and-filers has come at the worst possible time for the Com- munists. They are in the throes of a recruiting drive in preparation for their biennial conference at Easter, and although Mr. John Gollan, the party secretary, claimed the other day that 700 people had joined the party within the past two months, it does not enjoy seeing so many of its old industrial agitators under a new banner. The Daily Worker speaks of the official channels of trade unionism with a new warmth these days.
Previous page
