"If we want a good return to everyone concerned we need co-operation and this means a benefit for the working people engaged in production as well as the benefit to employers."

This assurance that workers will "benefit" by co-operating with the capitalists who exploit them could have been made by the Chamber of Commerce or by any of the leaders of the Parliamentary parties. On this occasion it was trotted out in the Presidential Address of Sir Thomas Skinner at the recent FoL conference.

In fact Skinner's advice is disproved by the day to day experience of working people. As an old unionist put it, "When Labour jumps into bed with capital it's always labour that gets screwed!"

At no time in Skinner's address did he show any lead in the struggle which workers are waging daily to make the rich pay for the economic crisis. Quite the contrary, "...we avoid emnity and violent disagreement between employers and workers", said Sir Thomas. "Instead we have industrial relations, we have discussion and understanding between them and agreements that take care of each of the parties..."

On the question of the present economic crisis Skinner's solution was essentially no different to that of the present government — find more markets for our limited range of products. Never any suggestion that the New Zealand people must make a decisive break with the imperialist powers that keep this country's development lopsided and dependent.

"Leaders of the Left"

The so called "leaders of the left", the Socialist Unity Party unionists were distinguished by an equal bankruptcy and reliance on capitalist policies to solve the problems of working people. Aside from their attempts to commit the New Zealand worker's movement to the imperialist foreign policies of the Soviet Union the SUP was almost solely concerned with the extention of their influence in the heirarchy of the Federation of Labour.

The "Tribune" crowed in it's lead article, "A number of progressive changes-took place which will allow for a more direct involvement in FoL affairs by the National Council." As the National Council of the FoL is weighed with SUP leaders, it is hardly surprising that the "Tribune" titled it's article "FoL Conference — a basis for advance."

This is not at all to be confused with an advance in worker's struggle. On the floor of the conference the SUP put it's efforts into advocating an "advance" of trailing behind the Labour Party as a solution for workers.

G.H. Anderson (SUP president and Northern Driver's Union Secretary) called on delegates to support a remit from his union which put the question of defeating the Muldoon Government and the election of a Labour government as a "vital task" for the trade union movement. The remit included the following "...a future Labour Government will require a strong, well based and active labour movement to back up Labour's legislative programme in face of the combined anti-labour forces of the National Party and big business (both New Zealand and overseas controlled)."

The Labour Party Line

It only needs a little reflection on the "legislative programmes" of past Labour governments to see that a "strong, well based and active labour movement" is absolute anathema to the Labour Party. Labour introduced deregistration of trade unions and used that particular "legislative programme" many more times than National. Labour initiated dawn raids on overstaying workers. Labour's senior spokesmen have claimed that they have had a gutsfull of the unions" and that "National has joined with the communists to destroy New Zealand."

The Labour Party is just as commited to upholding the capitalist system as the National Party, whatever illusions may be held about it.

Back to Andersen's remit which called for stopwork rallies to mobilise workers behind the NZLP. "This is the single most important remit before the conference", brayed Andersen.

The only difference between the right and the so called left on the issue was whether or not stopwork meetings should be held to rally support for the NZLP. As Skinner quite correctly pointed out the Labour Party doesn't like stopwork meetings.

It is highly significant that the stop-work meetings in support of the election of Labour already called by the Auckland Trades Council were, in the main, a series of failures. It was only when the pro-Labour party propaganda was dropped from the advertizing and replaced by calls to discuss concrete problems, such as unemployment and the fall of living standards that workers began to show some interest in such meetings.

Unhappily for the right wing union leaders the workers are becoming justifiably disenchanted with capitalism's Labour Party.

The Lion and the Slaves

In his work "Victory of Cadets and tasks of the workers' party" Lenin relates an anecdote that describes very well the misleaders who seek to prop up illusions about the nature of the bourgeois state and reliance on capitalist parties.

"Recently I delivered a lecture on political topics at the house of a very enlightened and extremely amiable Cadet. We had a discussion. Our host said: Imagine there is a wild beast before us, a lion; and we two are slaves who have been thrown to this lion. Would it be appropriate if we started an argument? Is it not our duty to unite to fight this common enemy, to 'isolate reaction', as that most wise and tar sighted of Social Democrats, G. V. Plekhanov, so excellently puts it?"

"The analogy is a good one and I accept it, I replied. But what if one of the slaves advises securing weapons and attacking the lion, while the other, in the very midst of the struggle notices a tab reading 'constitution' suspended from the lion's neck and starts shouting 'I am opposed to violence, both from the right and from the left, I am a member of a Parliamentary party and stand for constitutional methods.' Under those circumstances would not the lion's cub who blurted out the lion's real intentions be doing more to educate the masses and to develop their political and class consciousness, than the slave being mauled by the lion who was preaching faith in tabs?"

Timing the General Wage Order

Although the main trend in the conference was to collaborate with the bosses by "Preaching faith in tabs" there was also struggle against this trend.

An attempt was made towards the end of the conference to raise the question of the general wage order, which had been held up due to the fact that the FoL president saw an overseas trip of several weeks as being of greater importance than other duties.

Skinner dismissed the perfectly legitimate grievance on the lateness of the wage order as "dreaming" It is of interest that none of the SUP "militants" took part in the protest over this question.

Many progressive remits were passed, but it is doubtful that much action will be taken on them. Nevertheless some remits showed positive thinking, especially on the question of opposing foreign imperialism.

Economic Self Reliance

Examples of such remits are' that the NZ Federation of Labour call on Government to re-establish the principle of a South Pacific Nuclear free zone; that the NZ FoL advocate and represent the view that the only solution to the present economic crisis in New Zealand is the en-couragement of economic self-reliance through the establishment of an independently based heavy and machine tools industry, using our resources for the benefit of New Zealanders and being independent of all foreign powers, and reject in any form the Government and employers' solution to the economic crisis of cutting real wages.

During discussion of a remit opposing the despoliation of New Zealand fishing grounds by big powers it was noted that only a consistent policy of self reliance (such as no National or Labour government has ever been prepared to undertake) will begin to solve New Zealand's economic problems. On the same remit it was also pointed out that the Soviet fishermen did not come here to get a sun tan and that it was ridiculous to co-operate with such countries.

Another move to actually grapple with real problems facing working people was the donation by some unions of sums of money to the Kawerau workers.

Women and the Unions

Many have acclaimed the election of Sonja Davies to the FoL National executive. In the area of the particular problems of women workers it is true that there were fewer snide comments and jokes at the expense of women at the conference than in quite recent years, but one only has to consider the simple fact of the denial of unemployment pay to married women to realise that real struggle in this area has a very long way to go.

The Ethiopian Question

The debate on the question of Ethiopia has been interpreted in many circles as a setback for the "Left". In fact it was a setback for the apologists of the imperialist policies of the Soviets, which is another thing entirely. The history of the debate is of some interest.

At the 1977 conference it was drawn to the attention of delegates that the Soviet backed Mengistu clique had murdered hundreds of Patriotic Ethopian students who were protesting at the reactionary policies of the government. Tony Neary, Secretary of the North Island Electrical Workers Union moved a motion condeming the atrocity. SUP President Anderson immediately claimed that the resolution was "against the constitution of the FoL".

When this ploy to stop the motion looked shaky the pro-Soviet faction argued that Neary's information came from the capitalist press and could not possibly have any validity. A number of well-intentioned people were misled by this maneouvre and a motion was passed requesting that the FoL Secretary J. Knox investiga and report on the situation.

The Knox Report

At the 1978 conference Knox's report was called for and produced. Knox said that Ethiopia had the third largest army in Africa, a military government and that the living conditions of the people were miserable. He went on to give examples of repression of Ethiopian workers' representatives and sat down, having erred only in omitting to point out the continued involvement in Ethiopia of Russian troops, advisers, weapons and Cuban mercenaries.

This omission was rectified in a backhanded way by Andersen who leapt up to oppose a motion "condemning the Ethiopian regime" He claimed that the Ethiopian government was a military government but it was also a "socialist" government which had "brought great benefits to the working people." Without enlarging on these "benefits" Andersen again tried his favourite trick of questioning the source of information — when in doubt blame the capitalist press.

Not to be out done by Andersen in supporting Ethiopian fascism Ken Douglas dismissed exiled Ethiopian critics of the regime as being all "sons and daughters of the rich". He added that the arming of the Ethiopian people was somehow a proof of democracy in that country, not mentioning that the people were being armed with Soviet guns to be marched off in a fascist movement against the Eritrean People's Liberation movement.

All these efforts on behalf of the Soviet imperialists were to no avail. At the conclusion of the debate the conference passed a motion condemning the denial of human rights in Ethiopia.

Support for Ken Douglas

After this debate the SUP circulated a rumour that the Ethiopia debate had been staged by right wingers in order to discredit K. Douglas and topple him from the FoL executive.

The fact that Douglas was returned to the executive as the third highest polling candidate (with 523 votes out of 535 cast) shows that the rumour was nonsense. The truth of the matter is that almost all the right voted for Douglas having learned since the last conference that he was certainly no genuine militant on the national executive.

Industrial Reporter