Peter Taaffe: National apprentices movement formed through the strike

(Militant, No. 3, January 1965, p. 4-5, reprinted in Militant Broadsheet April 1977 p. 3)

By Peter Taaffe

Walton YS

Previous apprentices struggles have seen the top union leaders either neutralised or forced into reluctant support.

This strike revealed that their co-operation with the industrial peace plans of the Wilson government meant that they would move quickly to break the back of the strike.

Gates

This was even demonstrated at shop-floor level, when convenors of some factories ordered the gates to be shut on pickets.

But in spite of this, the union leaders at York have been forced for the first time to take up one of our major demands: full negotiating rights for all apprentices.

The union leaders have been warned that if they accept the employer’s straight increase offer of 23s. it will lead to immediate action by the apprentices.

Links

Our percentage increases are fundamental. This strike has, if nothing else, created a national organisation of apprentices. We have strong links with all areas which are eager to see the acceptance of the AEU Youth Charter.

On Merseyside the organisation remains and we will take up the struggles of all apprentices and young workers. Unlike the cardboard Marxists of Keep Left, we will fight for our ideas inside the apprentices’ national committee with patient explanation and argument.

The sectarian fringe has now started witch-hunting. At the Liverpool Trades Council meeting on 19 November, a supporter of the majority on the YS National Committee, from Edge Hill constituency, moved a resolution condemning the Merseyside Apprentices Committee as a “subversive organisation”!

Lie

He held up the example of the shadow Manchester committee, which, he claimed, could attract over 200, while the MAC, according to the mover, could pull in only 30 apprentices. This blatant lie was too much for even Moores and Farley, the North-west member of the YS national committee, who both stayed away from the meeting along with their cronies.

The Manchester apprentices conference which Keep Left is bragging about was the usual highly-organised affair, packed with students and unemployed youngsters, with only a handful of genuine apprentices.The chairman of their Manchester committee, Mike Hughes, was completely isolated in his own factory. The other apprentices ignored his call to stay at work, walked out and forced him to join the picket line.

Ejected

At the Merseyside pre-strike meeting, Moores, the chairman of the YS federation, was ejected by angry apprentices and his supporters were shouted down.

Their activities have not only damaged their “militant” reputation but have done grave harm to the YS and serious socialists.