5 ‘The merits of Brother Worth’
-
Jack Saunders
Abstract
Between 1968 and 1975, members of the Trotskyist Socialist Labour League, the International Socialists and the Militant Tendency held senior positions in factory union organisations at British Leyland factories in Birmingham, Solihull, and at Chrysler in Linwood and Coventry. This chapter consists of a detailed study of shop steward documents at Chrysler's engine factory in Stoke Aldermoor (Coventry), where the IS had a few dozen members, including Deputy Works Convenor John Worth. It looks at how politics affected IS members’ participation in everyday workplace life. Crucially, rather than looking at their contribution to shop-floor activism as an attempt to “import” ideas from outside the factory, I will show how radical militants were often politicised in ways that reflected feelings with wider resonance amongst their co-workers. The presence of an IS fraction within the plant contributed to the changing politics and social practices of the wider trade union movement within the factory, but was ultimately constrained by the constraints of working solely within the issues which the workforce defined as legitimately “industrial”.
Abstract
Between 1968 and 1975, members of the Trotskyist Socialist Labour League, the International Socialists and the Militant Tendency held senior positions in factory union organisations at British Leyland factories in Birmingham, Solihull, and at Chrysler in Linwood and Coventry. This chapter consists of a detailed study of shop steward documents at Chrysler's engine factory in Stoke Aldermoor (Coventry), where the IS had a few dozen members, including Deputy Works Convenor John Worth. It looks at how politics affected IS members’ participation in everyday workplace life. Crucially, rather than looking at their contribution to shop-floor activism as an attempt to “import” ideas from outside the factory, I will show how radical militants were often politicised in ways that reflected feelings with wider resonance amongst their co-workers. The presence of an IS fraction within the plant contributed to the changing politics and social practices of the wider trade union movement within the factory, but was ultimately constrained by the constraints of working solely within the issues which the workforce defined as legitimately “industrial”.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Revolutionary vanguard or agent provocateur 11
- 2 Not that serious? 30
- 3 Protest and survive 48
- 4 Anti-apartheid solidarity in the perspectives and practices of the British far left in the 1970s and 1980s 66
- 5 ‘The merits of Brother Worth’ 88
- 6 Making miners militant? 107
- 7 Networks of solidarity 125
- 8 ‘You have to start where you’re at’ 144
- 9 Origins of the present crisis? 163
- 10 A miner cause? 182
- 11 The British radical left and Northern Ireland during the ‘Troubles’ 201
- 12 The point is to change it 218
- 13 The Militant Tendency and entrism in the Labour Party 238
- 14 Understanding the formation of the Communist Party of Britain 258
- Index 277
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Revolutionary vanguard or agent provocateur 11
- 2 Not that serious? 30
- 3 Protest and survive 48
- 4 Anti-apartheid solidarity in the perspectives and practices of the British far left in the 1970s and 1980s 66
- 5 ‘The merits of Brother Worth’ 88
- 6 Making miners militant? 107
- 7 Networks of solidarity 125
- 8 ‘You have to start where you’re at’ 144
- 9 Origins of the present crisis? 163
- 10 A miner cause? 182
- 11 The British radical left and Northern Ireland during the ‘Troubles’ 201
- 12 The point is to change it 218
- 13 The Militant Tendency and entrism in the Labour Party 238
- 14 Understanding the formation of the Communist Party of Britain 258
- Index 277
