SFWP's Strategy for Infiltration
This document was written in the mid-seventies by Eamon Smullen, the director of the industrial section of Sinn Fein The Workers Party. It details how trade unions can be infiltrated in a classic strategy, virtually patented by the Communist Parties of Western Europe - Smullen presumably learnt these lessons as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
The strategy as outlined here has been the one put into practice by SFWP over the last 6 years particularly within the Irish Transsport and General Workers Union.
Certain parties of the left have industrial departments. Members of the parties concerned are encouraged to join their trade-unions; in some cases it is a condition of membership. Members of the parties who are in one union are organised into advisory committees, in some cases local, regional and national committees. They meet to study ways and means to forward party policy in a union or in an industry; they also decide which candidates to support for office and so on.
Naturally, all party members hold a card and pay their dues. The party card is regarded as a method of holding people who are active in the adviisory committee side of party life and who are not also active in a local branch. In conditions of full employyment the regular payment of party dues is regarded as a matter of party discipline; most party meetings begin with a card inspection and at the end of the meeting the secretary gives a report of the state of the cards of those present, without mentioning names.
The members of an advisory commmittee belong to separate trade union branches for example, ten members of an advisory committee probably belong to ten different branches (trade union branches). Therefore, resolutions moved in one branch are likely to be moved in at least nine other branches. Great care is taken to present similar resolutions in different language. If resolutions are presented in identical form the EC. committees are likely to reject such resolutions as 'inspired' .
Resolutions, no matter what body they are addressed to, always carry an instruction: 'for publication in the societies journal'. Most unions have a publication of some sort and when resoluutions appear it is a method of checking advisory committee members work and it also serves as an encouragement to other branches to pass similar resolutions.
Factional activity is strictly against union rule and because of this rule no party acknowledges the existence of advisory committees. Most members of the party belong to a local branch or to a factory branch. The factory branch collects dues in the same mannner as the local branch but they are mostly concerned with the industrial problems of the factory and usually the members are drawn from several unions. Members of a factory branch are expected to take a leading part in industrial activity in the factory or site, holding stewards credentials and so on.
Members of advisory committees in one union do not discuss their activitties with party members in another union nor indeed acknowledge the existence of an advisory committee. However, certain members from diffferent advisory committees in one inndustry do meet to discuss the prooblems of an industry - carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers and others in the building industry, for example.
The member of the i.party who is active in an advisory committee, and in no other way, is kept in close assoociation with the party by holding a card and by paying dues regularly. Each year, and this is the practice throughout the party, a retion form must be filled in. The form requires not only details of name and address but also the union and any other organisations to which the memmber may belong. It also means that any members who do not re-register are no longer regarded as members of the party - it is a method to measure the real strength of the party. People who do not re-register before a certain date are .. of course, visited in order to disscover the true political position of the person failing to re-register.
Although the existence of advisory committees is not acknowledged experienced trade union officials can recognise evidence of factional activity when they see it, they cannot, of course, prove that it exists. But, when they know that a machine exists inside a union they take this fact into connsideration; they are more careful when deciding policy, more careful about whom they denounce and so on. Howwever, if they are certain that the machine is completely opposed to them they denounce it at every opporrtunity.
The whole emphasis is placed by the party on the party group working in a union as a team, having full disscussion on all questions but when a line is agreed all members of the group are expected to push it at every opporrtunity. Members are, of course, enncouraged to use their own judgement and initiate on day-to-day matters or when some special opportunity presents itself.
Party industrial activity is conductted, in the main, in two places - in the branch and at the point of production (the factory or the site). The branch is the basic unit of power in any union; resolutions on policy, coming from the branches, are the first steps in forming union policy. A vigorous push from a number of branches can cause a union to change direction.
Usually delegates to conference are elected from the branches which gives successful progressive delegates the opportunity not only to speak at connference itself but also to tour a nummber of branches ( they receive an inviitation to do so from branches) to report back on conference. Reporting back is not just a description of what happened at conference but something in the nature of personal impressions and these are, of course, the party line on conference. when a lively trade union branch has been developed, speakers, even people outside the trade union movement, can be invited to the branch,and in this way the political awareness of the branch can be raised to a new level.
Shop Steward's activity is kept in tune with actual strength at the point of production. A steward, for exammple, in a small enterprise employing only seven or eight people cannot be as ambitious in the scope of activity as a steward's committee in an enterprise employing several thousands. The party stewards while constantly enndeavouring to raise the trade union and political consciousness of the work place must be careful to keep in tune with the majority of the workers; policies which are perhaps correct in principle but which do not attract the active support of a substantial number of workers must be examined very carefully.
Workers disgust with reactionary union policies or with reactionary officials must always be channelled into useful courses - resolutions on more progressive policies (the resoluution can be written out on the spot, in agreement with the angry worker) and supplied to the worker to take to the next branch meeting. This is of course, day-to-day activity; there are many other ways of combatting reacctionary policies.
Meetings of shop stewards, if posssible under official auspices of the union should be worked for at all times. A shop stewards' committee ennjoying official union support is more effective than an unofficial body, which is of course a good second best. The UCA TT Action Committee in Briitain is a good example of this work; The Liaison Committee for the Defense of Trade unions in another example of this sort of work. Bodies of this type often serve a useful purpose by putting teeth into agreed union policy.
The party worker in the union is a trained person. The educational policy of the party aims not only at helping the member achieve a higher level 'of political development but also tries to meet the special educational needs of the party trade unionist. This includes instruction on writing out resulutions, members not sitting in a group at meetings, speaking from different points in the hall and so on.
Classses in economics must be in simple as well as in general terms - where does rent go, who receives a piece of it? What would be the position under socialism on the question of rent, on the question of job security and so on? The industrial department works closely with the educational department so that the special educational needs of the party trade unionist are understood and met. The trade union member is, of course, very much a member of the party in the ordinary sense and will, of course, make use of the general education offered by the party.
The party aims at building the best possible research department. The reesearch department works in close coooperation with the party's industrial department. A member who wishes to know what profit a boss made last year; if the boss is a director of other companies and so on, is usually suppplied with this information very quickkly. All sorts of information is usually available from the research department. Workers soon understand that the party member can be depended upon to supply all sorts of information not readily available to the general public. All sorts of information can be suppplied on all questions touching on working-class lives.
The information flows from the reesearch department to the party memmbers in the union and from the party members in the union to the research department. Information also flows from the party members in the union to the party press. The party's indusstrial department co-ordinates all this activity. Advisory committees inside the unions, inside industry, are linked through the party's industrial departtment.
How does such a machine come into existence? Party members supply the names of all the organisations to which they belong when they fill in a registration for every year. In certain very special cases a cover name can be used but the party must have a fairly full picture of the members' social industrial and political life. With this information the party's industrial department can then bring together people who will in time become a fully organised advisory committee within a certain body. The party endeavours to work out policy for every industry and the advisory committees, with first hand knowledge of various industries, can give valuable assistance when deciiding party policy on an industry. Each industry is covered with a long-term policy and a short-term policy.
The existence of a policy for an inndustry opens up all sorts of possibiliities, - union speakers of all levels, branch officials, shop stewards, fullltime officials and members of the EC of unions can be invited to speak on a party platform, to discuss the party policy on their industry, can be invited to speak on a party platform, to disscuss the problems of a certain industry and to give an opinion on the party's policy for that industry. Officials can also be invited to write articles for the party press. Trade union officials are often willing to work with the party this way because they know that the party machine inside the union can be put into the scale against them at elecction time. No one, of course, ever says that the officialiS progresssive many case; the facts of life in a union just decide which direction he goes in.
An advisory committee, posing as a party branch sometimes holds an 'open meeting' with progressive nonnparty people in the same region. The excuse for the meeting is often to disscuss party policy in a certain industry but a part of the time is, as if by accident, given over to discussing a coming union election, rules revision meetings or some other question of policy. At every opportunity every effort is made to recruit new members to the party.
Campaigns for more workers control in industry, fashionable in some social democratic circles and even with some employers, are answered with a cammpaign of definite proposals capable of immediate application. More-worker control in an industry must mean a greater say for organised labour, not for company-minded employees. Certain of the firms activities should pass to the control of the organised worker. - The plumbing trade union in London won an agreement with most of the big plumbing contractors that all Labour would be engaged through the plumbing trade union district office; this immensely strengthened the trade union movement in the trade. Multiinational companies are, of course, not even under the control of national managements so it is pointless to speak of workers control in such circumstannces. The research departments are very well informed on the activities of such companies. I hope that this outline of activity makes some sense.