With the exception of the final two pieces the articles which appear are reproduced with the kind permission of 'The Weekly Worker.' Thanks to them. Some readers may ask themselves why bother reproducing something now largely forgotten. The answer is simple - the future workers victories lie in learning from the past.

RPM 5 - August 26th 1999

by Mark Metcalf

The decision in June 1999 of Steve Hedley to accept a full-time development officer's job with the building workers' union Ucatt must have marked the end of the campaign to force GTRM to reinstate him to his track maintenance job from which he was dismissed in July 1998.

To all intents and purposes the struggle ended on Monday August 3 at the height of a strike by over 100 maintenance workers when Hedley, RMT (Rail Maritime Transport) shop steward at Euston station and the RMT Harlesden branch secretary, preferred to rely on the bureaucracy of the RMT and its acolytes in 'the British left' rather than rank and file railworkers who he had already inspired to take action. By doing so Steve Hedley turned his back on his closest supporters and now he has clearly decided that 'if you can't beat them [the bureaucracy) then join them'.

Until July 1998 Steve Hedley was employed by GTRM (GEC-Tarmac Rail Maintenance) and had worked on the railway for 10 years. He was dismissed in the middle of a national pay dispute. One year later he was appointed to a full-time development officer's post in Ucatt. He is now a part of the trade union bureaucracy he once recognised as a barrier to workers' struggles: "Rank and file workers who are prepared to act independently of trade union bureaucracies can take on their employers and win" (S Hedley A case for trade union rank and file resistance Colin Roach Centre, 1995, p46).

It will be no surprise to anyone who has studied the history of the trade union movement that Steve Hedley has taken such a job. There are numerous examples of militants who have been critical of the trade union bureaucracy, but sooner or later become a part of it. As a result of their personal improvements in pay, working conditions and status they cut themselves off from the people they once represented. Steve Hedley had recognised this: "The history of so-called leftwingers being elected and then moving rightwards is such a long one that the policy of so-called broad lefts must finally be scrapped" (Harlesden RMT branch leaflet, 1995).

In Steve Hedley's case because of his sacking it could and probably will be argued that he has 'no other place to go'; or 'who else would give him a job?' Others will argue that he 'fought a good fight' and should not be blamed for looking after his personal interests. Certainly Steve Hedley has much greater standing than most people, but nevertheless he is not perfect and it is my view that he did have 'some other place to go'. It is the aim of this article to demonstrate that this was the case and that GTRM could have been forced to 'give him back his job'.

I argue this after having had the privilege of working with Steve Hedley between 1995 and 1998 with the aim of defending and improving the pay and working conditions of railworkers which, it was recognised, required raising political consciousness. I did this through our joint involvement in the Colin Roach Centre, based in Hackney. Despite the ongoing capitalist offensive continuing to destroy workers' pay, conditions and rights, it was still possible in this period to carry out activities which were incredibly successful. These helped to increase the self-confidence of some railworkers to challenge management's plans to restructure their industry. Steve was the key man in this.



Part of a larger article in 'The Daily Mirror' from January 8th 1996. Steve Hedley is to be commended for putting the safety of rail workers and passengers before his livelihood.

These actions included opposing arrogant managers, some of whom were quickly moved to different jobs, organising unofficial walk-outs in defence of threatened workers and secretly working with papers such as The Mirror, resulting in two major articles on rail track safety which forced debates in the House of Commons and statements from government ministers. There were also attempts made to establish a Railworkers Rank and File Group which floundered.

During the period 1995-98 the political profile of Steve Hedley himself was increased, giving him an important leadership role amongst railworkers, who would also have been aware of his expressed contempt for the RMT bureaucracy whose fear before the anti-trade union laws and the employers' powers can be demonstrated:

"If there's one thing that the recent catalogue of disasters have shown is that railworkers cannot rely on Aslef or RMT executives to fight the employers" (Harlesden RMT branch and Colin Roach Centre, joint leaflet, 1996).

As a result of the activities organised between 1995 and 1998 management clearly decided that Steve Hedley must be got rid of and there was a constant round of attacks on him for carrying out his functions as a shop steward and safety representative. All of these were defeated.

However, GTRM finally got its way when it sacked him on July 29 1998. The dismissal arose from an incident on the picket line at Euston station on July 2, when a contractor's van was driven at striking rail maintenance workers.

The picket was in support of a national pay dispute, taken after a ballot under the anti-trade union laws, and backed by the RMT. The fact that there was a strike at all cannot be solely attributed to Steve Hedley, as there were certainly major grievances amongst maintenance staff, but he was a major driving force in getting action to take place. It would not be stretching the issue to argue that his speech at a special conference in Doncaster in March 1998 won over reluctant activists to strike action, which was to involve coming out for two, three or four days at selected times and dates.

On July 3 1998, a contractor picked out Steve as the person who had damaged a wing mirror on the van which had been driven at pickets the day before. The contractor described the person who broke the mirror as wearing a bomber jacket, faded blue jeans and brown boots. Steve Hedley was able to provide photographic evidence, in the form of a colour picture from the previous day's picket which had appeared in the Newsline daily paper. This showed him wearing a blue jumper, dark blue jeans and black shoes. He was not wearing a jacket. Management did not have a case.

At the disciplinary hearing on July 29 management ignored the evidence and in less than one hour he was sacked. With the police 'pursuing their inquiries' and the officer in charge on holiday for three weeks, management were asked to wait until the completion of any criminal case, but they refused. Subsequently Steve Hedley was to be charged, but the case against him was dismissed when it came to court. There are obvious parallels with the cases of hundreds of miners who lost their jobs during the 1984-5 dispute. Originally Steve Hedley had been suspended from work, but he was quickly reinstated when a large number of maintenance staff took strike action in sympathy. He was then suspended again despite promises that he could work at the Willesden depot whilst they made inquiries. Workers at his depot at Euston remained on strike, but others returned to work, leading Steve himself to suggest to Euston workers that they return to work and await the outcome of any disciplinary hearings before taking further action.

The RMT promised Steve "full support" in any fight to get his job back and the assistant general secretary Bob Crow agreed to represent him at any disciplinary hearings. What transpired, however, was very far from "full support". With Steve facing a possible criminal prosecution, he needed a solicitor, especially as management were intent on using the police investigation as an excuse to have him sacked. Furthermore, statements from witnesses needed collecting. In fact, it took the RMT three weeks to get Steve a lawyer. There never was the evidence to charge Steve with criminal damage. But the threat of a conviction gave management enough leverage to sack him. If the union had appointed a solicitor immediately it is likely that the police would not have pursued the matter.

With Bob Crow agreeing to represent Steve Hedley, it appeared that he would get properly represented at any disciplinary hearings. Chance would be a fine thing. Bob Crow did not meet Steve to discuss the case in the two weeks after his suspension. He agreed to see him on the afternoon of July 28, one day before the disciplinary hearing. Witness statements which should have been taken were not. When Steve Hedley, in the company of Graham Smith, turned up, Bob Crow was in a meeting and, frustrated at being forced to wait, Steve Hedley knocked on the door to ask when it would be finished. He was told to "get out" and, desperate for assistance, he was taken to see a solicitor who gave him what advice he could. Only later did Bob Crow see him.

In the weeks between his suspension and dismissal the RMT made no attempt to get any press or TV coverage about the case. No press release was issued and the union did not, it would appear, send a circular to branch secretaries or stewards. The Colin Roach Centre did send out a press release which gained coverage in leftwing newspapers as well as a couple of local newspapers.

Throughout his period of suspension Steve was not inactive in pursuing the struggle for improved conditions for railworkers, and on the evening of July 25-26 he organised a picket at Hither Green in south London, where contractors employed by Balfour Beatty were breaking an overtime ban amongst rail maintenance staff. Although the local shop steward, a member of the revolutionary group which sells the American Militant, failed to honour her promise to turn up, this did not prevent the pickets from turning away all potential strikebreakers. This, in spite of a police presence! Jobs in and around the London Bridge area were cancelled. Balfour Beatty lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in penalties for lost work.

As a leaflet produced after the event said, "The lessons from this are clear - where waverers are confronted and talked to directly they can be convinced to stay on strike ... and the need for effective picketing has never been more apparent: it is the key to winning this dispute." Steve Hedley was the co-author of the leaflet. As events were to prove, a more accurate statement could not have been made.

As it was expected that GTRM would sack Steve Hedley on July 29, a meeting was arranged for the following evening in Willesden to discuss what support railworkers could offer in any fight for reinstatement. Steve was joined on the platform by RMT executive members from the West Midlands and Scotland, as well as Brian Higgins from the Building Worker Group, with whom a close working relationship had been forged over a number of years and who was to give an inspiring speech about the need to fight the employers whilst not expecting the full-time officials of any union to do the same.

Brian Higgins is a Ucatt member who has been victimised and blacklisted by the building employers. He has also faced constant attacks from the officials of Ucatt, including the general secretary, George Brumwell.

It was Brumwell who effectively appointed Hedley to the development officer's post in Ucatt. This was a major slap in the face for Brian Higgins and the Building Worker Group, who have been passionately opposed for 25 years to the bureaucratisation of Ucatt, which includes appointment of officials rather than their election by members. Brian Higgins was, at the time of the meeting, being defended by trade unionists in Britain and overseas against an attack on him by Dominic Hehir, a full-time Ucatt official who had taken out a high court writ for libel against Higgins for daring to criticise him for refusing to support or represent Ucatt shop steward and safety representative John Jones.

Jones and plumber Terry Mason were sacked in October 1995 after refusing to accept a transfer from Southwark council's direct labour organisation to a private building contractor, Botes. When they mounted a picket line no DLO workers would cross and only after reaching an agreement that a mass meeting would take place was the picket lifted. This promise was broken and so the picket was reinstated. DLO workers still refused to cross but the intervention of Ucatt convenor steward Tony O'Brien helped force them across.

The Socialist Workers Party publicly backed the convenor's scabbing and were chucked off the picket line after telling those on it it wasn't one! The group of Workers Revolutionary Party members based around Workers Press, now no longer in existence, then attacked Jones and Mason, even allowing O'Brien its middle two pages on December 9 to boast of "leading" the workers across the picket line. O'Brien then tried to get Ucatt to discipline Jones and Brian Higgins but failed.

Years later two separate industrial tribunals decided that both workers were unfairly dismissed and they received compensation; making a nonsense of those 'leftwingers' who have lined up with the bosses and the bureaucrats against them. Their actions then have obvious parallels with how they acted during the struggle against GTRM and the RMT bureaucracy during the defence of Steve Hedley.

Brian Higgins, in his struggle with Hehir, stated that he would go to jail rather than surrender the freedom to criticise trade union officials, when this was justified. Hehir had two choices - either take Brian to court or back off. In 1999 he backed down. Steve Hedley had been fully involved in the campaign to defend Brian Higgins and played a progressive role throughout that period. This makes it all the more disappointing that Steve Hedley has agreed to accept an appointed position within Ucatt. It is insulting, offensive and insensitive, to say the least.

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