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| Hughie, I hardly knew you | |
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Lord Hugh Scanlon, one-time president of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, has died aged 80.
The establishment spout out their obituaries, portraying him as a tough trade union boss. But when Scanlon dominated the union during the engineering struggles of 1972, he revealed himself to be a traitor to his members, and to the working class. The Engineering Union had been drawing up a wage claim - £5 across the board on the wage, a 35-hour week, an extra week's holiday. Manchester's 30,000 engineering trade unionists occupied their factories for three months, in the teeth of some of the hardest and best-organised employers in Britain.
It was Scanlon who succeeded in completely fragmenting the Manchester workers, at a time when they were acting in harmony. He laid down that each factory should operate the occupation separately, and that any agreement between union and employer should be kept secret from the rest of the union. When the Sheffield district committee of the engineering union called their members out for the claim, Scanlon sent them back and stated that they would have to be directed by the Manchester example. My factory, Laurence Scott, finished up with all except the 35 hours, and some finished up with peanuts.
Hughie swallowed the toad and received his ermine, I remember picketing the TUC and seeing him scuttle in representing some media or other; I had the pleasure of calling him a traitorous rat, a traitorous ex-communist rat to boot. Into the dustbin of history with him.
Dave Hallsworth, UK
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