LabourNet wrote:
> Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 21:11:44 -0800
> From: Jack Heyman
> Reply-to: jhook@igc.apc.org
> Organization: ILWU Local 10
> To: Chris Bailey
> Subject: Re: Flint debate
>
> AN OPEN LETTER TO RICHARD FLINT, ITF COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
>
> ITF BETRAYAL OF THE LIVERPOOL DOCKERS' STRIKE...

The situation revealed by Jack Heyman is deplorable.

I can understand the position of the TGWU leadership. Whatever my personal view of the situation, I can see that Bill Morris is only behaving in the same way as any similarly placed bureaucrat in a British trade union, protecting funds from sequestration by staying within British law. With the single honourable exception of John Fisher, former MSF regional officer in Coventry, I have NEVER heard a British full-time official urge workers to take action which would break the Tory anti-union laws.

I can't be equally understanding about the ITF. When American and Canadian longshoremen are taking solidarity action to support their comrades in Liverpool, why is this "international" organization so anxious to stay with in the laws of one minor European country with a viciously anti-working- class government?

Yours fraternally,

Alan Harrison
(former MSF senior rep, GPT, Coventry)