ITGWU Election A Sticky Problem
Socialist Republic1982Trade unions and workers' strugglesElections and electoral tacticsLabour, the left and left unityRepublicanism and the IRATrade unions and workers' strugglesElections and electoral tacticsLabour, the left and left unityRepublicanism and the IRA
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THE CAMPAIGN for the position of vice president of the ITGWU was marred by allegations of a smear campaign by one of the candidates, Des Geraghty. Geraghty is a National Group Secretary of the ITGWU and a member of Sinn Fein — the Workers Party, He ciaimed that an unsigned document was circulating in the union which was aimed at his campaign for the vice presidency.
The fact that this document was circulated during the campaign seems to back up this claim. Although the document does not mention Geraghty’s vice presidential bid it is well known in the union that he is an SFWP member, although Geraghty used to keep his membership quiet prior to the appearance of the document. In the event, Geraghty failed in his attempt to secure the vice presidency and will no doubt claim that the document had a detrimental effect on that brat While PD is opposed to the circulation of unsigned statements in the trade unions it is only ‘fairto state that the methods of the authors of this particular document are no different from those of the SFWP itself. For a number of years SF WP has been gradually inserting itself into the bureaucracy of the [TGWU without its members declaring themselves. SFWP’s policies in the trade unions are such that they do not challenge the conservative stance of the ist nor democratic. They have also stooped to using the exact same scare tactics they are complaining about in this case: starting whispering campaigns among the right wing sections of the union movement about candidates being “IRA stooges”’. When these points are taken into account their self-righteous indignat-