No Anti Gay Witch Hunt
Socialist Republic1982Labour, the left and left unityTrade unions and workers' strugglesJohn McGeeLabour, the left and left unityTrade unions and workers' struggles
No public scan is online for this item; the text below was read from a privately held copy.
Machine-read text, not corrected. Cut from the scan by machine, by the size of the headline type. Where columns were set close together, lines of a neighbouring article can run in, and a headline can be missed so that two articles share a page. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 2
Tion seems less than credible.
While no one knows who the authors of the document are it is clear that other sectors in the trade union bureaucracy such as the Labour Party and the Communist Party feel under threat from SFWP. It is also possible that there are others genuinely concerned about the anti-Republican and anti-working class policies of SFWP behind the document.
The document combines a criticism of SFWP policies with allegations which could, in some circumstances, lead to a witchhunt against the left in general. It makes the point that SFWP’s policies are wholly at variance with those of the founder of the union, James Connolly. While it is correct and even desirable that a debate open up on the various policies put forward by sections of the union and by political parties in the workers movement generally, this particular document skirts around the issues in order to make anonymous allegations. Whether the alle sations are true or not is irrelevant if those behind it are secretive avout their own background, policies ancl material interests. The Irish working class needs a completely open, democratic and responsive trade union movement. To force that change we must be open and democratic ourselves. THE ANNUAL conference of the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance (NIPSA) is to be asked to resist any attempt at turning public concern over the Kincora affair into NIPSA is the largest white collar union in the North and numbers amongst its 34,000 members most of the-social workers employed by the four Health and Social Services Board who share responsibility for the supervision of residential childrens homes.
a resolution from Branch 705 which represents social service workers in North and West Belfast. The branch has called for the immediate convening of a public inquiry to uncover the role of politicians, government agencies and the RUC in obstructing investigation of child abuse allegations over the past 20 years. It believes that the major issue which is raised by the mushrooming Kincora scandal is the corruption of the Northern establishment.
published until 1986.
a witch-hunt against gay social workers.
The union conference will be debating
Scan page 3
~ SOCIALIS1 ER