At a meeting in Birmingham on 21 February, the TGWU Broad Left and Amicus Unity Gazette merged into a left grouping for the Unite union into which TGWU and Amicus are merging.
There were 150-200 there, though very few young people. The event was mainly speeches from the platform and an endorsement of the merger of the TGWU Broad Left and Amicus Unity Gazette.
CPB, SWP and SP were heavily present, but the only political discussion was after the speech from John McDonnell in which he pushed the "People's Charter" originating from the CPB. CPers tried to bounce the meeting into supporting the "People's Charter", but the proposal was ruled out of order and no vote was taken.
AWL activists put out a leaflet criticising Derek Simpson on "British Jobs For British Workers" and the Daily Star. Odious Simpsonites were hovering around afterwards campaigning, so our leaflet went down well.
Tony Woodley spoke and sounded leftish. He also signed the SWP letter against "British Jobs For British Workers".
Someone from the engineering construction industry spoke at the end, but there was not much debate on that.
People's Charter endorsed "by acclaim"
Other reports say that although there were objections from the floor to endorsing the "People's Charter", the chair, Martin Mayer, simply declared it endorsed "by acclaim".
Martin Thomas