Heathrow Labour Group 1977
(Workplace Branch)


The concept of organising as a political force within industry is not new. Indeed, as was pointed out by Moss Evans at the Hillingdon Labour Conference, there have been moves by the Labour Party in support of this concept during the past two years. Yet, it is regrettably true to say that little has been done in practice.

Although organising support for the Labour Party in industry does involve a great deal of work, as does every other area of potentially fruitful activity, the basic principles involved are relatively easy to grasp and carry out! We all spend a great deal of time at work, be it factory, office or site, and we talk to our friends and colleagues about politics.

We only therefore need an organisational structure provided by a small grouping of currently active Party members to be able to turn vocal sympathy into electoral support and agreement for our views into membership.

At the present time we in the Labour Party tend to leave political agitation to groups on the political extreme left and right, education of our working friends to the T.V. and Newspapers and leave political activity till we get to our own Labour Party General Management Committees (GMC), branches etc.

Yet if we are to succeed in winning over the majority of British workers to our side, and more important, if we are to encourage the reconstruction of British Industry along socialist lines, we must be prepared to play our full part in industrial based political agitation and education
With this in mind Labour Party members and supporters working at Heathrow have now come together to form the Heathrow Labour Group.

With our own paper 'Heathrow Labour News', we hope to be able to give full scope to the organisational principles expressed in 'Organise the Place of Work!'.

We intend to liaise with local Labour Parties as far as possible and with our 'Heathrow Labour News', specially deigned leaflets and visits by local Labour candidates, hope to win support from
least a small part of the 52,000 people who make up the Heathrow working community.

We have set ourselves a target figure 100 new Labour Party members and we urge all readers who work at Heathrow have friends or family at Heathrow, c belong to local Labour Parties with menbers at the airport, to contact us and help us to make this experiment in grass-root political participation a success.

We would be pleased to answer any question which readers may have regarding our work at any time.

CONTACT
David Neller (Twickenham CLP & TGWU British Airways)

Secretary, Heathrow Labour Group,
8 Elleray Road, Teddington, Middlesex.

NOTE
From Hillingdon Herald November 1977

The Hillingdon Labour Group of Councillors always contained a sizable number of Heathrow employees