Socialist Press no. 39

STRIKE ACTION

NOT WORDS

TO STOP CUTS

£1,000 million in new with spending cuts, along another £1,000 million in extra taxation, is the latest in series of the long savage attacks on jobs and condit- ions which have been made by this reactionary Labour government. be These attacks cannot defeated by gestures, by protests "left' They rhetoric.

COLL

only be defeated by all-out strike affected, action by Ene

UHOS

calling for the support of the whole labour defence of jobs, conditions, the social services, health and education.

ADMITTED

While Healey and Callaghan arrogantly admit that the cuts are made entirely in the interests of the capitalist class in Britain and trade internationally,

HOL

union or Labour leader has so far presented any programme defend the working class.

"lefts' have criticised the The - but give no lead for action cuts to fight back. They act as if a few words and votes will change the minds of the government. attack so far has

BUIL

evely shown that its policies can only be the mobilisation of defeated by the full strength of the working class. This has to centre on strike action, based on a programme of demands which fully defend the of the working class, interests irrespective of the requirements of capital.

SACRIFICES

The sacrifices which _ Healey offered up to the capitalist class last week involved major reduc- tions in spending on the health housing, local authority SerVICe, subsidies spending, food and pensions for disabled housewives, well as increased charges for

SCHOOL

meas and spectacles. that the Healey admitted measures would give another huge boost unemployment to admitted to 70,000 redundancies, while the Tribune group estimate 200,000). This was only a day after the

SOCIALIST

PRESS *

latest figures showed number of registered unemploy- ed was almost 1½ million.

Three days later the govern- ment gave the details of a further €100 million previously announced staffing the civil service. And its campaign for immediate cuts the 1n HOTe "overspending" by local author- ities has been stepped up.

STAFF CUTS

Callaghan urged in the House of that authorities Commons should cut staff as well as services because, he added cynically, "the purpose of the staff is to provide the services." There has been no shortage of these opposition to policies - from some of the trade union leaders as well as the parl- iamentary "lefts'. These words will now be tested. Unless verbal opposition is backed up with action then it is more than smoke- hide screen

WICH LO

betrayal of the interests of the working class. The Tribunite MPs have cor- rectly argued that Foot and Benn should have resigned from the Cabinet in protest over the cuts; but what will they do themsleves to oppose them?

AMBIGUOUS

Their threats to vote against parliament them have been veiled and ambiguous and are only made on the assump.

tion that, because of Tory support or neutrality, there is no danger of the right-wing Callaghan govern- ment being defeated. Keeping this anti-working class government in power at all costs the reactionary and cowardly objective of the Tribune group. Voting against the cuts parliament, however, though welcomed, step to be would not defeat them. That realites a united and uncompro- the working mising response by class in the form of strike action.

Will the Tribunites campaign to have am the certain sections ey have among certain sections workers in of strike support Cont'd on Back Page Chronicle PHOTO: Courtesy of Camden of the one The success strike at four London day hospitals against the threat- ened closure of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital is an important step forward in the fight against the cuts in public spending. for The strike, workers of the we laby toe was the workers' reply to the local Parliament proposed by Stalinists in an attempt to head off growing support for an occu- pation of the EGA Instead, the day of action on the 21st July became a platform on which an occupation can now be built with strikes at the EGA, University College, St. Pancras and National Temperance hosp- itals, including the Royal Free (North Camden) and Whittington Islington). These were the first strikes

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

NO 39 * 28th JULY 1976 * 10p

INSIDE

Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement • pp4-5 Statement. Women and the Russian .. pp6-7 Revolution Redgrave, Ryder and Arithmetic....... .... pp8-9 • •• Pp10-11 Industrial News.. • pp2-3 International News

PATIENTS

BEFORE

1 PROFITS

400 hospital workers march through Londo

HOSPITAL WORKERS

STRIKE TO STOP CLOSURE

against the present cuts in public Thus the whole march took u the demands of the WSL spending since railway men on сру, and Save to BA

NHS

- Strik the Eastern Region were bullied back to work by their union bureaucracy last March. Upon reaching the House Their success shows the willing- to fight the Commons 200 of the marche ness WOrKeD crowded into the lobby room present policies of the Labour see Betty Harrison take the cha government and trade union introducing a series of speakers.

leaders. In her introduction Harris After picketing the various completely ignored the fact th morning 400 hospitals in workers marched from the EGA strike action had been tak against all hospital closures, insi to the House of Commons. ing that the march was a prote During the march veteran against the closure of the EGA.

Stalinist Betty Harrison the platfor announced from the lead car that Amongst speakers, only Richard Shield, t this was a "protest" march against of University Colle Stewar Hospital Joint Shop hospital, the EGA. marked Committee, put the day of acti This claim was in high level of in the context of a fight agair contrast to the the present policies of the Labo militancy shown by the marchers fight to clearly saw the government. save the EGA as part of the fight Cont'd on Page 1 against the cuts public spending.

Page 2

POLAND

Brutal sentences were hand- longest term out last week in Warsaw ed Miroslaw and Radom to workers invol- with others 25th strikes the June ved in demonstrations which and regime to forced the Polish - overnight - the withdraw food increases in massive prices they had announced the day before. (an industrial city In Radom, sixty miles south of Warsaw, where mass demonstrations attacked Com- munist Party offices and opened up of local appartments the luxury bureaucrats) six workers were jailed six to ten years after a of

TOE LIES

secret "trial".

"TRIAL"

And in the first of the Warsaw Ursus "trials" seven workers of the tractor plant got sentences of three to five years.

PERU:

The strikes and riots which followed the Peruvian military dictatorship's latest anti-work- economic measures class have in their turn provoked a apheaval within major first regime which military seized power eight years ago.

down an After he had

DUT

coup by one General, the abortive Prime Minister and Commander in General Fernandez Chief, himself deposed Maldonado was only a few days later to be replaced by General Arbulu Gallani.

complicated reshuffling of Generals represents a decisive shift Peruvian inside of power The shift is not, military. capitalist press and some of the left papers say, from the left to right. from It is rather a move away section of the "modernising" the which, seized military right-wing power in 1968.

JUNTA

The Junta has since attempted build Peruvian to inaustra capitalism, has increased the role of the state, reduced the power of the old landed oligarchy and somewhat reduced the influence of the United replacing it with States in Peru, with other imperialist closer links powers in Western Europe and with Japan. Maldonado and other members of his cabinet who have fallen with him still to some extent represented this "modernising tendency in the military. only representative of this The tendency now remaining in a major is the President, position himself seized Bermudez, power from President Velasco after a previous series of anti-government 1975 and is now riots AUgUST politically isolated.

ANTI-WORKING CLASS

world" There was never anything "left" have this about anti- pursued an systematically class policy. working suppressing any independnet polit- ical movement of the working class and peasantry. strike and form The right to set out rigorously trade unions has of a number of occasions limited. shot dead by have been strikers police. and Hundreds of workers peasant leaders have been tortured, mprisoned or exiled controlled hv

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

REPRISALS AGAINST STRIKERS

There ment. One of those who received the the cities was a young worker, Wroclaw. Chmielewski, accused In Warsaw, as well as the Ursus of ripping up a main railway line running near the plant.

works, there Karol-Swierczewski Steel Works, at Further secret victimisations are the Tewa transistor factory certainly due or already in process.

perhaps most important of all - at

DILEMMA

the Zeram of preparations for armed resistance to the threatened Soviet invasion of The Stalinist bureaucracy in Poland 1956. Plock there at the strations struck at them by the working class which works, the Soviet Union trom Their dilemma is sharply expres- sed in the fact that while they are are Baltic ports of the blaming "the disturbances" of June scene of the strikes and on a handful of "hysterical strations against similar price rises hooligans in a state of drunkeness" toppled which brought Gierek's group to power in them. December 1970 and January 1971.

within hours, to capitulate on price Such national reflects the profound social contra- millions of pounds. dictions reports now show that it state in Poland. was indeed a national strike move-

STALINIST-BACKED JUNTA

MOVES RIGHT

class policies. consistently has regime both directly dominates. which has bureaucracy internationally dictatorship. the Peruvian support. leaders ot whose forbidden were Velasco support this government Stalinists the The land reform introduced with liberals and much fanfare has brought no bene- continue to make fits to the peasantry. although the In foreign policy, produced a torrent of orship. regime has "third "anti-imperialist" and have rhetoric, it has in Ieauty been participating in inter-imperial- ist manoeuvres. the ole lanueu defeated Generals. They

NO ASSISTANCE

makt ing class intentions. the military dictatorship When to crush the working class Chile in 1973, the supposedly "progressive" Generals of Peru gave no assistance to Chilean workers; But they assisted the military instead they political by was totally in refugees, and fight any character wiin new logue.

The Stalinists' version that food were important stop- prices are artificially low because of Poznan and protected from workers have been inflation since 1970 is a cynical lie.

were strikes at the

PRIVILEGE

and While prices in state shops have motor plant, the centre been controlled, supplies have been diverted more and more black market and into the inumer- "privilege" shops able demon- were, state functionaries can and petro-chemical party whatever they oil piped get ordinary workers must queue for And there hours for inferior produce or pay also reports of action in the through the Gdansk area, I1UsG, market. demon- The strike wave was not at all against socialism Gomulka of . prices, but on control the bureaucratic against contrary, prostitution deformations and movement the planned economy to serve the greed and arrogance of the Stalinist of the deformed workers In the growing campaign of terror waged by the Argentin- ian military dictatorship some heavy blows have been inflict- ed on the workers' and left organisations. The main direct agents of the terror are the police and the licen- ced death squads which are organis- ed by army generals and the secur- union leaders, left-wing priests and political refugees from other Latin American dictatorships have been are presumed dead. But a large part of the campaign armed section of the Castro with Junta Generals tionary Party) and the left-Peronist organisation, the Montoneros.

The Peruvian Communist Party of the PRT, Roberto Santucho, was the supported murdered by the police along with and through six other leading members trade union federation, CGTP, The Soviet continually allied The increasingly savage military indiscriminate nature of the repres the sion reflects the rapid break-up of central authority within the dictat-

CASTRO

orship. General Videla and other leading the Junta members And Fidel Castro has also given exterminate the guerilla groups and uncritical generals all signs repress activity by the working class.

In 1971 in Lima, Castro told an audience of Peruvian workers, some

BOLIVIA

were in jail, who form indepen- dent trade unions or go on strike, and who might be shot dead if they did so: "If I were Peruvian I would The miners' strike continues It will now be more difficult for well in at least two as to major tin mines (Siglo XX and social democrats their grotesque Catavi). In the rest there has claims for the revolutionary creden- been a partial return to work tials of the Peruvian military dictat- of wage in advance The group under General Arbulu tions which were due to begin now taken power are on July 14th. closer to American imperialism and But there is little chance of these oligarchy than the • taking place negotiations near future since the miners' newly absolutely no elected representatives have deman- attempt to disguise their extreme ded the withdrawal of the troops right-wing positions and anti-work- occupying the mining areas and the return of the exiled and imprisoned leaders before they are prepared to

FIGHT BACK

negotiate. Several hundred arrested have come to power at a struggle began and about sixty of when the Peruvian work- them have been deported to Chile.

ing class has shown itself ready to Banzer faces this trial of strength new attacks on working without any popular support SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 28th July, 1976.

Stalinism has reacted Western The with lick-spittle hypocrisy. Italian Communist Party has sent a "pre- Gierek expressing note occupation" after receiving an appeal from the Polish opposition- himself jailed by ist Jacek Kuron, the regime in 1965 and 1969.

into tne and trade union labour "She movement in Britain, and in partic which ular the British Communist Party, must take up the defence of the while and workers who face repression long jail terms in Poland for the "crime" of opposing price-rises and the black wage cuts. branches "and Trade union state Trades Councils must demand that the the Polish government must release those jailed and drop the dozens of of secret "trials" that are still pending 47, Portlan‹ [Polish imbass lace, London W1..

ARGENTINA: CAIROS

CRACK-DOWN

But having sent Hoz on begging mission to Europe and the crisis, they would like to do it with- out the embarassment of the death squads and the more public savage squads is minimal and it is scarcely able to control the police.

ing little more than a figurehead in paying a heavy price for the treach- dictatorship and most of the trade union bureaucracy which continues to discuss compromising deals with have suffered heavy casualties and this seems to have movement towards their unification under the title Argentine Liberation Organisation (OLA). They continue to offer consider- able military resistance to the Junta positions have kept them relatively working class and wish of independent Argentinian workers.

BANZER

CONFRONTS CRISIS

of Bolivia's negotia- in the union leaders the since own.army. the stocks of tin which And 7,000 tons are enough amount to weeks to last only „ten and

IN LE

SPAIN: AGAINST NEW REGIME

SOCIALIST PRESS

28rh Jar, 1576 The new Spanish cabinet is already showing itself no more capable than its predecessor of holding together the crumbling structure of' fascism. Prime Minister Suarez

LOOK

office when military and other ultra-Francoist IoIces objected to the "reformists" of the previous cabinet. But already Suarez has been forced the same kind Into "reformist" rhetoric in an effort to find shelter from the tornado of anti-government activity from the working class. The sight of demonstrations in the two weeks of tens of last thousands in every major Spanish city terrorised the members of the Cortes (Spain's fake parliament) finally into passing the law which would legalise political parties. The Communist Party will be excluded, though it is not explicitly mentioned the many amnesty proposal was members of the Francoist 'bunker suce the announced, there has been wanted. noticeable the number increase in

REFUSED

of political arrests. rade union leaders in particular All the of the class have suffered. The socialist party's parties collaborationist opposition alliance, trade union organisation the UGT, the Democratic Coordination, have hitherto relatively unmolested, has far refused for legal had several militants arrested in the apply recognition under law. days

[DIS

and one of Suarez has also reiterated Arias members in Asturias shot dead in Navarro's promise of the street by the Civil Guard while constitutional referendum in the putting up posters. "general autumn followed by elections" June 1977.

BOMBS

before And the clamour for growing On the fortieth anniversary of amnestv nas made it almost certain Franco's rebellion a series of bombs that King Juan Carlos will shortly exploded in important government forced to buildings in Madrid and other cities.

of about 350 political prisoners Responsibility has been claimed by members including the Euskadi calling itself the nationalist organisation "Anti-Fascist Resistance Group' the maoist guerilla group but it seems certain that the bombs the FRAP). the work of right were wing

PATHETIC

The placing of the bombs make All this the Suarez it fairly obvious tha the bombers had the cooperation of the security government's effort put on an acceptable face. But even services even if they were not the The Workers Socialist League The Workers Socialist League was formed in December 1974 to struggle for the continuity of the principles of Trotskyism in Britain and towards the rebuikling of the, Fourth International. In the daily struggle to take the demands and principles of Trotaky' Transitional Programme into the trade unions he WSL has been at the forefront of the fight for and work Sharing aternative to Jones' L6 pay plan and the wholesale acceptance of redundancies by the bureaucracy In today's fight against the TUC's 41% pay cutting proposals this demand for a sliding scale of wages (rising according to the rising cost of living as assessed by trade union committees) is the essential basis of consistent opposition.

In the Health Service WSL comrades have led the struggle for a sliding scale of NHS spending, for the start of workers' control of the service (beginning with opening the books of the Health Authorities), along with the fight to end all private practice. Perhaps more important wè have led the growing call for strike action to defend the NHS against the cuts and to implement these policies, fighting those like the ASTMS leadership who substitute the words for the action.

disputes also, WL comrades have tested and developed the In local demands of the Transitional Programme, putting forward in every case the only real opposition to the Stalinists and the right-wing. Our struggle for the. "open the books" demand in the motor industry has won a mass response the same taine we have put forward a policy fight of employed and unemployed through unemployment, calling for unity the fight to mobilise the trade union movement.

The WSL is the only ovement that fights consistently | nsitional demands, going beyond mere tiade union militancy to p the political issues to workers.

In doing this our comrades have been forced also to lead struggles fos trade union democracy against the bureaucratic manipulation of the Stalinists and right-wing.

While these nterventions have developed the Leagues's grasp of Trotsky's Transitional Programme there has been a consistent drive to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history and the present crisis of the Fourth International, as an essential part of any serious inițiative towards its reconstruction.

we urge all readers who agree on the need for revolutionary leadership and the demands we put forward to find out more about the WL and join our fight in the labour movement.

MASS STRUGGLES

very same people. The bombs were immediately used as the pretext for a new police of round up if it comes, will not, of amnesty, course, involve any reduction in the mounting scale of political arrests.

Suarez The government, then, has found no better answer than its predecessor to the problems of the Spanish ruling class. One of these problems is how to impose real wage cuts and higher unemployment, which Spanish capitalism so urgently needs on a which is every working day aggressive and impatient. Last more was forced to concede the wage demands of the striking postal workers (which Arias government had temporarily crushed few months ago by calling up the postal workers into the army).

150,000 MARCH

intervene against march 150,000 in Bilbao demanding work for the unemployed. The regime's position could hardly be more contradictory. They forced their areformist camouflage in order to entice working class within range. Yet they are unable LU aiseuise the fact that they cannot allow their reforms to have any real content. So they hint at permitting the right to strike, knowing that they must fight mercilessiy to prevent its being used. Since the brutal suppression of last months' riots which left hundreds of black workers and school children dead Vorster's wounded, racist government has completely withdrawn the measure which sparked off the disturbances (the compulsory use of Afrik- schools) and it has aans in sacked the officials responsible for the policy. But the signs of black discontent have never ceased. And it has now up once again. At linross Johannesburg. on July 19th, 1000 gold. miners went on strike after a day of rioting in which six were killed and many others woun- ded; similar incidents had taken place a few days earlier at the St.

Helena mine.

CLOSED

The black of Fort university Workers demonstrate in Barcelona, February 1976 They offer amnesty but at the same time step up political arrests.

They promise elections contested by legalised parties - but none of these will be parties which have significant of working class members and supporters.

"INDEPENDENT"

"Independent" trade unions are planned but they will not include any of the organisations which the working class itself set up the of during years repression. this reason the recent assembly of the general Workers Commisssions in Barcelona was had to held "ir banned and be secret" (though the UGT had been permitted to hold a congress two months: earlier). Workers' Commissions (local and factory based workers' organisations) first developed after the strikes and other in Asturias regions in the early 1960s. They developed so fast that the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) liquidated its own union organisation the OSO into the Commissions and has since then • been the major, if not always the dominant, force inside them.

LARGEST

They were nearly destroyed by repression between 1969 and 1972 but vigourously came back to life after that to become the largest organisation of the Spanish workers' movement. PCE has made activity in the Commissions a central element

SOUTH AFRICA:

TWIN CRISES GROW

tions in which students barricaded themselves in a hostel. The molent demonstration followed by attempts to set build- ings alight. South African

TERT

government buildings have suffered arson attempts and one white official in Soweto was shot dead.

On July 20th the tension of the as some schools which had been closed at the time of the Soweto events were reopened. In a gesture of continued many students stayed away protest, trom school.

"CONFUSION"

The authorities hopefully attrib- uted this to "confusion" over which day the schools were to open since many of them, especially Soweto were kept closed until the 23rd. The black areas were patrolled by thousands of police who had been put on full alert. The so-called Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, announced that the law which secunity hermits of its strategy. It has consistentl tried to maintain the Commissios loosely federate 'movement' and prevent them fros developing into a real trade unio tederation few the PC months ago leaders actually took a decision 1 liquidate the Commissions into th Francoist regime's official syndic organisation (in which elections t local and factory posts had recentl been *HUl Workers' Commission candidates This proposal resisted so strongly by the rank a file of the movement that the PC leaders were forced to withdraw almost immediately. sure that th kut they recent general assembly should lea no further challenge to political line. The assembly was no prepared by a wide discussion the Commissions and most of th delegates were not democraticall elected but bureaucratically han picked. surprisingly, Not therefor Marcelino the

PCE

Camacho, candidate, was elected to th leading position of the movemer nationally; the executive of consisted almost of PC entirely nominees; and the PCE's politic theses were passed by the assembl by a very large margin. The main point of the these was that the Commissions shoul build themselve not attempt to into an independent trade unio until had structure unity th achieved with Socialist-dominated UGT and th ex-Christian USO.

COVER,

This worth apparently commitment to trade union unit is in fact nothing more than a cov for a policy which holds back th development of the Spanis workers' movement. But pressure against this line the Commission mounting inside from the centrist PTE and the ORT, other lef and revolutionary groups and fron large sections of the rank and fil The bureaucratic organisation c the general assembly is an exampl of how the PCE leadership is bein forced into increasingly attacks on workers' democracy i order to its politica position. This struggle within the mai workers' organisation is a reflectio of the broader struggle between th Spanish working and mortally wounded. fascist regime whose life is only prolonged by th policy of the Communist Party triai would come into effect in and that all meetin mediately would be forbidden for a month.

GOLD

While the regime faces thes th mounting political attacks, economic situation shows signs c worsening very rapidly. Last week sudden new fall in the price of gol means a new crash in South Africa export earnings The 40% fall in the gold pric over the last year has already force one on the Sout devaluatiol African government. The balance of payments is i further trouble because beginning of a panic outflow the funds produced by political upheavals. And the late economic show that figures slump is rapidly gathering speed i South Africa and inflation accelerating. All this is bound to intensify th forces which are driving the Africa masses into head on collision wit

WAGE CONTROL AND

UNION DEMOCRACY

Page 4 To All Trade Unionists: workers' The movement all-round today faces an attack. Whilst unemployment is driven over 1½ million and public spending and social services savagely cut, the 4%% endorsed by the TUC Special cut in real wages for workers officials who supported every- one of these policies of the Labour government are now attempting to impose come to fight back. situation the election of the forced out of office because of its stand and defeated their attempts

'BACK TO WORK'

Labour. government new WeeK claim, froze council rents and, when began the repeal of the hated Indus- misiately face thissame eich mac driven the Tories And, just like the Tories, he set out to solve it at the expense of the wage increases. The Labour leaders attempted to turn this against them by blaming high wages for inflation — a line they took straight from the and put forward the

HAUS

a national rail strike threat and the This defeat forced the Labour government into a change of policy, and the Social Contract came into play. Labour leaders began openly to argue that wages must be held down to cut inflation. This was aso the argument ot Jones, who cynically used the July 1975 conterence of the T&GWIJ In the as a lever to introduce the £6 so- forced called voluntary limit its intro- duction Healey ship O1 within hours the decision. Jones' other argument was to say that it would save jobs, yet unemployment has soared ever Scanlon reaching a post-war record. As the £6 limit drew to an end the ground was laid by Labour and TUC leaders for an even lower limit - resulting in the 4½% figure plus some nominal tax concessions all sections. agreed at the TUC Special Congress on June 16th. conference accepted with

LOANS AND CUTS

The government argued that if the 4½% deal not accented. they need further inter- would

OCTOBER CONFERENCE CALLED ON

in the Labour Movement, an ad hoc committee set up by trade union militants, which as its name suggests, has been formed in order to campaign for democratic procedures in the Labour call for a Conference on "Wage Control and Union Democracy" to be held in Birmingham on Sunday October 24th. As the statement makes clear the Conference is open to all trade unionists. But the committee asks in particular for trade union branches, District Committees, shop stewards committees and Trades Councils to send delegates, sponsor the Conference and make a financial donation towards the organising costs.

members are called upon to begin the campaign.

Key TUC leaders defying their Jones (T&GWU), Basnett (GMWU), Scanion (AUEW), Gormley (NUM) and Jackson concessions meant "real woe benea tively worded ation of price controls. only arguments, and took up the fight to acceptance. unions by a series of bureaucratic 1It Jackson of the UPW, began to press defying mandates trom their arguing that he wanted "no return Campaign in the Tory press.

DAOI

which is by rule bound by Biennial BDC in 1975. This conference had condition that eight points were permanent system of price controls pulley. the injection of the necessary against the 42% deal

AGREEMENT BROKEN

AUEW,

the deal was after Scanlon, through engineering section together with the right-wing leader- engineering section, Ine broke the merger agreement with 47270 Dy Lwo the other sections. This provided at full conference. obtained a majority in favour of the 4½% at the confer- of the engineering (which holds a majority of votes in the whole union and thèn mandat- ed all their delegates in favour of

DECEPTION

the 4½% at the full conference of Now we can The result of this was a split and the 4½% prolonged, was of the carried out jointly a majorty In UCATT, the Executive were the arguments defeated at their Bienniai Delegate held any water. Conference which voted against the General Secretary Smith We reprint below the full text of a statement by the newly-formed Campaign for Democracy The Workers Socialist League will give full support to this Conference and all branches and members interests to give support to the 42% deal: and that a ballot of the membership as soon as you don't. Free Yet, collective bargaining with a decep. tinion journed a glot one da ballot paper the policy of virtually every union — has been abolished. narrowly secured The argument that wage-cutting to "cut ment" has been turned into a laugh-

DEFIED MANDATES

with the 16 limit being 1ng Stock followed up by huge redundancies and rationalisation in both private and nationalised industries, creating unemployment which obtained a majority of one on the record Executive, with three right-wingers areas in order to support the 4½%.

Gormley then used this one vote

"SAVE THE POUND"

majority to ballot the membership again with a deceptively worded amid The 42% deal, supposedly means of Only using such manoeuvres did pound" and avoiding the need for TÚC leadership get their 17-1 international loans and majority at the Special Congress. In spending cuts, has in reality reality their votes did not represent accompanied by a further collapse the views of the working class, but- in the pound, huge new loans, and the first of a further round of massive spending cuts; also with £1,012 million. Indeed the fall in the value of the pound, reflected in rising prices, has already more the whole of the 42% increase.

that the Conference resolution said The promises to control prices nothing about actually fighting the have collapsed and simply voting against it existing inadequate controls have been relaxed, giving and cutting over 2% from the value of the wage packet of a worker.

Now, to cap it all, there is talk of increasing taxes later this year, the made in Healey's budget to sugar resolution opposing the deal which the 42% pill. would have given official support to The TUC leaders backed up all any section of members fighting the these with a promises threat: they argue that a rejection of the 4½% would mean the return of a Tory government, ignoring the fact that any danger of a return of Tories is entirely the begin to see the The sibility of the conscious deception policies which was shown absolute- by the Labour ly clearly by the mass abstention of and trade union leaders. Not one of Labour voters in recent by-elec- controls for wage tions. The so-called voluntary f6 flat

EXCUSES

rate" policy accepted we were told But the trade union SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 28th July, 1976.

of cynical carry out the •series manoeuvres outlined above they had to take measures have silence critical voices within the trade union movement. To this end they began tightening the bureau- full time cratic control officials over the shop stewards and the membership. 15 'gag' Rule

WEN

adopted by the TUC in September only two months after the £6 limit, in anticipation of a clearly fight in the Trades Councils.

This Trades Councils to tule ties TUC policy and has an optional clause giving dictatorial powers to remove the credentials from dele- gates regarded as "disruptive"

'PARTICIPATION'

As part of this drive, "partici- are being forced pation conentes in, in an attempt to transform the shop stewards movement into an of management, similar the joint consultative com- nationalised industries and hospitals.

level bargaining is being negotiations placed in ended and the hands of full time officials.

Where militants bases win mass of the full weight of support, oppression bined orchestrated press with witch-hunts in attempts to isolate them. Where militants win control of committees the officials and the right-wing simply close them down they did with the

T&GWU

as Automotive District Committee in Oxford. emerges in a Trades Council, again as in Oxford, that Trades Council is backed by the right-wing and Com- The leadership of many trades held up as expulsion and the removal of shop "saving the stewards credentials. public entire Strathclyde Area Committee been were expelled for opposing the £6 steward on the docks was removed beginning by the regional committee because the dockers refused to lift a black than wiped out instead the But the bureaucrats still have a problem. Despite their attacks on £1,000 trade union democracy the strength of the working class continuously emerges. British Earlier this year, in Leyland, skilled workers fought the £6 pay deal and it took the full of the AUEW to force Executive them back to work. by their Although betrayed leaders student teachers occupied political their colleges against the cuts.

ballots, despite the In intervention of the capitalist press and the manoeuvres of the leader ships, 47% of miners and 40% of respon-

UCATT

voted to reject membel Wilson-Callaghan the 42% - even though they were told they would be "on their own" trade against the whole union movement. clear that the the defence of wages and jobs is the trade union leader- ship. leaders to haoin

TRADE UNiON!

MEMBERS

SOLD OUT.

TIGHT TO

ERYDER

#ORK

700 workers from Export Packing Services, near Banbury, march to lobby the Oxford District TGWU Offices against impact of Ryder capitalist class which always end up with the working class footing the bill. The fight must press forward to throw out all forms of state control of wages. call Instead we for a sliding scale of wages clause in every agreement, to ensure that wages rise automatically with the cost of living - on a scale assessed -by elected committees of trade unionists and housewives.

OPEN THE BOOKS

To those employers or govern- ment departments who say they cannot pay, we must demand that they their books these open elected committees. This will either prove them wrong, or prove that they must be nationalised without compensation under the control of elected committees of workers, not tailored the requirements capitalism as at present.

immediate strike for the Where action to stop cuts. closures redundancies and threatened, we must fight for occu- pation and demand work sharing on full pay, administered by trade union committees, together with a of public works provide jobs for the unemployed at trade union rates.

ELECTED

But to fight for these policies means to fight the bureaucracy and its allies the trade union mov- ment. We must demand that all full time officials are regularly elected meetings. Leadle time careerists must be driven out positions demanding that full time officials be paid no more than the average wage of their

WITAN.

Steps must be taken to protect trade unions from the interference of the Tory press. "partici- And pation" schemes which subordinate management must opposed on principle. We are convinced that the work- ing class will fight the wage-cutting POc. But this needs near lead But this needs a lead cleat and a perspective on which to fight.

CAMPAIGN

To this end, we as trade union militants, have formed 'ourselves Campaign Workers' into foI Tate Democracy, ad hoc committee of rank and file trade We are calling a Conference in order to the widest promote possible discussion policies and analysis outlined The above. Conference, convened on the issues of "Wage Control Union and Democracy", to all trade 15 oDen Bút we unionists. ask in particular for trade union branches, District Committees, shop com- mittees and Trades Councils to send delegates, sponsor the Conference and make financial donation towards the organising costs.

Copies of this statement, further details of the campaign conference credentials and (25p) can be obtained from the Conference Secretary: Kevin Lee, 44, Devonshire Road, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham 20.

JOB PROTECTION"

14+1 • 1•34

LEMU HAVE SCORES

ELEPHO OFFICTA

CHERE

ARE THEY

plan threatening closure of their factory to boost BLMC rationalisation.

SECRET

DEALS

Key demand: Open the Books!

politics" "No the was at the unspoken rule recent conference of the National Union of School Students. of those most eagerly Many following line this were Stalinists of the Young Communist League who were strongly represented among the 80 delegates and observers at the Conference. This is why, though one of the main campaigns of the Union supposedly against spending cuts in any specific method of education, fighting the cuts rejected. A motion containing WSL policy calling for a fight for a sliding scale of public expenditure rising automatically to keep pace with inflation - was defeated in favour of resolution simply ting that The stating that Union should fight education cuts" Dul icavulg open the question of how.

motion was demanded struggle to work sharing full pay bernie Ull with of together useful public works fight

VICERO OVE

One delegate, clearly prepared to see huge sums of government cash bolstering up told ivate contractors' profits, he did •not why useful public works could only be out alongside a scheme of carned nationalisation! When discussion shifted to the question of wages, another delegate went so far as to suggest that school "aren't interested" students economic political questions. oI This view was correctly attacked by the speaker advocating the main motion "deploring" the TUC's 4% UnIOns In

THE DOCK

AUEW

In March last year there was dispute at the Eaton Transmission Co. Walkden, Lancashire. A meeting of all decided first not to strike in support of 9 workers sacked in a previous dispute, then further meeting but decided to strike. Some of the workers scabbed on • the strike. Four of these men, who organised what was called a 'liaison committee' foI scabs, were from the AUEW by the expelled Bolton District Committee.

But industrial tribunal on Wednesday July 21st acting under its powers under Section 5 of the AUEW General Secretary Boyd: 1974 Union and Labour right wing leadership rests on Relations Act decided they Inal were entitled to be members of the hereror or corns.

AUBW.

EQUITY

This Act passed by the w45 Labour Government to replace the hated Tory Industrial Relations Act confrontation with following the AUEW in 1974. At a Special General Meet- This decision of the tribunal ing last November the present follows on the High Court ruling Equity Council leaders tried to last year of the union's national who should passed which get a motion

LICUCIN

committee - a ruling the leadership would have meant they could babye accolou change union rules by referen- There has to be a stand made da. They were defeated. against thece attacks of the courts on the independence of the trade Since then, using the union's resources to pay the costs of Marius unions. Last week's Manchester decision must not be accepted. If Goring and Graham Hamilton, the Council has taken the courts try to enforce it, they must be met by the same national court. which defeated the In court on Thursday 22nd July, strike action Industrial Relations Act.

they obtained a judgement in the

NO LEAD FOR

SCHOOL

STUDENTS

The following motion has expressed cuts plan; who been submitted pay to could that amazement Birmingham. Trades Council class school believe working UCATT 131/Small students aren't interested in wages Heath (Birmingham) branch.

This motion was clearly quite provide inadequate to any alter- This Trades Council expresses native path for the struggle to def- end living standards against inflat- its determination to stamp out the wave of attacks on black people by ion. It was narrowly defeated, while groups of racialist thugs.

motion advocating a fight for a These attacks are the direct sliding scale of wages clause in agreements to protect against inflat- ion was more heavily voted down.

But the real weakness of the More racialist attacks are present_ NUSS leadership even on going to take place. The neces- simply day to day questions emerg- ed clearly in the National Comm- sity for developing defence ittee reports to the Conference.

squads in those areas where They contained a long and sorry attacks already taking are saga of petty personai feuds among place is therefore becoming the national leadership' resulting in splits with many NC members more urgent resigning. Even some of the surviv- The task of revolutionaries is absent from the Confer- ors were both to defend those being alfack- ence for obscure 'personal reasons' el and show that these attacks are a

ABSENCE

are a class issue. Fascism is about breaking up the organisation of the wurking classics a stirle What has clearly been absent Those from the leadership has been any or individuals who have started ilie firm fight for principle of serious formation of vigilante groups have desire to overcome tiken an important step forward in lne maevilable initial organisational and financial breaking from the reformist prose.

problems in building the NUSS.

ion of appealing to the poher • he The Stalinists of course refuse capitaliss state, to defend themsel to fight the periphery of liberals yes against fascism • which uself is and right-wingers who have crept just another form of capitalism into the leadership, with the result But, unlike the International noW far too many of the Marxist Group and other groups we union's members are paper mem- do nut say it is simply a question of bers only. "Buikl labour movement support This situation must be turned by for blackons self-defence" (kid students on the recruiting school Weekly page statement firm basis of an active union 10.6.76) or "Only the defence of

WILI

fighting policy both to defend the black communities by blacks education and to fight alongside themselves are any guarantee lor the working class as a whole against racist attacks" againsi

HHAULELLLIELI

the attacks of the employers and (IMG national leafled). their agents in the labour move- ment. Sost num Battles continue around disciplinary action taken Yorkshire 'area the extreme against {WO wingers who gave union do ments to the Tory press. The two - Bill O'Brien, until decision Branch Secietary at GI houghton Colliery, Castleford Tom Roebuck, of Manvers were banned from of Calliery, for two years for giving volun statements and confidential de lawyers representing to Sheffield Star. The informat aided the paper's defence again libel action brought by Yorkshire area presid Scargill, on behalf of the NUM. Now the disciplined men resorting to legal action to tr get the decision reversed.

Chancery Court which permit them to change rules in this way.

In other words the Council h of a Spe taken the decision General Meeting to court to g reversed having lost a democrati ly taken vote. But Corin Redgrave, opposed them, and in effect sp the decision that Spe

IOI

General Meeting, had to pay own costs. He is understood to be appeal against the decision.

BUILD WORKERS

DEFENCE SQUADS

result of the racialist campai being carried out by the press w direct collaboration police and some leading memb the trade union moveme This Trades Council • black work approach a view organisations with establish joint defer groups to defend black people i labour movement meetings agai attack. We of colose support the ny of immigran sorters to defe themselves whatever necessary agamest racist and fasi attuch But we also have a politi responsibility to attempe 1o due these selt detener groups calling on the shength of organised labour movement whole so that the most united di attach be launched 4ull taserst provocation and violence If black workers and youth ha been the tirst targer of the fair picket lines and trade union ne Fascists ha Wil be next. already attäcked meetings Ireland. SL members and supporter affected mess theti!. propose it their unions branit.

trades crunels and Labour Pant: delence squadi urganised jo between immigrant and trade un.

Where possible, we must fig for this within immigrant-urgant defence l'y attending iquaits delegates from the trade unions ai urging that they unify with Ita bodies. particularly trad councils. their tight age Tascist attack

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

THE REVOLUTION

Demonstration, March 1917, demanding votes for women *'The success of the revol- how many son depends on men take part in it", wrote Trotsky also regarded nin. which women extent to d broken from the old beat- "archaic, tracks and that iffy and stagnant institution the family, 'the most reac- nary and benighted nucleus the class system" as a baro- eter of revolutionary change.

he position of women is the or for elating a social evaluating social sime and state policy" Surely enough the main phases the movement of the mass in Russia did workers lect and were a force within the in stages of the revolution.

STRIKES

Beginning the ake 1910, continuing roughout the war period - when Part 15:

WOMEN AND

1917 with demands for bread and were an peace, women important part of the mobilisation the workers lead seizure of power in October 1917.

struggles in Subsequently their and in mass organ- the rationed the determination of the isations new dictatorship of the proletariat to transform the family and social relations even under conditions of great want.

FAMILY

of the With the restoration family under Stalinism the position again epitomised the political counterrevolution.

second the programme Congress of the RSDLP in 1903 on the Bolsheviks, the initiative for complete included demands equality of rights between men and women and for 10 weeks maternity leave, workplace creches, half hour allowances for nursing mothers and workplaces female inspectors latter employing women because of the widespread abuse of

XEL

In the backward Russian econ- women formed only a small omy part of the industrial workforce and were only sporadically involved in strikes and the revolution of the 1905. The bourgeois women's move- in strength since ment had grown the 1890s but the Bolsheviks were adamantly opposed to it because of and reformist stress its separatism individual rights. Only a handful working class women attended the 750-strong All-Russian Women's Conference in 1908.

Kollontai had persuaded the the last Bolsheviks to attend moment and their class analysis of women's emancipation was received with bitter hostility:

BOLSHEVIK

who Kollontai, later became a leading Bolshevik and whose writings about the personal trans- necessary formations socialist women remain brilliant, had to flee from Russia during that conference.

She alone among the Bolsheviks (and she wavered between Bolshev- Menshevism until 1917} SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 28th July, 1976 Part of the internațional struggle again isational work must be found.

1910 brought a massive wave of strikes to Russia in which women were solidly involved, winning con- questions cessions on such maternity leave and pay. But it was not until February 23rd, 1913, the first Russian celebration of inter- natio started fin's day (which had started five years before by textile workers in Manhattan) that the Bolsheviks really took up the struggle among women. Pravda was special issue produced, congratulating women of ranks the for entering fighting proletariat insisting, the Mensheviks, that contrary, the day be celebrated by the entire working class and not just women.

Bolsheviks all over Kussia gave the road through speeches on socialist revolution to the emanci- pation of women.

INVADED

That year also, Bolshevik women invaded a meeting organised by the Mensheviks. Seizing the micro- one of them pnone, made such a fiery speech about the aims of the revolution that all the women and present left singing the soldiers International, leaving only Menshevik behind. The resulting correspondence from this lead was so great that by the autumn the Bolsheviks decided to start women's newspaper, Rabonitsa - The Working Woman.

Eight factory workers worked with the editorial board on the first edition which called on women to join the fight for socialism hand in hand with men. The declared that paper helped women to become conscious and organised and while it included articles maternity insurance, U1l female labour, child care centres, information, the family hygiene ance of work amongst. women at and children's stories, it emphasised thạt time. the the common 200-300, women textile, card- Cause. the common path to these goals, footwear board, rubber, tobacco, goals and domestic workers attended her one of the few women's. club

ARRESTED

forms of political organisation per- missible under the prevailing While preparing the second issue dition 1909 the ist International.

however, the whole In 1909 of the paper, Conference of Socialist Women was editorial board was arrested.

Stuttgart Only Lenin's sister, arriving late held followed by escaped and in Copenhagen 1910. to meeting, another managed to bring out that issue editor of the Clara Letkin. 1 nere, single handed and four more in the socialist women's German paper spring of 1914 - one of which was Die Gleichhett (Equality) since publicising 1889, and who later played an confiscated poisonings at a rubber factory and mobilising important part öther industrial hazards.

women against the imperialist war the question which split the Second During the war women com prised 40% of the Petrograd indus International, argued for a special trial workforce. As inflation moun- organisation amongst women.

lengthened and If the mass of proletarian tel, DItda vueues hield down, so their wages were to be brought to socialism, account must be taken of fury mounted Street demonstrations had been their pontical backwartless, emotional peculiarities, their occurring in several major February 1917, but before on fold burden in the home and in the they women's short, international day factory, all the special becoming city features of their existence.

LOOK

wide actions. Thousands came out Other points contact with them must be sought and somewhat on strike, railroad cars were over- turned and police attacked in their different wavs and means of

women's oppression - In preparing for the marches on February 23rd the Bolsheviks had peen opposed to strike action. They wanted to encourage discipline and elf control in the demonstrations instructions that the party committee should be obeyed.

As Trotsky wrote later, however, he February events were: "...a revolution begun from felow, overcoming the resistance of is own revolutionary organisations, he initiative being taken over of heir own accord by the pressed and down trodden part the proletariat - the women extile workers, among whom no oubt were many soldiers wives."

The March strikes for pay and eight-hour •day which soon arned into nOL JuSt gainst the employers but against elected Menshevik and ocial Revolutionary Soviet leaders, involved great numbers of omen. At Folik the 00% wage rise for men and 125% i women was won and new trade nions were formed among laundry ad restaurant workers in order to it representation on the Soviet.

demonstration calling for omen's suffrage, arch 8th, by bourgeois feminists Mensheviks, attracted 35,000, nile soldiers wives marching for overnment grants in early April few 100,000.

AGITATION

On March 11th the Petrograd of the Bol recutive Committee Shutskaya in placed Vera arge of agitation among women.

women's bureau was formed part of the Petrograd Committee which each district committee d to elect a representative.

There was to be no independent whatsoever. organisation stead, all work was to be carried in full agreement with the trograd Committee. These special forms oi s orean- tion around women still aroused great deal of controversv in the with it Eked of feminisms. accusations that At Lenin's suggestion a working emen's conference attended by all adencies was organised and a Bol- evik resolution that all industrial ganisation among women should carried out under the guidance Bolshevik organisations was ised in the face of Menshevik ruments that it should be indep- ¡lent and not subordinated to any litical party. Rabotnitsa was resumed in May June organised inter- an Cional anti-war protest attended 100,000 and another large btest against the cost of living in y.

JULY DAYS

In the repression of the July ys it was the Bolshevik an still being printed. July saw imoortant development for men workers as for workers rally. For when the Mensherüs suffragettes march in New York, 1917 and Social Revolutionaries tried to blame the Bolsheviks for the abortive uprising, workers began to see their treacherous and counter- revolutionary role. The conference of Petrograd Working Women organised October by Rabotnitsa and attend- by 500 delegates representing 80,000 workers, was cut short by the seizure of power. The purpose had been to prepare non-party women for the coming uprising and to acquaint them with ine programme of the new Soviet But now the real task of transforming the role of women could begin. Matrimonial established women lildren. • their own these was intense. Because difficulties of communication the civil wals agnators conference facilitate the election of 300 were social wellare, organisational prostitu- discussed. The idea autonomous women's resolutely was. then Peasant branches Soviet the Union. tel was to civil war. serving as red digging political and agitational in the front line. omic deprivations These public facilities were essential to the building of social- Clara Zetkin Kollontai, now Com-

CLOT

missar for Public Welfare urged; ...domestic labour takes up all [a woman's] time, takes away her strength, prevents herself giving her- self up to direct, active participa- tion in the struggle for communism and construction work." Rabotnitsa closed itsell when the government was moved from Petrograd to Moscow. Then Pravda ran both a women's page ailu d peasant's page, but in 1920 Kom- munistka (Communist Woman) was started. In the civil war, with the urgency of winning all sections of workers to the Communist cause, work amongst women assumed double significance, the necessity to the win women Communist Laust But women's issues were by no means limited to women. Already in 1918 the Petrograd Committee Unions, Trades faced with growing unemployment and the demand by men workers that they should have the jobs and women should be fired first led to the decision that no sexual discrimin- ation was permissible and that the most needy workers should be those to get the jobs. 'Only such an attitude will make it possible for us to retain women.

in our organisations and prevent a split in the army of workers.'

HARDSHIP

It was during the period of great- est hardship therefore, that the Trotsky attempts were made to change the position of women mother, she was the natural person Despite the economic and social to bring up her children.

compromises the Stalinism in this way opportunis- necessary to survival of the new proletarian state negated the tically comprehensive the socialism were and theory ot socialism dojecrives or by continually discussed. restricting its view to the solution But with the treacherous abdica- of immediate problems. tion from driving forward the inter- national revolution under Stalinism The revolution however, did and the espousal instead of "social- produce chaos personal and isin in one country", , even the econ- social relations, not least of which omic recovery was used as an argu was the problem of thousands of ment against the of homeless children. Trotsky recog- Leblaceme the family. nised that: From 1926 onwards abortion *The old family continues to was made illegal, penalties for dissolve faster than the new insti failure to pay alimony were intro- tutions are capable of replacing it."

duced, divorce became more diffi- while at the same time the contin- and expensive, coeducation ued generalised want meant that it abolished and the women's section of the party and l mace eating laundry facilities organisations of women were dis- sufficiently high standards to: solved. "...deal deathblow. to the closed-in isolated family unit, com-

PROSPERITY'

pletely supported the bent shoulders the housewife and ¡ mother. Krupskaya, Lenin's widow, wrote in the mid-30's that because But Trotsky appreciated the had country become rich, progressive nature the social mighty and prosperous, the ques- crisis and of the anarchic tions of the family and of abortions individualism not just appeared in a new light. from the forces of war and revol In the new conditions there were ution but also from critical no material reasons why women thought, the study and should not be able to, and enjoy valuation of family relations and Having children. and forms of life. SInce *:Ta or octantial The Stalinist bureau mact pecting rige 7 on the gains of the revolution while at the same time feeling insecure in its betrayal of them, seized upon the restoration of the family as an instrument of counter-revolution.

As Trotsky wrote: 'The most compelling motive for the present cult of the family is undoubtedly need • for a stable support of bureaucracy Trotsky had supported the need for organisations within womend the new dictatorship: "You must be the moral batter- ing which will break through ram the shell of conservatism, , rooted in our old Asiatic nature, in slavery, in serfdom, in bourgeois prejudices and in the prejudices of workers themselves, which have arisen from the worst aspects of peasant trad- itions." Under Stalinism these organisa- tions were abolished and with them the determination to drive the through to the full IEvOlutIon achievement of socialism Thus comes about the irony that feminists petty bourgeois tendencies join the Com- Party today, find them- selves ensnared in an organisation depends survival the shackles of the family. By PRU CHAMBERLAYNF

REDGRAVE, RYDER, &

"Reeling and The Draft Resolution on Leadershipes Presented borkers leadership the Workers Revolutionary Party cussion' leading their up to Second Annual Conference on August 28th is a breathtaking political fraud and essay evasion. Virtually every one of its eight slanderous pages contains tions neither details not - on the political work of evidence the Workers Socialist League.

But what it does not contain is any assessment of the politics and practice of the WRP since its first annual' (in December

COLICIE

1974!) before which the opposition which later to tound the went od WSL was illegally expelled.

Nothing short of a book could refute in detail the slanders, insin- uations and simple falsehoods with which this resolution is crammed.

INVITATION

But any inember or supporter of seriously the the WRP WhO takes invitation of the leadership to read, and 'propose study and amendments' to the resolution is in duty bound to take up at least the following issues: 1. The resolution claims: "Our (the WRP's) work in build- ing up our trade union factions and our industrial papers, and also the •All Trades Union Alliance' must centre on breaking the unions from for democ- the state and fighting racy within the unions." Why then did WRP Central Com- member Tom White stand mittee class-collabor- for election the to ationist Ryder "participation' com- mittee in the British Leyland Cowley plant (and get elected, with the support of the right-wing and the capitalist press, to the accom- paniment of a violent national press witch-hunt against the WL).

DEFENDED

Why did WRP defend his the position when he was elected as an alternate member? And what has he been doing on this committee?

One direct result of the Ryder drive to committees has been the closure sackings at Export and Packing Services (Banbury) through British Leyland the withdrawal of contracts - after this was agreed on Cars the the Council, supreme 'participation' committee.

hundred workers or tour face the sack at the hands of a scab management-run structure to which a #RP Central Committee member was elected with the full agreement of the WRP. Is this how the WRP fights for Why the unions'? "democracy does the resolution contain not a word on this disgracetul action!

(For full details see Socialist Press of Nov. 26th, Dec. 10th and 31st., 1975).

GAG' RULE 14

mate #'hy have WRP members in branches and Trades union Councils joined hands Stalinists and right-wing rail- WRP Perspectives dodge basic issues

ARITHMETIC

begin with," the Mock Turtle replied; "and then the of course, Writhing, to different branches of Arithmetic - Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision."

(Lewis Carroll, 'Alice in Wonderland') through the notorious campaign to. keep Workers Press roading alive, the utterly bogus character of TUE Rule 14' for Trades Councils, which forbids them to collaborate this claim was proved. The WRP could raise, in three organisations WiIn allY of months, neither a fund of a few policies are 'contrary to those pounds a head, nor circulation by the TUC'? (For details see Socialist less copy per member Press of March 24th and April 21st, one targets) if the (taking their own 1976). claim December membership of used with a What easy nepened to these This rule will be What happened vengeance the moment any section "members"? Why did the vast of workers appeals for trades coun- cil support in a wage struggle which majority of them neither contribute to party funds nor sell the paper?

threatens to break the TUC-govern- Were they themselves, ment 4½% pay cutting policy.

ever, Councils will more than slips of paper signed up Trades be forbid- without a shred of political agree- den hv mile to sunnor such work- ers in struggle. Rule 14 is part and ment? Why does the resolution contain parcel of the truncheon with which

YOUNG SHAUSTS

FOR

not a word on the material develop- seek the

TUC

bureaucracy bludgeon the basic organisations of ment of the WRP cadre in the last accepting year? of the News pay cuts and keeping the Callaghan- 4. The character Workers Press, Line, successor to Healey leadership in office.

What of the raises a whole number of questions.

the meaning is the Middle East issue it has WRP's verbal campaign to "Horce given totally st leaders sup por the the Labour government to resign' nationalist leadership when they join hands with T.ne

PLOR

and Yasser Arafat, including policemen who protect it?

their dangerous appeals to Egypt's

"NOT PRAGMATIC"

Sadat and to Brezhnev to 'mediate in the Syrian-right wing war on the Palestinian and Lebanese workers.

3. The resolution claims that: Similarly it has carried not ...the changes we have made in criticism but a great breath 0I our Press and party organisation are - for the anti-com- deal of praise therefore not pragmatic adjust- munist Gaddafi regime in Libya (a ments to changed political circum- which known to give regime stances, but the highest point of the money to fascist organisations).

practice of cognition." Possibly. . But certain questions - never touched on in the resolution

DISCUSSIONS

- remain to be answered The Workers Press was founded this? Is this flagrant Why in 1969 as the political paper of the connected with the opportunism then Socialist Labour League. leadership claims of the

WRP

collapsed early this meetings that they are neither the necessary funds nor the engaged in 'political discussions' circulation targets could be met.

with the PLO leadership? At the December 1974 confer- Is this why recent of the statements WRP a membership of cuce over 8,000 was claimed. But in the from the International Committee (the international 'front' of the WRP) have omitted all mention of the need for revolutionary socialist parties in the Middle East states?

5. News Line has revived - and extended the slanderous cam paign against Joseph Hansen and George Novack, leaders of the American Socialist Workers Party being "accomplices' of the Stalinist

GPU

before the since by Stalin's of murder Trotsky agents in 1940.

CANNON

But the slander does not stop there. News Line has even quoted a

BLACK

& WHITE-

UNTES

HGHL

FORCE

LABOUR

GOVTte

RESIGN

Miss Redgrave CBE, on Southall anti-racialist demonstration letter by Cannon dealing with Stalinist infiltration of which it the Trotskyist movement, odorous" "politically describes as and links directly to the accusations against Hansen and Novack.

WRP now wish to Does the insinuate that James Cannon was a GPU agent? Is this their "highest "Ognition point of the practice of

EXCLUDED

6. Why have the WRP and their collaborators in other countries made a regular practice of exclud- ing political opponents from their "public' meetings? In Britain we have seen elected delegates kept out of union 'All Trade Union Alliance' confer- ences. What is the WRP afraid of?

News Line has carried not a word the WSL comment on book The Battle for Trotskyism' detailed documented which account is given of the bureaucratic applied methods and those discuss vital who tried political differences in the WRP Banda before the arbitrary expulsions of 1974. Why is this? And why, while it strains every muscle to gag political discussion Trotskyist within the movement, WRP. leadership permit does the News Line to carry paid advertise- ments for a pamphlet by a genuine Stalinist Mr Monty agent, the British Communist Johnstone, Party's main professional slanderer of Trotsky? Johnstone's Trotsky and World Revolution carries a preface which is mainly devoted to a dishonest attack on the WRP. And it explicitly revives the old Stalinist slander that the Trotsky- ists and their supporters in the Spanish Civil War were doing the work of the fascists! Yet it gets a block advertisement in the classified adverts columns of the News Line!

LEADING LIGHT

8. One of the leading lights of the WRP Central Committee recent- wheeled slanders against Hansen and Novack repeat is Miss Vanessa Redgrave, (see her 'Open Letter' in News Line of July 17th). *Miss Redgrave not only as an actress and Central famous Committee member of the WRP. She is well known for sending her children to private school.

She is also the proud recipient of a CBE (Commander of the Excellent Order of the British Empire *FoI God - motto: and Empire; Sovereign: Her Majesty the Queen). The Times of February 14th 1968 makes instructive reading. Page 1 reports an additional 10,000 US troops being sent to Vietnam. Page 2 carries a photograph of Miss Redgrave displaying a patriotic grin together with the insignia of her CBE, just received at a Buckingham Palace investiture. Two weeks later writing protest letters she was against the US war in months later John Lennon of MBE (a the Beatles returned his lower decoration of the same order) in protest against British govern- US genocide ment support Vietnam and, in particular, the Mai Lai massacre. Miss Redgrave retains this DuL reactionary trinket (though we have no means of knowing if she now sports it at WRP Central Com- mittee meetings) Yet the WRP conference resol- hypocritically quotes ution Trotsky's contempt for those who are "tied to the apron-strings of the bourgeoisie".

"CONVERTED"

WRP members would do well to ponder the question of those who 'converted' to revolutionary al C socialism but hang such on lo decorations as the CBE The Order of the British Empire

Gaddaffi 1917, the established in at height of the imperialist war, reward the staff officers who were directing the carnage, and the speculators who were making 'patri- otic fortunes out of it. been Since then has of thousands upon thous- reward whom ands the British capitalist state has wished to 'dignify' Two of Miss Redgrave's fellow- members of the Order merit partic- ular attention, Major General Richard One Clutterbuck OBE, author of numer- ous books on 'counter-insurgency, frequently (and correctly) denoun- ced in the WRP press as a spokes- for military savagery 111411 the workers' movement. He helped direct the war against the Communisi which Malaya 1950's, Malayan British troops neneruet "example' partisans an to une peasants.

INTELLIGENCE

Another is Sir Maurice Oldfield, who got his CBE in 1956. He was for decades a leading official of the British Intelligence Services.

He was in line to head SIS, but resigned in protest against Wilson's the refusal associate various intelligence and political police into a joint agency, along the lines of the CIA, to carry out - its work more efficiently.

It would be difficult to find a more sinister and dangerous reac- tionary in this country. We hold no brief for the politics of John Lennon, which are those of protest and mysticism. But we say that it was a correct and solidarity elementary step In the Vietnamese

WILE

peopic reject his 'honour. And the fact that Miss Redgrave, complete with such a blood-stained bauble, Central sits on com mittee of WRP indicates an TaP obscene contempt for principle.

Healy further Le 9. One be must nailed. The WRP Conference resol- ution makes great play (p.11) over the need for "political direction" in trade union work, and attacks the Workers Socialist League and the 1974 opposition in the WRP (the "Thornett clique') for allegedly wishing to make it 'autonomous.

is that the first by document produced Thornett Comrade Alan the 1n1 within the WRP in 1974 contained a major section dealing with the complete neglect of trade union work by the WRP leadership.

(see 'Correct the Wrong Positions of the Party ~ Return to the tanstt- ional Programme in The Battle for The document pointed out that the Trade Union committees of the that the

WRP

жете moribund, national committee of the ATUA had ceased to function and that nationai con- tnere nad beer ference of the ATUA for over two years.

CAMPAIGNS

It pointed out too that oppor- tunities for political campaigns in had been trade union simply passed and that the simply Political Committee was allowing the trade union factions it had itself set up to atrophy and die. charges have never been These

WRP

refuted by the leadership, then or since. They continue to systematic, treat the need for political work in the trade unions with cynical contempt. They refuse to direct the mem- bership into a fight for the demands of the Transitional Programme expel anyone who instead they attempts to put them forward even will but pally. Indeed we challenge the WRP to fight produce evidence of any carried through anywhere by their members for any of the transitional demands.

MEETINGS IGNORED

The reality is that many members up and down the country question of trade union work being autonomous or nol - hypocritical and treacherous state- without comment and as good coin.

wanted to make trade union work invention by the WRP leadership.

plough through WR! leader Banda's turgid diatribe Whither single reference to such an allegat- glaring supposed attack on Bolshev- the trade unions goes right to the of the WRP leadership to "fight the union bureaucracy word about any achievements, the the WRP's actual work within the fighters for a revolutionary leader- crisis of political leadership in working class can be solved by "left' neither to recruit or to train cadres who can carry out the central task Jones, the Scanlons and the Benns and replace them with those who orchestrated fruitiess ution continues in the pages of the News Line. We have only dealt with a tew issues which should be But members of the WRP who are serious about the fight to build certain questions fair and square to work Why have you supported the TUC and the Stalinists in gagging Trades principles have led to placier yom White on a scab Ryder committee WRP members are organising sack-

LETTER:

apologise to the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) for having accused them of 'bank- For while they are right to opp ose the I-CL proposal for "positive in the main their positions are both Conference in London in February they spoke repeatedly against the main résolution put forward by the was a long and we are extremely scepticai of either the IMG or the Working Womens Charter actually fighting for these demands in practice, it did actually But the RCG argued against the resolution on the grounds that bef- fight against the cuts and of women theoretical and political basis must be laid by means of 'educating' the ference and a bulletin According to the RCG, workers by reading bulletins in their front workers are willy-nilly alone but through the interaction of theory and practice that revolut- ionary preparation is made.

Given correct leadership, it is in ious of their objective situation and practical basis for revolutionaries to give this kind of leadership is Trot- For the RCG the main problem wardness of the working class, and bureaucracy that backwardness will They also distort the Transition.

al Programme by treating the dem- ands individually rather By this means in the pamphlet Women and the Public Sector they manage to accuse the WSL of leaflets that we must "fight to rec- workers press

SOCIALIST

PRESS

CANT WAY FOR CABYSITA WORKERS

PRINCIPLED LEAD

DEFEATS RIGHT MANO

Price £1 plus 20p p&p

YES! THEY ARE

BANKRUPT

LENIN

LENIN

LENIN

COLLECT

WORKS,

WORES

Front cover picture from the RCG's first journal.

"The sectarian looks upon the life of society as a great school, with In his opinion the working class should put himself as a teacher there.

aside its less important matters and assemble in solid rank around his rostrum: then the task will be solved." - Trotsky.

ruit women into the unions" and development of the accuse us of inferring, like the CP, forces, wastes and under-uses res- ources, while the socialist solutions This is a slanderous falsification, necessary must be internationalist because they know perfectly well, and achieved through international and our leaflets make it clear that revolution. our purpose in drawing unorganised At the same time we attempt to sections of workers into the unions develop the independent strength is to strengthen the fight against the obers cans for public 0I Ine that public bureaucracy in order to develop the plans workers' consciousness of these workers.

sliding scale of works, that the and that and expenditure, walter the Stalinists' intention of bringing the opening of the books, should more workers under the control of be carried out by elected committ- of housewives, worker RGan immediate ince- pensioners, etc. It is through experience, rather tion of funds into the social services preaching, than through that we and for a programme of useful pub- seek to develop the conscious and independent fight for socialisn those fighting for this slogan may in the, working class and to defeat reformism. funds from some other service (!)

By abstaining from struggle and and may not necessarily understand from its idealist belief in the the from of 'education' the

RCG

GULD

ency most certainly reformist bankrupt, as well as anti-Marxist.

They claim that the demand: Yours fraternally "Fails to lay the basis for the working class from the bourgeoisie London WSL member. and its state, and it fails to defend and unite the whole working class against the effects of the capitalist

EDITORIAL NOTE.

The comrade's point in thi letter is accepted but we make i clear that our apology in the las Transitional Programme as used by edition was not a retreat from suc We do not make this a political analysis of the RCG, bu particula correction one article in which a factual error ha appeared. Since an excessive amount o this topic we bee space In arguing for such demands our devoted to feel w aim is precisely to develop workers' this 10W regard IntS closed. production for profit shackles the

BOOKS!

OUT NOW

BEHIND

THE

• TRANSITIONAL

THE

PROGRAMME

SMOKESCREEN

The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International by Leon Trotsky Now available in a new edition, price 30p. pap 10p. Price 40p plus 10p p&p These books are available from the Workers Socialist League, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

Page 10 NALGO has been respond to the Department of Current Expenditure 1976/77.

In a letter to other NALGO branches support is urged for National Executive Council to con- vene a Special Local Government to the Government Joint Circular dated 25.5.76 and instructs Committee to draw up a plan, for aninosition to the notional letter from Secretary, "reiter- such as interspersed gems "in prove cu:s iat criticism real vacancies But action, National Local mittee has Bedford meeting in the same Dr. opportune fo: the mounting

NALGO.

NALGO

should the subport. Tot possidic action immediate cu-backs.

WARWICK

JAMBOREE

1 special meeting of the rwickshire NALGO branch, ed on July 19th after rank file members had collec- the necessary signatures, commandeered by the Executive, who юва! turn it into a mpted to boree of left rhetoric and air. ack Bradburn, a leading mem- of the NALGO Executive spoke agth on the cuts and even said any branch faced with redun- threats expect =y could ive sympathetic consideration any request for industrial action ie to the National Executive.

these of feeling the irengthening feelings membership, National Executive ch the id like to direct into protests, plaints and endless 'consul- on" with the employers. for the views of membership is shown by the handed way the I waich rickshire called by meeting and file members to discuss a strike proposing

NALGO LEADERS TRY

TO HEAD OFF FIGHT

possibilities The increasing of militant response by

NALGO

members to further cuts in government spending union's driven the has and its allies to bureaucracy seek new methods of heading off any movement. idea the The latest i Broad establishment of a NALGO Alliance Group" dominated by Stalinists of the Communist Party, along with various 'left' and not so left Labourites, with the direct aim "rank and file" of countering the NALGO Action Group. An attempt Haunch Southern Dist ict organisation of the Broad Allance in Reading on July 10th, however, drew only eleven people. with a CP speaker who agreement spoke of Jack Jones and Geoffrey committed left-wingers" denied the chance to follow this "true ideology" because of the "immaturity" of the working When

WSL

sympathiser, present as an observer, referring to the fact that Drain

NOTICI

down by the NALGO Conference in Eastbourne precisely because the A big question mark hangs over the jobs of Coventry's Jaguar workers following the decision by British Leyland to build their new proposed paintshop at Castle Bromwich.

rather than Birmingham Lane, Coventry, the Brown's main Jaguar plant. In a letter to Jaguar workers on July 15th management promised 600 directly that the would be "redeployed" affected and that the future of Jaguar in Coventry is assured. Lane, Workers Brown's at however, are sceptical about and stewards have mounted a 24-hour watch on steel stocks bought for the construction of the paintshop. Similar action is being taken at Kingsfield Road Service Centre the which is close, WOrK being transferred to a new Service Centre for the proposed site neat Centre National Exhibition Birmingham.

LOBBY

THE TUC

The TUC Congress starting on September 6th will be the not simply of more scene betrayals by the union leaders, but also of lobbies by several organisations. Special TUC which Since the accepted the wage-cutting 42% deal on June 16th, the first round of new spending cuts, every union leader knew were coming but purposely concealed, has been announced. This has stepped up the pressure those unions from members which will make up the bulk of the admitted 70,000 coming redundan- and has even forced some cies, union leaders like Alan Fisher of NUPE to declare against the cuts.

This the possibility opens conflict between him and Jones and consistently The depth of the betrayal of the shown by the latest unemployment figures - standing at 1½ million, post war record. In this is included of youth on the dole - over 200,000 without jobs.

The International Socialists are organising a Right to Work March September 9th. Drain This march is along the lines of while membership wanted action "excessive overtime", for a 35 hour Drain offered only words, found no support except from an IS member,

NALGO

Action

HOT AIR

None of them in any way direct the working class to the fight for once warned that the meeting was workers control as a transitional the struggle for step towards discussion", calling for "politics" to nationalisations, and towards state Without this, the IS talk of "socialism' remains simply hot air.

The call by the Wörkers Revol that the Broad Alliance should be utionary Party and their Young Socialists for a lobby against youth TSaR unemployment puts forward such supported by another CP member "full training correct comand at who frankly pointed out that "we "trade union rates of pay." But this is coupled with the however it did not call to force the Labour ganes- sectarian-propagandist any of those

UCCUIT

call to ment to resign!". detacher from Bureaucratic Alliance! rank-and-file groups of this kind are a complete distraction for NALGO 700 workers face the sack leadership in the fight for local and at the giant I.C.L. factory in Winsford, Cheshire - out of a the cuts and force a sliding scale of workforce of 2,000. This will public sector spending to defend against inflation. unemployment up put Northern Ireland proportions, with nearly 20% of the work-

JAGUAR JOB FEARS

ing population without jobs.

The ghost of the 1930s has a living become reality this the Triumph plant at Canley, town once a booming overspill area Coventry, to Solihull. Liverpool's younger famines. question The Jaguar workers

IC.L.

workers (mainly

ETU,

must ask is: is car production to be AUEW and staff unions) were not transferred from surprised, well noted it nas been that meetings at national level between and national officials have been taking place over a period of six months, details which never made public. were I.C.L's Recently unions MP for Coventry North-West and a condemned this secret cabal. The for democracy within the struggle manager said after unions is of first importance with the meeting that he was 18r 10m happy about the assurances. (It was such conspiracies afoot. Local district officials are making the ritual statements of (Granada TV reports them horror they would the contest do barule The stewards have a right to fear numbers involved) but all the signs point to them simply wanting a quiet and dignified funeral.

It is not enough, however, to call Mass meetings held last immediate demand for the opening Thursday unanimously rejected the Jimmy Young redundancy threat Steward told Socialist Press: a right to know what plans are

ETU

"All unions involved should fight together, I will be fighting for serious about defending jobs they an occupation of the factory linked SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 28th July, 1976 any programme for action.

Indeed the demands advanced by the WRP are all simply govern- which without mental demands - for programme local, particular struggles, become simply abstrac- It is important to direct every of struggle the but this government, must immediate connected With Tane struggles of the working class.

For a real fight to begin, the on full demand for work-sharing pay must be put forward wherever redundancies are declared the working The betrayal class has not just taken place at level, but factory national where leaderships have level also, favour of voluntary come out in allowed redundancies 0I simply redundancies or closures to take place. Similarly, if the employers claim bee can pay books of that The demand for a programme of public the o create nete socies services unions, and the struggle for a sliding scale of state expenditure necessity for a massive government injection of finance and programme of nationalisation of building and open up new jobs for employment The WSL will be lobbying the

TUC

on September 9th on this programme of demands, linked to the necessity of new leadership in the unions and the recruitment of youth unemployed workers and into the unions. kers in thosed can youth ruc workers opposed betrayals be enabled to fight inside the unions alongside employed on the central workers the struggle questions in against unemployment.

ICL JOBS FIGHT

industry managed by the unions."

coordinate Attempts the activities nine unions will be made early next involved of value week. If they are to be combine the fight for they must occupation with demands that ICL their books to elected trade open union committees. for this The starting point ICL's links investigation must be with the giant Plessey corporation, which owns nearly 25% of ICL and has just reported profits of which over £10 million. Bus Strikes Suspended At a mass meeting last Monday, 19th, Coventry's bus crews July voted to call off their lightening one-day strikes. management/ union working party has been set busmen for a reduction in the lunch to discuss calm hour. The crews will meet again after about a fortnight. Strike threat against cuts Proposed night-staff cuts in Coventry's 13 old peoples homes will mean that each home would be left in the care of one person during the night. The fifty workers at the homes.

members of the T&GWU and NUPE

OFFICIALS SNATCH DEFEAT

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 28th Juty, 1976

RIGHT WING FLOCK

TO PARALYSE

TRADES COUNCIL

MASSIVE ATTENDANCE BY MANAGEMENT-UNION DELEGATES

most right wing full time officials of In grand display worked flat out for 2 months to the bureaucratic manoeuvres ensure that the delegates were the reconstitution awaited long 'right" people. disaffiliated of the clear when the meeting meeting not Trades assembled that Oxford and District 1t contamicu had done only many people who Council place on July took nothing the absolutely 1n 14th in the Oxford Town Hall.

in the past, but union movellell contingent of people The old Trades Council had been also a heity the time of its strong who spend most disbanded the working class fighting policy and because fighting. the hospitals had management and the Stalinists

ITON

right wing

(NALGO)

and from the car plants lost their majority on it.

(ASTMS), well versed in forcing in of number Although the speed up on the tracks. delegates from each branch to the In the election for officers the Council had been reduced by new right wing and the Stalinists had an the TUC, there were 149 of the 169 agreed ioint slate. The right winger registered delegates in attendance at elected John Power, who the reorganisation meeting.

president by 88 votes to 57 for the The reason for this was the joint hadnot been to Trades Council el president Gerry previous right wing and Stalinist campaign to the Oxford Mail using Tory Stalinists were conduct a witch hunt in the town.

one by elected vice presidents, Virtually every union sent circulars majority of only 12 votes. A right to their local branches telling them was elected winger, Chris Luker, the affiliate and secretary with 92 votes to Dave maximum number of delegates, and

FROM JAWS OF VICTORY

and then rang round the The three week old strike work, telling shop stewards com- country against victimisation at Chris- mittees that the dispute was over!

Redditch is Relf's in Relf's topher the blacking of But The TASS official has compon- products, packaged over. Call ents, continued at Leyland's Cow- members back to sent his Longbridge and Drews Lane work until a local conference with the result that Relf's The blacking is plants, ( takes place. factories at Redditch and Alcester off, though two leading mem- remained at a standstill. A contin- uous picket resulted in even milk bers remain suspended. and mail being stopped. This is a dispute which has The only threat to unity came clearly the contrast shown very from Hopwood Parcels, the haulage between the readiness of workers to contractors employed by Relf. stand by trade union principles, and The drivers, whose "shop steward" the readiness of officials to sabo- "against trade being admits tage their struggles. ins", took a load out by night For the first week, the shop- and unsuccessfully tried to unload floor workers were out in sympathy it at Cowley. with the strikers, despite instruc- tions from their official Alf Cotton They then began to the crOSS to return to work. Cotton's politic- their "Broad" Left" picket by day and load up al hostility _to the Since nothing could of TASS appears to be trailers. leadership unloaded at Cowley, the result was such that he will do anything to Move Against Racism ian" by members of the Communist A meeting of trade union- Party who said It wone excuat ists, Labour Party members opponents of "non-working class and socialists was held at the racialism". They have since set up a Sponcroft, Smethwick on joint committee with the vicar of Thursday July 15th to discuss Dudley! The programme adopted at the opposition to the spread Sponcroft also supported meeting and ideas organis- racialist the right of black ations in the area. self-defence, but recog- nised the need to force the labour whole to accept meeting adopted pro- movement as The their responsibility to protect the gramme which recognised the need black community. for positive alternative policies living standards and elected to protect jobs,

COLLEC

waD around this pro- organise soccerers, This was condemned as "sectar- gramme.

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

Pinnington's 55 votes. For assistant Keith secretary, right Dancey got 89 votes to Pat Lally's rightwinger 50 votes and another Brazier was elected treasurer Mick 55 Bill Sallis' with 91 votes to On the constitutional decisions, rule 14 (rule resolutions opposing model rule book) 15 in the Walk ruled out of order by the TUC. The joint Stalinist/right wing motion to is ude the optional clause to rule which reads • The Council has right to refuse to issue credentials or to withdraw credentials from, To, à delegate who has disrupted work of the Trades Council", was carried by 70 votes to 66. Various other bureaucratic rules adopted. That Council mccl monthly instead of fortnightly, and by shorter was that the meeting other words that decided - in Council be transformed from into fighting organisation ineffective body. trailers were full and that all the not available for other work.

They then appealed to both the

TASS

members and the Unipart Service shop stewards at Cowley to lift the blacking to save them from being laid off!

SOLID

At the end of a fortnight's strike the TASS members were solid and the blacking was still total. Efforts David then made were T&GWU District Secretary Buckle, Oxford, to force Cowley to lift in the blacking. ignored the trade union Buckle at stake, arguing that if principle the AUEW shop floor workers were should T#G back work, why at drivers suffer? These arguments were correctly the shop-stewards at rejected by Cowley.

FEAR

However the TASS official was able use the fear that lifted, to per- blacking might be suade the workers to return to work. He told them that if no settle- ment is made at the local confer- ence, the strike can be restarted.

This ignores tact that the whole solid and principled position that existed has been given away for nothing. two TASS members As a result, will be lucky if they keep their jobs and the organisation of white collar staff in Redditch will have suffered an important setback.

ICL

HOSPITAL STRIKE

Cont'd from front page. called Labour He on the government to stop refurbishing British industry at the expense of and start the social services "programme of public instead works to fight unemployment and provide more hospitals. This was in stark contrast to left contributions of local the and Jack MPs Lena Jaeger Stallard.

REFUSED

Although both MPs refused point-blank link the fight to to fight

EGA

the save the

WILLI.

against the cuts in public spending this flew in the face of the mood and the day, of approach action. had been built The strike all of 'No around demands €1,000 millior closures', iniection into the NHS, a workers financing and into the enquiry planning of hospital and health services a speaker It was Save when

EGA

from the the a WS member, took Campaign', the floor that this perspective was attempted to shout her down she Over obviously the central point of the lobby was the question of fighting all cuts in public spending.

marchers, point was ruled of order" by the Stalinist chair-

ASTMS

It was taken up again however when another member of the WSI behalf of the local speaking on ASTMS branch and with the full support of the meeting, challen- ged the chair, demanding that the meeting be given a firm assurance by the MPs present that they

SEABOURNES

at the Nuneaton Drivers depot of the Seabourne Ship- ping Company have returned to work after a two-week strike over union recognition - the outcome of which is far from clear. meeting the At mass company's Barking depot, workers voted for a resolution which, as verbally presented by management, included recognition. When the resolution appeared in it simply however, written form offered recognition of the right of a trade union an individual to be member. Many workers felt this was the recognition, though the same as Nuneaton steward argued against pointing • this interpretation, Please send me more information about the Workers : League. Name. . Address.. •Drat+. WAT 41 Moit. against the cut: would vote public spending to be propose the next weeks. Amid loud demands for su commitment from all parts oi chairso Stalinist

HOOT

refused to accept such a den and closed the meeting! This of course was much to relief piesenl were clearly completely unwi to lead any opposition to the €1,000 million cuts. After this day of action. of the EGA mus occupation forward with full strike actio all London hospitals in suppor The around the action has showo that there i for each hos longer a case looking over its shoulder others will what support before embarking on action.

been laid f The basis has workers' enquiry to find out the estimate for repair of the risen from £15,00 lift has £50,000 this year.

BOOKS

The books of the Area H be opener must Authority of elected committees unionists, to prepare the wa a workers' plan for linked to the abolitic service, all private practice, inside outside the NHS. The campaign around the shown the Tests in the right against the Every 'left' MP has refus fight, not a single join the union MP from the NHS u turned the lobby, 11 1C1 the NUPE Ge Alan fishe Secretary who two weeks called for "guerilla" strikes a the cuts has told his member NUPE does not approve of : action in defence of this part hospital. The strike action on July was the best answer yet to hypocrsy.

STRIKE

the difference between tt formulations. But the basis created, the confusion decided to return to work. I ment have so far avoided t position on whether clear the union is recognised. certain is th What massively successful blackin tives taken by the Nuneaton and the wide support gaine the trade union movement ‹ management attempts to bi strike. addition managemer already all but recognised th of the Nuneaton steward by with him direct. The workforce is now cl a strong position to force ment to concede prac recognition many already convinced they have

MORE DETAILS

THE WORKERS' PARTICIPATION MACHINE.

700 LOBBY AGAINST RYDER

Page 12

ROLL UP & LOOK LIKE

ITS ONLY A YEAR'S

A DIRECTOR!

Huge hostility both to the Buckle had earlier endorsed Leyland's proposal to withdraw Leyland's Ryder effects union work from the contract rationalisation and speed up EPS plant to Leyland's Number 2 plan and to those convenors Factory in Cowley - a plan which

T&GWU

means almost certain closure for and full time

EPS

and immediately threatens officials who are collaborat- 400 jobs. with ing management to implement it was voiced in a Placards drew attention to the massive demonstration role of the officials - one reading Oxford July through on "Job

T&GWU

have • Protection: well-paid officials 15th. of scores. they?" The march - nearly all the where are 700 workers "worker shouted slogans against available workforce from Services factory participation' tres Export Packing convenors and right wing stewards neat Banbury travelled over in with these management plans, and coaches and cars to fleets of called for the complete national- from the Cowley car marcu

T&GWU

of both, EPS and British lobby factories to Leyland. District Office, demanding to see brought The demonstration District Secretary David Buckle.

Cont'd from Front Page.

STOP CUTS........

the events force us to ask if there is any limit bureaucrats are prepared to col- The answer to that will clearly appear from their actions over the new spending cuts. The main TUC PHOTO: Chids Davies, Raox cuts but have presented no spective for any fight against them and are still quite happy to stand civil membership has forced the leaders public service unions to make less compromising noises.

Healey Geoffrey Drain of NALGO has artion? accused the government of follow- Or will they continue to abro.

"suicidal course" and talks if the their responsibilities by gate futility of pursuing the the things are current policy saying that the saying twar subil of the unions not the government must choose between perogative politicians? 'the at home and Cin10V1115114 Will they continue to refuse. whims of speculators" to fight to remove the Callaghan/ of NUPE has Alan which Healey leadership realised that "all the assurances on this necessary of stopping and part growth targets reducing anti-working class government's unemployment are now in ruins' policies? David Basnett the

ATTI

these the answer G&MWU described the policy as merely their and not questions, "an economic waste and a source which will yotes of social bitterness" be test of their the ultimate But do these leaders have any committment against the cuts.

intention to turn their words into the cuts? Of will actions against

ACUTE

continue to hold back and they divert any fight which their mem- bers are ready to put up?

The test is faced even more by trade union acutely

PARTIAL ACTIONS

especially by the leadeaucracy, the public service leaders "gueria strikes alind of course all loudly Fisher has unions are the "these first (though far from the only) partial actions must be supported "sacrificed" by the workers to be Labour government to the needs as a step to full-scale struggle.

Fisher But such actions as of international capital.

envisages are totally insufficient When these leaders scandalous- for the task involved. ly "negotiated" a cut in the real To defeat the cuts will need all- weees or trade umolsts 1ol two out strike action maintained until years running, they claimed they its objectives are realised.

petting something in

AND

TRIAL AFTER ALL.

TIM

workers, some whom of the way to marched Transport House. One EPS steward told Socialist Press: "This question of the officials has started as a local issue, but it must become a national question.

time the It's high controlled by the members on the shop floor." Another steward stressed the huge response to the struggle estimated pointing out that 90% of EPS women workers had turned out on the march. was "not available" to Buckle the lobbyers when they reached District Office, but the march, trate his response TO divulged later to the Tory press action using the fatuous argument that strikes would automatically involve spending cuts since wages would be paid and so would assist the government in achieving While demanding that all those in the labour movement who have expressed opposition to the cuts take up a real fight against them, we also say that to base the fight programme of the unions and the Communist Party Their programme of protection baling out capitalism through the reactionary one, based on the idea that the interests of the ected int when the Tribune group joins the they say, it will cut profits and so

PROGRAMME

A programme giving a basis for that the defence of working class independent of the needs of the nationalist measures but for th the working class not only against capital internationally is attemp- ting to solve its crisis.

- a sliding scale of state spending.

open the books of all public nationalise the suppliers and - maintain and improve all social - a programme of public works to create jobs. workers' control in the nation- alised industries.

IT'S IN THE

NATIONAL

INTEREST

was simply to refer the leaflet issued by the EPS workers to the union's legal department!

be Clearly no can suppuil from such appointed expected officials, nor Iron those calculo right wing and Stalinist stewards and convenors who sit Ryder participation committees.

OCCUPATION

therefore EPS workers must continue to fight for the support of the workforce in the Cowley factories, and at the same time occupation prepare for full-scale of their Chipping Warden factory prevent the first redundancies to taking place, back the demand for company's the opening of the books and begin the fight to force nationalistion. • District The TeCovering BPS, covering Committee, a meeting between now set up stewards in the

EPS

stewards, BLMC Export Packing plant which the work is Cowley, (to transferred). and the full being time officials. be This decision to

EPS

workers but welcomed, should be warned of the danger of this being used as a delaying tactic to divert their struggle for jobs.

FUND

Latest contributions to the July Fund include Oxford PSF, £13; North London, £4; Hull, Oxford £15,25; £10.40; South London, £8.00; £10.50; Birmingham, €3.25; East London, £50; NHS €2.50; Oxford £20; Aylesbury €33.50; General, coventry 18.25 £1.90: Liverpool, collection, £1.50. Total so far: £335.95 Comrades musu take up really determined fight if we are to reach our £600 target by the end of the month contributions should be All sent to: Socialist Press Monthiy Bul, London Development Dartmouth Park Hill,

NW5 1HR.

WORKERS SOCIALIST

LEAGUE

Public Meeting The Struggle for Socialism in Spain Kenilworth Hotel 97, Great Russell St., WC1 Friday 13th August at 7.30pm

SUBSCRIBE

Press by Socialist post. • . ....£1 • Issues . .. 12 issues £2 Name ... Address SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 28th July, 1976

MASS

SLAUGHTER

BY LEBANON

PHALANGISTS

For the past month, fight- has in the Lebanon ing centred around the refugee camp of Tel Al - Zaatar, near Beirut. The camp has great well as practical symbolic as importance for both sides.

As one of the main pockets of resistance it remains a Palestinian flesh of the right- thorn in the Christian Phalangist move wing ment and their Syrian supporters.

The Syrians, in particular, have found the Palestinians and the left wing Moslems to be than they enemies expected. This has led them to ever more Moslem-held blatant attacks on which have recently approached genocidal propor- the Phalangist tions. To. support advance on Tripoli two weeks ago, armoured units launched Syrian an artillery attack on two Palestin- ian refugee camps on the outskirts of the city Tel Al - Zaatar condit- In the ions barbaric, There is are electricity and little water. Every evacuate the more attempt been 1,000 wounded has than answered by heavy fire from the Phalangists. 21 announced Last Thursday, Egypt's Presi dent Sadat turned

VANDEY

Syria, calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops and condemning the Lebanese attacks leftists and Palestinians.

But such sabre-rattling is very much in the tradition of speeches on anniversaries of the Egyptian revolution, and the PLO are well will not lift a aware that Sadat finger to prevent a massacre of the Palestinians. It is an open question whether have Soviet Union, who the mouthed support for the PLO and embarassed messy eat unes of their friends clearly the Syrian government, step up the pressure for a with.

Either way the crisis of leader ship in the struggle for Palestinian liberation cries out for the build- ing of a Trotskyist leadership able - over the heads of to her a call the bourgeois rulers - to the Arab arrow thair