Socialist Press no. 47

SPANISH GENERAL

STRIKE

On the spot report from

MADRID

See Back Page

EGA OCCUPIED

Details of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital Work-In See Page 11 Leyland plans penalty clauses ad-hoc The non-elected committee of shop stewards, set up under the British Ley- land Ryder proposals mastermind the first steps corporation-wide towards been bargaining has wage sworn to secrecy. with But their agreement management not to divulge to the members they represent proposals from management affecting the wages and conditions of 100,000 workers in the Cars Division, was shattered at last Saturday's meet- ing of the BMC Combine Commit-

DOCUMENT

The revelations came from John Power, delegate from the Service Division, said that, right wing who although he is not on the ad-hoc ment committee wage management document. sackings in his The shop stewards factory had met and had rejected the proposals. tract He told the meeting that in return for certain fringe benefits by-election management were asking for a no strike clause. This would mean that almost all the fringe benetits would be disqualified if more than four hours strike action took place in any three month period. These are proposals on the be nailed lines of the infamous Ford agree- ment where holiday entitlements the right for the whole Ford labour force were wiped out if a strike took place in any one plant. preservation private

REBUKE

ing class Power's sharp intervention represent. meeting brought gasps trom the And but a rebuke from the chairman Party Stalinist Communist Derek Robinson - who is on the ad-hoc committee. accused Power of 'sharp He "lefts' practice for revealing the plans and made it clear that he would not allow the meeting to vote on Confidential documents have so-called become OlE "participation' int Leyland, that witholding It clear they Continued bettom of page 11.

SOCIALIST

PRESS

DEMAND LEFTS

FORCE

HEALEY-

CALLAGHAN

TO RESIGN!

The ruinous policies of the government bills with. Labour govern- Even the the succession of Workington and Walsall could stir cuts, spending cuts, not the least spark of resistence in and speed-up, all the lefts', or bring them to voice enshrined in the Social Con what must demand political have brought the - Labour and trade Lable Party desting

FORCE

HIGHE

defeats,

AND HEALEY TO RESIGN!

driven some workers to the Instead, while mumbled embarassed length of a protest vote for conciliation, the Tory Party. the to

WOLLOU

RESPONSIBILITY

blame the The responsibility for this must fairly and squarely on Callaghan-Healey wing clique that dominates the Cabinet whose every policy starts from the profits of the OI employers no matte what the price paid by the work- they were elected to while the Labour right wing wields the axe on workers living standards to the delight of the International Monetary Fund and British employers, the Labour stand by mute trooping obediently into the Parliamentary lobbies to vote support for every aspect of Healey's economic and industrial policy, taking occasional time out weekend anti-cuts rallies to mouth phrases on socialism.

leaders. Their loyalty far outpaces that of the right wing who have shown will, without Joe Gormley, their support from

WHAT'S FOR,

SECOND

COURSE

JIM?

DOLE

unease of the wage-cutting TUC they disagree leaders, struggling crushing defeats at resentment their members called on Healey and Callaghan to either control their left wing or to air" the central "clear the General Election! within union move-

SACRIFICE

CALLAGHAN

Gormley of course has been in "left' the forefront of the TUC leaders calls for calling for sacrifices to it was Healey Labour government" WnO offensive But he clearly now senses that lefts' for the defeats this appeal has worn nothing within the working class where day after day the impact of the Labour government imple- menting Tory poncies living standards and building up a real hostility to the Contract. In this, nothing Gormley is right. The take no comfort from the should votes they acquired from Labour in these seats.

NO SUPPORT

They be may confusion, but they which reflect not support for the Tory programme of more cuts and more unemployment rejection of these policies imple- Gormley mented by a Labour government.

This and to demand they toe the line can be assessed already accepted by the TUC manifestations more open class militancy pressure on the wages question in Healey's hard line was taken up rank and file resis- also by right wing miners' leader the factories; tence to management ultimatums who expressed the

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

NO 47 * November 17th 1976 * 10p

HOUSING

SKELMERSD

SCHOOL

REDUNDANCIES:

MORE

speed-up; and the massive and feeling against the cuts which will be shown in the November 17th national demonstration. These movements in the work- ing class are barely being held in TUC leaders with check by the the help of local union officials and collaborationist convenors.

Increasingly they are breaking out into strikes and even occup- the ations, over wages in Grangemouth dispute, or against with the unanimous the cuts occupy the this week to

VOLC

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in London to prevent its closure. contain and militancy he by going to a "save the 'Left' cabinet minister Benn lead in fight against leadership.

And the pressure escalates with away to increase every the

COST

the 4½% pay deal has living already been taken by inflation months while only three is eroding prices are now rising at an annual rate of nearly 28% - along with round of spending every new cuts and capitalist rationalisation.

else, In this climate even the most Tories feeble spark of leadership from the lefts in the fight to remove Healey-Callaghan and end the could Social Contract outburst of conditions for an struggle sweeping through the votes of workers movement. votes are But in doing so it would of "lefts" themselves

CODER

in the firing line. They would be called upon by the working class to lead the struggle in defence of which in this living standards - by the means putting forward a of developed programme of policies the Continued Back Page, Col. 4.

ZIMBABWE: Talks Fiasco

CHINA CHARGES MOUNT UP

Page 2 Geneva, Mecca the of I wealth and hypocrisy is an appropriate place for talks on the "independence' of Zimbabwe. These talks continue to perform were designed for... the task they achieving nothing 'nice and slowly' for the black masses of Zimbabwe.

The British 'Chairman', Ivor Kichards fulfilled his allotted tasks last week by announcing almost every day a new reason for post- ponement of the formal sessions of the conference.

SIDETRACK

The latest is his attempt to side- track the unanimous demands from the 'Nationalist' side for a definite fOI independence,

ARLE

discussions on the composition of interim government' - a body whose political character meaningless when the period for which it is 'interim' is left floating in the air. generally, the task of Richards and of the Geneva confer- ence is to gain time for imperialism regain its footing in Southern Africa, to remove Smith replace him with African politicians acceptable and loyal to imperialism.

This task must be undertaken under conditions where the Smith regime has lost effective control or large areas oi the countryside to guerilla forces, and where the ike Salisbury government - desperately struggling to retain support in the white population - was nonethe- less forced to admit last week that several thousand' guerilla ICw fighters are established within the borders of Zimbabwe. The list of charges levelled at the group of leftists' ousted from leadership of the the Chinese Communist Party is the beginning to resemble of accusations mountain which Stalin piled up against his political enemies the 17 course of the Moscow Trials.

"Responsible" for the disaster- lous effects of earthquakes in North China Peking; "plotting" and overthrow the regime by a coup d'etat and set ty of attempts their dictatorship; "guilty disrupt production by insisting on a too rigid adherence to railway "coordinating" schedules; deliber- ate plans to hold back industrial output levels, "organising" plots for the restoration of capitalism China... the Chang charges against Ching and her "accomplices" have now reached ludicrous proportions, culminating in "revelation" at the last week that Mao's end of widow sat in a villa playing poker set out for Peking and retusing to lafter she had been urgently summoned to her husband's death- bed.

NEWLY DISCOVERED

The of denunciations barrage Dewly discovered incidents put out by the Chinese state propagan- da machine and repeated - almost *thout variations - by lower level Stalinist functionaries throughout the country, can serve only to bring sto disrepute and contempt the present ruling bloc.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Although both British and American imperialism have accepted, publicly and privately, Smith soon gọ, must every military blow against him is at the same time a blow at their plans, since it devalues him as a bargaining back their support of counter to Nkomo and the right wing in the negotiations.

OBJECTIVE

Nonetheless, the Geneva confer- merely by sitting there, has gained primary objective of entrapping the political leadership of the divided liberation move- ments into the quicksands of such 'negotiations'. As everyone well recognises, Richards Clamou formally an employee of the only British Foreign Office. In reality he acts as errand-boy for American imperialism, which attempt- plays ine central Tole 1n ing to hold back the revolution in Southern Africa. A new dimension has therefore been added to Richard's task by Carter's Kissinger's election. role as world-wide flying negotiator is and arrangements must now over, be made to handle the Zimbabwe issue during the interregnum.

PROFESSION

The Labour government's Foreign Office plays its part by providing a protessional procrastin- ator. But equally important was last week's statement in Dar es Salaam Dick Clarke, Chairman of the by US Senate's African affairs sub- Committee, that when the Carter adminstration takes office in Jan- plained why crimes and plots on such a scale, extending over such a long period of time, were not dis- covered earlier by Mao and his "ever-vigilant" state security services or the army apparatus.

NON-EXISTENT

And the answer, of course, is that they never existed. The present smokescreen however almost certainly serves a definite, but less direct, political purpose for Hua's regime. In destroying the "gang of four' so closely tied by personal connec tion to Mao himself, the chiefs of bureaucracy hope to provide with elbow room themselves revise Mao's own policies in practice, but without, of course, ZAPU liberation forces uary it should: in the rest of Southern Africa, …take a frank position in favour especially in Angola. of struggle all other armed US backing for puppet Inere. negotiated settlements [sic!] fail."

"liberation' forces now continues in the operations of UNITA in

LIBERATION FORCES

the southern part the country tion wast coe used bernment- bordering on the northern zone of gestion that government Namibia (South West Africa) from material the help population has been BIvO liberation forces. Such statements, removed by South African troops.

of course commit Carter to nothing whatsoever, now or in the For those who held any illusions future. But what they are intended to independence and self determin- is relieve at least temporarily, do Zimbabwean ation

TOI

black pressure on the Nationalist the Geneva talks majority, have delegates to quit the conference by proved complete fiasco. They building the illusion of a basic shift must be ended at once - and the Labour government forced to stop time such At the state- same talks with the Smith racists - and as camoutlage for arm the African workers. role of US diplomacy and the CIA public acknowledgement of any this.

SOVIET UNION

Top of the list for changes is likely to relations with the Soviet Union, where the repeated official and unofficial overtures put by Moscow publicly can be explained only by a tacit encour- agement from Peking. And it is certain that, with the Chinese bureaucracy requiring, for domestic consume tin the state some evidence of change which they were until recently fascist' Common friend both 'social the denouncing left. right' and of a rapprochement with so-called question wing factions - disgraced ex- will China important President factor in the infighting Moscow Nixon. Neither over the succession to Brezhner.

faction offers any principled • road to workers. SOCIALIST PRESS: Wednesday 17th November 1976

IRELAND

TWO REPUBLICANS Noel and Marie Murray will soon be hanged on trumped up charges after a no- jury evidence their against them own confessions extracted under torture. There could be no clearer case of the rightward the movement of Dublin government than the action of the 'Special Criminal Court' with its three judges. The press in Ireland has blanked out any reporting of this case which shows that it is not some chance but the stepping up of a campaign. Meanwhile British government policy towards Ireland made dram- atic advances into the Nineteenth on November 8th Century Irish Party' represented by the Frank Maguire gave his vote in the House of Commons to the govern- ment who were incl majority of one to guillotine debate on the Shipbuilding Nationalisation Bill "Saved by the IRA" was the Tory reaction to the intervention of man whom British imperialism had once interned. What British the government 'sold' in return for Maguire's vote of speculation but a matter Frank MacManus, the former Independent Republican MP for Fermanagh had doubt as to what Maguire should demand.

He hoped that Maguire was not negotiating for the rights of only Republicans political who are being tortured in British jails, of for the transter Northern Ireland, the prisoners to of retention political status for prisoners in the North, more jobs for his constituents in Fermanagh and a declaration of intent from the government. his cards for all they "Playing were worth" as MacManus put it, included neither the unequivocal demand for the immediate with- drawal of troops from a country they have no right to occupy not the rejection of parliamentary horse trading with imperialist butchers.

Yet these negotiations are con- ducted at a time when both Dublin and London governments are weak jittery in the extreme. The and Dublin government as the junior imperialist displays condition that can only be called with paranoic in ls Telation critics. While it prepares to hang two activists on trumped up political charges the one hand, the Minister of Posts O'Brien goes as far as to cut off the telephone of a truculent writer on the other Even the President, the supposed head of state is quickly cut down to size that the hysterical ruling The class considers appropriate for their constitution. President O'Daleigh further than the Pontius Pilate like gesture of referring the legislation to draconian emergency the High Court to test its legality.

This marginal crack in the ruling class ranks produced from Defence Minister Donegan the opinion that his head of disgrace". Hopeless constitutional- ists removed from the realities oi the for class struggle waited Donegan to do "the gentlemanly thing and resign. The needs of the ruling class at a time of world wide upsurge of puts all working class militancy constitutionalists and their consti- in their place. And it was

LULIUS

U.S. ELECTIONS

BUREAUCRATS BACK 27% CARTER

Council, Skelmersdale Communist Party and Skelmersdale Unemployed Workers Committee. À factory gate meeti • 1976

SOCLALIST PRES

"I'm. be President gonna vovmen ner vócà ven when I grow up." A common the whole question of class interests and the mablity of the american place declaration for American to represent any- two-party system kids, reflecting the "American thing interests of the H4| - dream" of equal opportunity capitalist class. for all, and which would seem

NO ILLUSIONS

to be borne out by Jimmy Carter's spectacular rise from The union bureaucracy has no illusions that Carter has any loyalty obscurity to the Presidency of to them; his record in opposing the the most powertul imperialist unions in the South demonstrates country in the world. b DOON But behind Carter's magic is a No, they acted in self defence, collection of cheap tricks prevent the American - chent WOram: oid tricks. He owes his victory to class from taking up the call for the the old 1932 Democratic coalition Ben te to ad. Franklin D. Roosevelt Even sectarian votes of the South, the blacks Workers League (US sympathising Catholics, Jews, and Com- immigtants, section Internationa. trade union members. mittee, lod by the British

WRP)

neatly 20,000 pul weto able to

MACHINES

votes for their 14 congrossional candidates nationally. And it was the "machines" of And in one industrial city in the the Democratic Party and the AFL- mid-west theit autoworker candi-

CIO

date polled 4,000 votes in support trade union confederation which the votes of a break with the Democratic got November 3rd to give Carter his Party and the building of a Labour 51%6-48% majority of the Party. popular vote though only 27% of those eligible to

VULNERABLE

meagre. vote in fact supported Carter.

Why did the AFL-CIO and the illustrates This clearly the vulnerable local Democratic Party apparatuses position of the trade union bureaucracy and the Demo- join eaus to et arte A ei.

Because cratic Party as the capitalist crisis American deepens. working class the main issues of the campaign were inflation and unem- And Carter's election will only

THE WORKERS

SOCIALIST LEAGUE

The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation fighting to build a revolutionary leadership in the working class in opposition to the betrayals of both "left" and right wing Labour and trade union leaders and the Communist Party. In the daily strugale to tako the demands and principles of Trotsky's Transitional Programme into the trade unions; the WSL has been at tho. and wotk sharing on forefront of the flght for the sliding scais of wager only aferatime to Jones s6 pay plar of nd the wholesaie acceptance today's fight against the TÚC': 44% redundancles by the bureaucracy. Healey this do scalo of wugea pay cutting ad by trade union rising accordin to the riaing cont of living. a6 ast committzes) is the seontial basią of consistent opI be strugzle for a aliding Health Service comrados have lo0 in the of the servict for the start of worker contro.

scale oi NiS spending, (beginning with opening the books of the Health Authoritita), along with the fight to ond ail privato practico. Perhaps moro important we have led growing call for strike action to defend the NHS 4 rainst the cuts and the those like the ASTMS and NUPB to implement there policies, lendership who substitute the words.

for the action, da Aa 20 adepia motor la the ars tuok and 40 martbed to In London this workers in the aroa struck and 400 marched to obby Mi's against the cuts WSL comrades have tested and developed the in local disputos also, demands of the Transitional Programme, putting forward in every case the only real opposition to the Stalinists and the right-wing. Our struggle "open the books" demand in the motor industry and against all for the forms of "workers' participation" haye won mass responses.

to fight time have. put forward policy At the same we calling for unity of employed and unemployed through unemployment, mobilise the trade union movement.

the fight to for The

WSL

is the orly that ats consișter ¡sitiona] demands, going beyond mere trade union militancy to p the polítical issues to workers.

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

But our struggle for the continuity of the principles of Trotskyism is in no way a task confined to Britaln. It requires an attention and involve- ment in the international atruggles of the working class and moves to rebuild the Trotskyist Fourth International.

while many interventions in Britain have developed the League's So grasp of Trotsky's Transirlonal Programme, there has been a consistent drive to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history crisis of the Trotskyist Fourth International, as an and the present essential part of any serious initiative towards its reconstruction.

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

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

make things worse as he cope with unemployment, inflation and rising oil prices. There is no sleight-of-hand trick convince class that he is representing their interests as the crisis forces him to prOLcol capitaliam and the stranglebold of the trade union buresucracy.

BETRAYALS

Just as in Britain the betrayals of

TUC

the Labour government and the conditions loaders provide whete workers can be broken from their old leadership, so the roturh of the Democrats to the Presidency majority in thoir onormous Congress lays the basis for exposing the class theit deceptions and nature of their party. Wine storage tanks in Callfornia - UFW fighting officials and frowers Thus the fight for the American Labour Party is just beginning, and must continue alongside the fight to oust the corrupt UK labour bureaucracy. The Presidential election has overshadowed the numerous other state-level decisions taken by voters on November 3rd. For example, in California - the centre of student rebellion in the - the present leadership void enabled forces of reaction to win two victories. First voters elected to the Senate S.I. Republican right-winger Hayakawa, aged 70, best known for student-faculty revolt as smashing President of Francisco State San University, and foI his whole- Turtle Wax, and among the banners hearted support of Ronald Reagan.

More important, though, was the defeat of Proposition which clear-cut recog- wond nave given nition of labourer's rights (collec- tive bargaining, socret balloting in elections) ( union to the

JALU

worker8.

UNION RIGHTS

Workers The United Farm ray tent e e gowri for been union Dutcal- growers years in theit attempts to secure basic union rights. thoy have failed Yet to draw wide-scale support from the trade movement. union Stato-wide the strike of farm im support workers would crush the growers overnight much mot power effoctively than legislation car ever do. But this has not happened. Instead the Anti-Proposition 14 coalition triumphed, growers paying for an advertising campaign which played on the fears of petty- bourgeois small owners Topert by suggesting that f the Propo ition was accepted it would mean invasion of their farms by union organisers. If the forces of the left (and éspecially Socialist Worker: Phe United Secretariat) had fought in the 1960s to draw the student movement into working. class struggles on a principled basis there would be some foundation laid now for united action against Hayakawa and the grape growers. But student the fate of the Workera from all the major Skelmersdale factories recently demonstrated outside the Courtauld factory, due carried on the demonstration were Dunlops T&GWU 13 AFL-CIO leader George Meany activists is best represented by Iom Hayden,

SNCC

loadei, then ex Weatherman, who this year joined the Democratic Party to stand in the primaries agsinst the incumbent Democratic Senstot.

ERRORS

Hayden and his wife Jane Fondı failed to learn the lessons of the 60: and thus the old errors live Pain o hs Ufy tarouet th oe the limited cam We support the UFW's call fos Californi world of all boycott table grapes, but we also call for campaign which will unite the farı workers with other sections of th California Warking lar

C88S L

nationally) in strike action to wi these inpecaly o tressed sectton or th basic union rights for working class. We intended to analyse the vote for the SWP but no figure have yet been published. Howerer they did succeed in getting on to the ballot in 30 States, collecting over 600,000 signatutes to do 80.

Skelmersdale Trad

Page 4

OBSCENE

POLICE SQUAD

IN COURT

thousands of To the workers and youth who have first hand experience of the police forces's strikebreaking, picket-beating, intimidatory role, the news that a team of six 'porn squad' policemen are now on trial charged with corruption should come as no surprise. The "porn squad" men's names will simply be added to the growing list of nationally-known detectives and special detachments found for under investigation guilty various forms of corruption.

ROTTEN

So are the leading rotten echelons of the force that it was trial that revealed in the current when one of the accused, Sergeant Kilkerr, attempted to make a clean breast of things to his commander at Scotland Yard, he found that his commander himselí was awaiting trial! the The corruption and the most basic of even forms of 'justice' which are being revealed — generally years after the themselves have passed events contrast to the stand stark 111 and firm stand of the consistent police in defence of the employers against the struggles of the working class.

NO SOFTNESS

No hint of softness or corrup- tion is to be found in the police lines (their picket attacks on protracted efforts to secure the of the Shrewsbury pickets jailing phntas Que Bast Bradford police prepare to attack anti-fascists.

clearest example); their being the (from attacks on demonstrators Red Lion Square to the Right to their Work March); militants so-called individual the "justifiable homicide of union militant Liddle beaten to lowers. death in Newcastle; the Irish and held other suspects and interro- the so-called Preven- gated under tion of Terrorism Act); readiness attack revolutionary to groups (the raid on the Workers Revolutionary Party); or their daily harassment and intimidation working class youth and in partic ular the immigrant community (the Notting Hill "riot".) In each of these cases the real class role of the police as armed of the of capital defenders rule through repression of the working class comes through loud and clear.

Only in between such events do the police fill in time booking drunken drivers or searching for stolen hand- bags.

HYPOCRITICAL

But wherever one section of the hypocritical morals bourgeoisie seeks flout the of their own corruption reigns all system, in be drug quarters whether peddlers, porn-brokers, shady stock brokers or embezzlers. This is the lesson to be taken from the 'Porn Squad' case. The police are obscene. Under socialism the force would police be disbanded and replaced by workers' militia and defence squads, answer- workers' able at all times to the Until then, the movement. corruption will continue.

Notting Hill youth indicated their view of the police.

The Conference or Wiage Control and Union Democracy.

SEVEN WEEK

SAFETY STRIKE

Five cleaners at Holbrook cleaners were asked to clear up all the provided by builder's Annexe of North East London their superior with only cold water Polytechnic are now in their and liquid soap to do the job. By seventh week of strike. Their this time one of them had already

GMWU

organiser McCall has spent three weeks in hospital and four more off work with a disease refused to go beyond making which seemed clearly related to the the picket official. asbestos dust. By this means he has cut the cleaners off from strike pay and

REGISTER

from strike support from other GMWU members in the Poly.

The cleaners began an immediate But the spirit and determination picket, demanding a register of all of the cleaners is stronger than ever people had entered the who and shows the underlying militancy building since June, that a union- against bureau- ised industrial cleaning firm should cracy's attempts at sell outs.

clear up and that the safety of the building should be established by a

ASBESTOS

GWU analyst. The strike finally broke out after Now their demands have grown a summer of lies and provocation to include the reinstatement of the by the employers over the use of cleaners sacked during the dispute, alterations being made asbestos in full back pay, and that the Poly to the building. - should employ unionised only First the contractors came in and threw out thousands of pounds oi equipment into a sKip. worl

RECORD

from a department only set up two years ago. Then Wally Sutton, a former Newham they began to and let left "it secretary of the Poly. undampened asbestos NALGO branch, lying around. technic Assistant Polytechnic Safety Services Officer and as such super- Both the and the Factory Inspector visor of the cleaners, has also had Officer there was any danger and his anti-working class record denied dragged in the mud. the builders maintained it was "plasterboard" For years he has exploited the The final straw came when the extent of forcing cleaners to the

LETTER:

The Left Press and the Wages Conference conference organisers had not put Dear Comrades, forward policies "such as the sliding The report in Socialist Press 46 scale of wages" it might have been of the Conference organised by the possible to commit the Stalinist and Democracy Campaign for reformist leaders to a fight, says Labour left out Movement, an Red Weekly. of the interventions assessment Precisely what sort. of fight the International Marxist could these people have been committed to? The of tying. the importance Since these organisations two struggle for democratic procedures both printed have assessments in the unions and the Labour Party in their respective the conference to need an Workers Red Weekly and. papers, leadership seems lost on the IMG.

Action, it would be useful to take the Indeed the purpose of up their main points. "to conference far from being One of the most striking features launch a broadly based united front of the IMG's action at the confer- campaign against attacks on union ence was their sheer arrogance.

(Red Weekly, 4.11.76) democracy Despite a clear request from the IDIO P TO HOMUANe S000l O1 SEM -- Organising Committee for amend- rightward shift in the trade union inents to the main resolution to be bureaucracy. from trade union bodies the IMG The resolution presented by the with a tiny handful of turned up Organising Committee linked that representatives on the morning of shift to the all round attacks on the the conference who issued a string working class and centrally to the at lunchtime, question of wage control.

the name of their political organ-

FOCUS

isation. those who number The conference was thus. first conference felt the attended the and foremost an attempt to focus Organising Committee was more on the range of attacks on than generous allowing these the class and provide a working amendments to be put. around clear political programme While the IMG speaker referred which attacks could be these to the programme advanced in the fought. resolution "a set of excellent Weekly The Red report with" demugh not to fil extent of brih® demands agree concludes with the observation that "could be of the recall conference ing any forces to the Conference!)

in allowing considerable use the thrust of their amendment was discuss their militants to from these demands, which away of fighting for the experiences «require consistent agreed action programme adopted by the propaganda and explanation."

It is to be hoped that the exper-

CATCH-ALL

ience of some struggles by the IMG was focussed for that programme will be brought Instead attention a serious fashion, along with, *class struggle tendency' consisting perhaps, some people, to the recall fight willing of all those mass unemployment and The first thing which needs to be controls, said about the ICL's intervention is public sector spending cuts.

follow-up report Red that, unlike the IMG, their amend- The in Weekly spells out in detai men! • behind IMG's "class lies the through a trade union branch.

tendency". Both in their contribution to the struggle If only the SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17th November 1976 them to provide their own cleaning materials such as broom heads.

He has consstenty retused to provide coverage for absent staff or to reassess the pay structure as the annexe building has been reorgan- ised and made more complicated to clean. The cleaners' struggle lays an basis for important systematic books of Newham opening of the Council and the Polytechnic to their anti-working class practices. And the demand for inspection of the sealed asbestos by a GMWU cleaners analyst approved by the establishes the essential principle that it only by independent can establish action that workers safe working conditions. Other unions in the Poly such as NUS and NATFHE have correctly pledged their support to the cleaners. Contributions to the cleaners who are on a 16-hour-a-day picket are desperately with no strike pay needed and should be sent to: Holbrook Cleaners Strike Fund, c/o London Rd., Plaistow, 46, London E13. conference and in their report in their paper Workers Action, the ICL attacked the assessment in the Conference resolution that the central development in the working next period will be class over ne the cracking of the pay code: declare that this, and by implication only this, is going to happen, leaves you unprepared for possible happenings. equally (Workers Action, No 34). Two points need to be made here. It is not the job of revolution- aries to wait for 'possible happen- ings". The Organising Committee resol- ution was based on actual real life which have taken place events the the UCATT conference vote, the ballot and seamen's pay settlement. The assessment of the rightward by the bureaucracy was like- shift wise based on unprecedented moves against those who have sought to defend the interests of workers the attack trades councils, the of Hull docks stewards' removal the victimisation of four Leyland stewards at Cowley.

The conference was organised to begin a fight back. has the What ICL done to organise a fight back?

it Secondt thet simply not that conference was true blinkered on wages. The resolution the beginnings of provided all attacks fight programme the the social cuts in services. Indeed, resolutions emergency passed of the were support 17th anti-cuts demon- November stration and the struggle in defence of jobs at Export Packing Services, Banbury. In short, the Organising •Com- mittee of the Campaign for Demo.

cracy in the Labour Movement has itself ready willing to shown and throw its weight behind sections of workers involved in a wide range of struggles. K.W., Coventry.

WHAT NEXT AFTER NOV 17?

An earlier one-off display by the bureaucracy: 4,000 joined a lobby and one-day strike against the cuts called by the NUT in Oxford.

SOCIALIST PRESS, Mode No matter many thousand workers out turn today on the demonstration lobby of Parliament and in public against the cuts spending (and it looks as if the demonstration will be by far the biggest since those against the Tory Industrial Relations Act) the question remains: how can the struggle be taken this one-off show from fight strength into the to prevent the cuts themselves?

13 UNIONS

Today's demonstration has been supported by thirteen major unions nearly all of which are in the public though the march has services

NUM,

of the support ASTMS and AUEW (TASS), as well Counties London Home Region of the T&GWU. Yet none of these unions have organised full scale stoppages, even for this one day. The CPSA leaders who originally callea for a one- day strike backed away in horror Enfield Overwhelming support was a motion criticising won for the leadership of the National Union of Students for sabotag- ing the struggle of students education against cuts at a meeting of the Enfield branch of Middlesex Polytechnic last week. called for a The motion also of the Poly- two-day occupation technic's administration centre to indicate the willingness of students to fight all cuts, and in particular the attacks students. The government's plans are to make colleges police and spy on the 53,000 overseas students in Britain.

This is simply a back door plan to introduce further immigration controls, as well as a part of a major attack on educational facilities for all students.

JOINT CIRCULAR

A joint circular issued by the and the Department Home Office of Education and Science spells the policy overseas immigration officials are to be given sweeping conduct powers academic «tests" of college appli- and into their cants, inquire personal, family and financial back- ГОРН

SUFTER

Instead of action these "leaders' from the prospect of such widescale action against the cuts. seek to substitute printed placards, special trains and 'left' rhetoric where "left" And talking General Secretary Alan knowing this will not stop further cuts, but hoping against hope it will Fisher has announced a national policy of strikes against at least let off steam among their 'guerilla membership and allow the officials the cuts there has been a conscious a few more months peaceful co- refusal to call a stoppage today.

existence with the Tory policies of

CUTS:

Students Sit-In ground. opposite - the occupation shows Colleges would be in Britain students going asked to collaborate with this independent of their leader- fight providing the Home snooping by ship." Office with details of the students' On the planned occupation he attendance and informing on any said: students who overstay. "The struggle in defence of over- seas students and against racism is.

£20 MILLION

parcel part and struggle Coupled with these moves is the against the cuts and anti-working warning that the DES must raise class policies of the Labour govern- another £20 million from fees in ment. 1978, and that overseas students' It is for this reason we have got fees as a result could rise to over enormous support from the British £1,000 per year. this occupation and Such policies obviously delegations and telegrams of jeopardise students from poor from colleges all support families who are studying at Britain." Further Education Colleges because there is no adequate education in

DEMONSTRATION

their own country. It is against this background that In the occupation meeting on the real treachery of the Broad Left Thursday it was decided to occupy NUS leadership 17th, can be seen. Ther November when have mounted serious fight students should join the national по demonstration. As a spokesman for the overseas A motion was passed calling on student group who initiated the the

NUS

to hold coordinated occupation campaign told Socialist of strikes national and campaign Press: occupations against the cuts, "General "left' MPs doesn't discussion demanding the who We resolve anything. oppose the cuts vote against them

CAL NOTHE

They all in Parliament. action. to things the carpet, hoping it will all be forgotten. By our own correspondent.

But be not going brushed aside. fact In quite the this Labour government. to today's demonstration within the working class shows cleariv that it 1s DOS- sible to mount an all the thi the with against cuts of the membership. The support this is the union major block officials, with their craven support which for the 'social contract couples cuts with spending cuts and sackings. against the social Every _how contract is a blow against the cuts.

Every struggle against the 4%% pay deal, against sackings and speed-up, part of the struggle against the is cuts. But the question within the other unions ike public sector unions is the development of a new fight leadership prepared the contract, and prepared to social mobilise the membership in strike action in defence of jobs and the social services.

ACTION

unionists in every Local Trade Education Authority, every Area Health Authority and every sector of the public services must there- fore unite around a programme of force their national action leaders either to fight the cuts or to stand aside for those who will.

This wherever jobs, means conditions or services are threaten- ed - whether by 'natural wastage' or outright sackings - there must be with a call indefinite strike action, to the local labour movement for action in support. The demand must be for the rejection of all cuts, the full restor- ation of the level of spending in every sector, together with a sliding scale of spending - rising to keep pace with inflation as assessed by.

trade union committees. NALGO Gen. Sec. Drain W.Midlands strike call

WEST

MIDLANDS

NUPE

IS a one-day strike against organising cuts on December Ist The strength of feeling among NUPE members is shown by a massive turn-out of 600 the Coventry branch meeting called proposal. In Rugby there will be a demonstration on December 1st - the first in the town for years.

However, the NUPE leadership Such committees must be fou for through the unions in area. Their task is to vet the exp diture, the plans and the manni levels within the public services.

a local level. To do this they mi fight for access to the concealed to date accounts and future pla of local administrators.

PROFITS

This will reveal which suppli are profiting from the public sect and the need for them to nationalised, under the mana of elected workers comn ment tees, without compensation time such inve At the same gations will provide the basic kn ledge for drawing up of a work improvement of the public servi expansion plan in line with the needs in each are Local strike action is vital the fore not only to challenge and the cuts at local level, but to fo the national union officials and to take governmeal these policies for the defence of public services as a whole.

The task of public sector jo shop stewards committees, work closely with trades councils and major industrial unions in each a coordin be theretore I to

HUSI

and lead such actions.

CUTS COMMITTEES

Those local Cuts Committ and other rank and file bodies around defence of the up services must therefore be direc towards this struggle. Without action by strike workers directly involved in public sector, the cuts will never halted, no matter how m: marches and protest meetings staged. NUPE Gen. Sec. Fis the Decem . keen to keep seem and November 1st strike national demonstration separate Coventry, the November demonstration will be attended shop stewards and volunteers o No call for total one-day action November 17th demonstration and mass turn-out been issued.

The main body of the first three parts of this docurent have detailed some of the theoretical.

differences that emerged between the British WRP leadership of the International Committee and the General Secretary of the Greek section. The final two parts begin to draw together these strands and to show how philosophical and theoretical differences are related to a sectarian method and the past isolation of the Trotskyist movement - and how they found expression in the actual events of the split lage 6 in the Greek section. It is a fact that during the first International School last september, the secretary of disagreed the Greek section radically with Kantian dualism was served up there as which dialectical materialism by the eaders of the WRP. But the disagreements were not imited to the level of philosophy. interwoven with the philosophical re the political questions, and in he last analysis they are summed EP in the gap between the method Lenin Trotsky and ropagandism of the petty bourge- pis Healy sect. for a decisive necessity

SUIC

reak with propagandism becomes Ill the more urgent as the economic risis deepens, and it is this neces- ity that lies behind the crisis in the aternational Committee. This was the question posed in the split with the OCI, the work of Blick-Jenkins the group VRP and the split with Thornett.

PURGE

The same questions lie behind the crisis of the Workers League of the USA and the purge of its secre- ary and founder, Tim Wohlforth. Within the new situation propa- candism had become unbearable ind the crises, the Fractional struggles and splits posed that question independently of the solution Proposed by forth All the the splits international have taken place in elation the Transitional togramme. In the past this was because hose who were unable to bring the the Togramme into mass move- ent ended up rejecting it.

Now it because inability to this same ake the Programme to the masses pes as far as the rejection of the truggle for this Programme within masses, which likewise ends up the betrayal of the Programme.

We need not add that no such far roblem exists as as the petty ourgeois sect of the

WRP

• 6*481C1

"RENEGADES"

For them it is simply that some "Tencrades" "revisionists", retched people" retreated in the of their oxerse struggle to trans- "every strike" into an attack the seizure of power, or reveal- their Teal' faces, exposed long established relations with • CIA, the GPU...and so on!

FROM SECTARIANISM TO

REFORMISM

well not Sectarianism can very ady turn out in the form of oppor- practice. under Actress Vanessa Redgrave proclaiming WRP's sectarian policy of 'Bring down the Labour Government'.

certain conditions can even become the route along which one can be finally drowned in the marsh of opportunism, by openly capitulat- ing to the class enemy and betray- ing the working class. but the minds Situations change, of people do not reflect the change in an automatic way. As Engels says Part One. Ed], section of the people one linds it difficult to grasp the change and lags behind.

BACKWARDS

But this does not mean that this stands still. section contrary, it goes backwards.

Sectarianism, which theoretical- draws its roots from propagan- dism and formalistic thought, not only prevents the party irom going liquidates it 10r-C.

HUL

isationally and politically.

Kautsky In this process, the main bearers of this method become corrupted.

That with happened Kautsky and Plekhanov, who were giants of Marxism. That is also what has happened today with Healy and his colleagues who anyway were pygmies on the level of theory. Lenin writes in Left Wing Com- munism: "That which happened to such leaders of the Second International, such highly erudite Marxists devoted to socialism as Kautsky Otto Bauer and others, could cand • They fupy appreciated eu useful lesson. need for flexible tactics; they themselves learned Marxist dialec- tics and taught it to others (and of what they have done in much this field will always remain valuable contribution to socialist citerature owes ale the in the appli cation this committed such an error, or proved to be so undialectical in practice, so into account incapable of taking the rapid change of forms and the rapid acquisition of new content by the ok forms, that their fate is not much enviable than that of шоге Hyndman, Guesde and Plekhanov.

The principle for their reason bankruptcy was that they тете

&WHITE

UNITE&

FIGHTI

FORCE

LABOUR

GOVTta

RESIGN

form of hypnotised by a definite growth of the working class move- all and socialism, forgot ment about the one-sidedness that the break- form were afraid to see up which objective conditions made inevitable, and continued to repeat and, at first glance, incon- simple, testable axioms that had been learned by rote, like: ' "three is more tuan two. But politics is more like algebra than arithmetic, and still more like higher than elementary mathe- matics. In reality, all the old forms of the socialist have movement acquired a new content and, conse- symbol, quents sign, hes appeared in front minus figures; 9 te have stubbornly contin- however, ned (and stil continue) to persuade themselves and others that "minus "minus two". three" is more than' (pp84-85). Densince this is coathaporaly happened contemporary 'wise men' They did not grasp that in front of 'three' and 'two' we have today a "minus' sign.

OLD TRUISMS

to repeat even under today's new conditions their old truisms learned by heart, did exactly the opposite Trotskyist movement and the work- results, but instead began to liquid- ate the movement. to see any further than the end of their noses e propagandist heri- tage of the movement lies heavily stition. But it is not only that. They are also subjectively, as individuals, This is due in particular to their historical position within the class - recruiting its cadres only among a special stratum of people, swim against the stream. devotion to the cause of the work- they s were armed with the necessary theoretic- They lacked ties not only with Trotsky had underlined this fact and had observed that the sections SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17th November 1976.

DEFEND THE

OF THE TRAN

PROGRAMME

Lessons from the Internationalist Le This is the fourth of five parts of the Docu expelled majority of the Greek Workers Internationalist Le intervention of Gerry Healy, (then General Secretary of!

name of the International Committee of the Fourth Interna of the Fourth International in the In the whole of the post-wai different made more period they had been acting under countries smooth legality, ecruits among immigrants, precise- conditions political development, devoted to propagandist routine rounds of activity, where their membership internal revolution, need not in the grew gradually, along with their their printshops and the offices, of their apparatus. This whole smooth progress, without any troubles, changes and them. helped to make the Healy leader- that the leading figures of the WRP ship into philistines. are not English is not insignificant.

trom the to test their ideas in the living class acquired the technical consciousness of the real world, lost the masses recruit to new ever leadership means they subord- into the and tocir or themselves within their own heads, inated to the mainten- ideological prison where it is impos- tive

TOTATOS

poluca als their ranks and agreement What does it matter to in order to or that programme or tactics?

They developed the labour movement in general and "security This began the Trotskyist movement in partic- initially ular by the present economic crisis?

away from adventurist In the struggle against the Blick- group Jenkins group the Healy leadership used this "security hey But later certain problem did exist in relation their ranks in through consti- analyse or explain to themselves OI apparatus •and to to the others what this break with ultimatism concrete changes in the objective towards the found its situation made it necessary, and the logical in the sectarian, and atus itself. from going forward. this period they had shown them- learn from crisis which was unavoidably the political Their Trotskyist Michel . by Pablo. Revisionism, smany or luc from Pablo's short lived. The of the leading тау

SOCIALIST PRESS, Vednesday 17tk None iber 1976

SITIONAL

plit in the Workers ague (Greecel. nent by the Communist Internationalist League, (the ague. The majority of the WIL were expelled after the he British Workers Revolutionary Party) acting in the ional. problems of the movement, they claimed that the party won leading it already with great speed three thousand members in the right, electoral number

CORE DISLO

campaign capitulation to the labour bureau- was much greater than the which and through this, with number of votes cast for its candi- British imperialism dates. Within the conditions of broad

"DIALECTICAL"

radicalisation of the masses they as did other sections of succeeded, of "dialectical" the IC, in increasing their member- Their claims contradictions could not ship, financial resources and persuade this basis theit apparatus, anyone, and everyone in the party through straightforwad could what kind DEd' ganda work. "members" these were, since they But their did not vote for the candi- in crease even brought them into a new environ- dates of the WRP. ment where they were faced with The same method of sophistry was used in Greece, when Healy's new problems. Many of the new members were puppets tried to justify the loss of working factories studying held the organisation in in universities. But here, the propa- during last the the gandist luggage they had been given students unions, by presenting this by their "wise" leaders was revealed "negative verification reversal as a to be useless, or at least inadequate.

of our policies"! Greek workers occupy their factory.

WRP members in Britain, as also The sectarian insistence on the members of the WIL in Greece, propagandist formulae within our felt themselves movement, resulted in demoral- completely of disarmed the face of massive isation the members, many losses, the increasing indignation of economic struggles. They failed to intervene fruit- the members against the leadership put the stamp of the and the appearance of fractional InEY Or tO party on these struggles, despite the tendencies. At the same time, the obviously leadership simply

COIL SIR

WILE

Naturally this was not due to the counterposed itself to the members.

of the members themselves, failure This is the way it happened USA and but to the bankruptcy of the propa- Greece, Britain, in the in situation gandist policies of the party and of undoubtedly same Tate their whole method in the training other section of the exists in every International Committee. of cadres. very good description of

FUTILE

this situation can be found in the of the IC on Wohlforth statement The attempts of the WRP leaders of March 22 1975: "During the months preceeding to embellish their failures were also proven futile. This was clear, their for from the pally, example, in case of their Wohlforth-Fields leadership had the electoral failure, underesti- realised extremely catastrophic mating their members' intelligence, turn (?) which caused the loss of 100 leading branch more than cadres in New York and the deci- of forces mation in some other The work within the unions was nonexistent, the youth work was reduced to charity and dinner parties in the neighbourhoods, and they had thrown themselves with excessive zeal sales, to the paper of substituting the wOrk recruitment and training of revol- utionary cadres within the working class. At another point in the same statement they write: "After the interviews and the investigations all the related material, no connection of Nancy Fields or Tim Wolforth with the

CIA

other service was proved." magnanimous" These people recognised that Wolforth had no connection with the CIA! Alright, but since it was not the

CIA

who were responsible for the crisis in the Workers' League and the decimation of forces, who was responsible? The writers of the statement keep as silent as the grave on this decisive question, which as they claim themselves, was the cause for "salutary" intervention of the International Committee

JIT•

American sympathising section.

In reality, Wohlforth and Fields were used scapegoats. leading sect of the WRP cowaruly wanted in this way to get away what was above all its responsibility.

APT DESCRIPTION

Everyone knows that the above- quoted description of the way the Workers League was working in the USA is absolutely apt in relation to every section of the IC - and above all to the WRP. The decimation of forces had its impact on the functioning of the Workers Press, the news- paper of the WRP, developed great financial problems. Its editors began to confess through its columns, that it was in caneer and with it the revo ution.

danger, since ary party was in cannot be built without a regularly published newspaper. But the with same sophistic method as always, they blamed the economic crisis of capitalism for the crisis of the Workers Press, thus cynically offending the intelligence of their readers. Trotskyists waited patiently during the whole of the boom period for the outbreak of economic crisis which would bring about favourable conditions for the building of mass parties, the regular publication of newspapers and so on. But now the leaders of the WRP tell us that the crisis threatens to destroy the newspaper of the and the revol revolutionary party utionary party itself! They try with this nonsense to the political crisis shaking cover-up the WRP and the whole IC In the International Youth Con- terence organised recently in London, the WRP were not able to gather more than 250 youth. These are the people could until mobilise only recently thousands. It is this fact - the result of their political bankruptcy behind the economic crisis of Workers Press, the crisis of Agricultural workers demonstrate in Greece.

capitalism. It is their inability to respond to the tasks posed in front of us by the crisis of capitalism.

Under conditions, the thest that they sectarians imagine can their apparatus by watering down their wine, by kicking away principles, as Pablo did earlier and Pabloites of as the the United secretariat continue today.

So, the who for people years shouted against 'corporatism" and against the "partici- pation of workers in the manage- ment of the capitalist concerns and who denounced it as a dangerous deception aimed at creating confusion, splitting the class and enforcing its submission to the needs of the bourgeoisie, sat suddenly around the same table With British Leyland employers in a *Participation Committee" line Karamantis' police in action against demonstrators in Athens.

with the plan of Tory Lord Ryder, head of the National Enterprise Board This total, historic betrayal. They arrived at the point Workers of publishing of the extracts from the report joint committee dealing with the process of production of Leyland's Princess model, and of commenting if you please, that if the production of the Princess is not satisfactory, (if that is, workers are not exploited enough by the company!)

it is not the workers who should be for • that but the manage Haines of the factory (which ment unable to sufficiently organise their exploitation!) Concluded Next Edition.

Page 8 L.S. Lowry passed his first thirty years as a painter more or less in obscurity as a local' Manchester artist with little national reputation. But since the end of the war, and particularly in the last ten years, his paintings and drawings of industrial scenes have become both «acceptable, Popular and culturally enormously Lowry's death earlier this year in the midst of preparations came for a Royal Academy exhibition of worK, The largest willck las cret been held anywhere. continued The preparations however, and the exhibition is just Academy. It about to end at the with jumbo was a acres and acres of wall covered with Lowry's little hurrying figures.

The exhibition's has success been proof of Lowry's populatity; an aerial view of the Gallery would with tiny look like a Lowry scene, women knocking into and each other as they struggle across Gallery. white expanses ol Only the dogs are missing, and the prams, and the smoking towers.

Lowry's popularity is connected him to the factors which isolate from the mainstream of twentieth- century British and American art.

EDUCATED

Chagall, another Like Marc extremely popular painter, Lowry educated 'primitive': in 1919-20, of academic yeas he turned from realistic painting, portraitures to a kind of Lancashire impressionism. Chagall and But, unlike uniquely among major Lowry's 'Oth Century artists paintings are rooted in their locale, dosely attentive to the details of the northern cityscape in a manner that engenders a peculiar sense of confidence in those who see them.

to many people unfamiliar with the actual look of Lancashire mill and "the industrial north produces an t.ctory produces an instant mental image composited from two or three of Lowry's more famous paintings. So few have dealt painters seriously with working-class life that it might seem a little crabby to quibble with the work of one who

CLERK

Especially Lowry, who was no stunning voyeur, but in some sense depicted, part Ife

• THE

working as a clerk all his life in the

L.S.LOWRY:

THE DETACHED

REALIST

By a Guest Reviewer process of life under capitalism: the one of the mills whose office of systematic reduction of men and workers he painted over and over women so that they appear to be again. Lowry preserved himself against mere objects. But Lowry, too, capitulates in by criticism even more the process, so that his work makes ing completely unpretentious about Collection: City Art Gallery. Salford a permanent equation between men the work he did in the evenings, his and objects. painting, even after his success.

In the sea-scapes which form an answer interviewer neglected though the who questioned him about section of his work, the ships stand 'significance' of his figures ("You as the men in relation to the sea if call them matchstick men and women do to the city: knocked like, they just turn out like you and tossed about, or brought into them like that.") has that. I see incapable of action er understand: external control; been widely quoted. scenes of indus- Lowry's group ing. trial life his most famous and popular pictures, though they make

ALOOFNESS

up only a part of his work seem str bie oforwar the depies on simple, depictions And Lowry observes this process straightforward simple, straightforward lives,_ cheer- with the same aloofness, the same fully merging anonymity stubborn naivete with lalo and from work their fended off discussion of his paint- Lu play. ings. of the detached produces the stiff and observer of the paintings stylised qualities move closer in, to try to and less show as larger

ITTE

divy Ido The Cripples, where a couple In of children look on while lame and deformed men straggle past them, the painting's quizzical stance refusing to elicit a reaction from the children, refusing to explore the self-consciousness of the cripples, - makes finally for vagueness.

Francis Terrace, Salford 1976 was hailed by the Social Democrats as the year The group scenes are mingled, in the of of women's equality in pay exhibition, with paintings and job opportunity - follow- what Lowry referred to his as "down outs" criminals, enactment of the ing the drunks, cripples. Equal Pay and Sex Discrimin- This spices the simplicity so that ation Acts on January 1st.

the exhibition as a whole produces a pleasing sense of having been of However during this time it has moral benefit. taken a bitter 22 week strike for There is a faint air of reverence the Trico women to win equal pay.

among the visitors, due in part to are battling to get Still women the surroundings and Lowry's assembly lines in the the onto recent death, but due also to motor industry and other areas of feeling that it must be good for a manufacturing industry's tradition- middle-class art critic to have to ally male' jobs. look at so many poor people at Sex discrimination is still rife in school courses. once There is in fact a real ambiguity

WAGE CONTROL

about Lowry's portrayal of working class life: the reduction of his figures to repetitive All this, of course, is happening anonymous, little perception of the erects of stars part a sharp against a backcloth of wage control and massive cuts in public services, trial life. cuts which hit women particularly

REALISM

hard both because the majority of workers in these sectors are women which these conditions are nade, in of the way Lowry's grasp and also because women need the education, social to work and lacitties of tne daily life, in going 'free' them and health services to school and coming home, to seem from the burdens of the home and normal, ordinary, cheerful - their traditional role of caring for this is extraordinary, the deepest children, the sick and the elderly.

kind of realism. Working Womens Charter The Liberal critics who try to find an Campaign (WWCC) has initiated a "anti-capitalist" in Lowry, and so rally at a on about the "monstrous, looming campaign tot Alexandra Palace on February 27th qualities of his factories, precisely to discuss these questions.

miss the point: the factories Lowry's paintings are big and black

FOCUS

belch smoke which and ugly, they blackens people's faces and hands This rally should be supported as and lungs, but they are not seen by a positive a ments rights but he pointic sor fighting Lowry or his people as monstrous' but simply as part of life.

the Working Womens Charter Cam- Lowry's paintings are not trying to launch an attack on capitalism. paign stand as a barrier to winning support among the broad layers of but simply to record a part of ite The children and the cripples arrangement are merely an people, a section of a crowd scene, blown up for no reason. Scenes of violence or potential like The Arrest, The Man violence Taken fl, or The Strike Meeting, are drawn as if witnessed from an window a few streets upper-storey away from the action; the distance the active potential of the freezes into something static and timeless. action in Lowry's The only paintings is the ceaseless zigzagging

1YEAR OF'EQUALITY :

MASS RALLY CALLED

the labour movement. trades Trade union councils and Labour Party wards must be involved directly in organ- promises of ising for the rally - "sponsorship" or verbal motions of sufficient and 'support' not merely provide a left cover for bureaucrats not wishing to appear opposed to such basic questions as righthe warter Campaign Charter fails The completely to give a lead to women workers confused by the position of their trade union leaders on the issue of tribunals. The Charter holds the dual position that where struggles are organised around equal pay OI then these opportunity workers should not go to the tribunals but individual women should be supported in putting their case.

BUREAUCRACY

This merely accepts the line of the bureaucracy where they choose to lead a fight, the WWCC

(TRICE

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17th November 1976 View from the Window of the Royal Technical College, Salford of human objects. In some sense Lowry's detach- ment and his lack of interest in the significance of the struggling move- ments ol ine world ol dgules, by his clerk's position determined on the periphery of that struggle.

simultaneously That position him the access to the rich gave of complexities working class life that offered him his subject, and limited his ability to deal with thạt subject with anything but practical truthfulness. tags along behind; but where they and isolated send leave wwce them to tribunals, the sipe saye pts this refatal to fight.

clearly that the major lesson that must be taken into the labour movement after one year of the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimin- ation Acts is that the tribunals must be boycotted, and trade union means of struggle used to force WWCC takes working women way forward in fighting the union bureaucracy, who stand as the main barrier to a struggle for women's The danger is that a campaign on this level would degenerate to the level of the National Abortion Campaign, in which the single issue of Abortion, detached from any means of winning this right for women, mobilised 20,000 on one mass demonstration thousands of women who have mostly never been seen again since.

AFTER THE BY -ELECTIONS:

TIME TO SHOOT THE PIANIST!

Comment by John Lister defeats at The shattering Workington and Wallsall North have given an important insight into the bankrupt man- oeuvreings of the 'left' and the "right' within the wings Labour Party machine. immediately In comments following the the and if hasty ineving postmortem statements washing candidates, the real crisis of leadership within the Labour Party has come out clearly.

PINPOINTED

Labour candidate, Harry Cowan from New- pinpointed main factor alienating "We experienced far more com- live up to its manitesto than about wild left wing policies" Workington Dale Campbell- the Savour, sabotage of his campaign by the within the Labour Party - the so-called 'Man- ifesto Group Group for should never have

COLLE

SPOTLIGHT

which we were fighting the Tories wingers. But both are clearly forced advocated by the Manifesto Group and implemented in the economic strategy of Healey and Callaghan - away from Labour. Their experience in the election confirms the necessity for an all- out campaign to remove Healey and Callaghan from the Labour leader- Mara Mover Party hope to differentiate itself in the next General Election from the But as far as the right wingers who run the Cabinet are concerned, it was the 'left" who were to blame, inadequate a fashion);, ine contine a ramiage of cuts.

completely inadequate. In place of one set of reactionary policies, they different set of equally reactionary

COLON

In place of a clear call to drive Callaghan, out Healey and the "lefts' waffle on about the need for the Labour movement to "put on the pressure now as never before.'

(Tribune 12th November). Indeed, if we take the case of David Winnick, the Tribuneite candidate defeated in the Walsall North by election, it is clear that it is really only an insistent call for import COniTOLS that stands between his so-called 'alternative' line and that of the Labour leader- ship: did of praise and defend a good deal of pre go em ment's achievements...Food housing subsidies, the industrial relations: legislation, the social

REFORMISM

[!!], the the intert contract Protection Act, and inter- vention the industry motor which has done much to save lobs in the West Midlands have all been working ‚people." (emphasis added).

PHOTO:

Callaghan Of course of the every one 'achievements' defended • Y Winnick represents a refusal of the Labour government to carry out a programme of nationalis- socialist ation and a planned expansion of production under workers' manage- ment, together with an attempt to restrict the freedom limit and unions to function and defend their members independent of state interference But when he goes on to defend the social blank Contrace cheque given by the TUC bureau- crats to Healey to slash wages and proceed with further huge spending cuts, Winnick reveals the complete impotence of the Tribune group.

Winnick not alone among 1S Tribuneites taking this position. The by election results have horrified professional left' these talkers, and driven them to seek a deal with the right wing.

Thus Norman Atkinson, leading Latham, Tribune Group Chairman and (left) Heffer Tribuneitespokesman, announced in the wake of the results that there should be some agreement between 'left' and right: What we must do throughout the length of the country understanding what has to be done.'

LEADING LIGHT

Eric Heffer, another leading light in the Tribuneite ranks, went even further. Even while Denis Healey and Shirley Williams, speaking for all the hard-line advocates of Labour pitched into the attack on the left blamed them for the defeats, desperately reporters that he felt no hostility towards the right wing. "Quite honestly, people in those positions shouldn't say such things.

We don't go around making state. ments blaming them. (Daily Mail, Saturday 6th November). Heffer! The Too true, MI. Tribune group do not attack the They Callaghan-Healey leadership!

lead no offensive struggle to throw them out. They mouth a few pious phrases and then turn out time after time for spending

SOCIAL CONTRACT

contract - since the Tribune group opposition, no socialist programme.

They, as much as the Labour rght- wing must carry the responsibility for the increase in the Tory vote.

We reject the Tribuneites' line of no matter what reactionary policies campaign to throw out Healey and Callaghan, and replace them only doing his best. Denis Healey is doing his best for Back issues of all editions of 'Socialist Press' are avail- able, price 10p each plus 6½p P&P from: 31, Dartmouth Park Hill London NWS 1HR PHOTO: Chris Davies. Repor Atkinson

LONDON

CONFERENCE

ABOUT 70 DELEGATES AND

Its lack of political sharpnes observers attended a conference at carried over into the many demands: it was often not clear at Conway Hall last Saturday, called London Regional Commit- whom they were directed. by the tee Against Cuts in Public Services.

ON THE SPOT

A morning session heard contri- butions from a platform of half a Several speakers is of the ING dozen speakers with experience in particular struggles against the cuts.

including supporters GLC councillor Ken Livingstone (who were the main political force Conference), spoke of behind the spoke on the fraudulent posturings the need to put the bureaucracy on of trade union leaders such as Jack Jones and the spot in order to expose it "defence f the transport system But the complete absence of any and of the need to put Labour such perspective was a major weak- councillors on the spot in their ness of the resolution. the Workers acceptance and implementation of Speakers from League were particularly Government's increasingly Socialist the savage budget slashing. critical of the fuzzy and misguided demand "that District Officials of

SUSPENDED

the should public sector unions have regular meetings on an area There also an account of Was basis" and of the failure to call on the important fight being carried on left-talking union leaders to Ilford by the teachers at Little organise strike action against the School who have been suspended, cuts. bureaucratically and almost without warning, from the NUT for

COMMITTEE

refusing cover for teachers to absent for more than three days.

steering committee was The afternoon was devoted to chosen to carry forward the work discussion of a resolution from the of the LRCAC; but the organisation Conference Committee Organising will need to develop, on fighting the cuts. kindly, far greater political clarity The made many resolution and orientation to the a firmer correct points. But it failed to trade unions and the Labour Party, if it is to be able to mobilise signif identify cuts strategy of numbers of workers against overall supported the the cuts. government, of solve the crisis capitalism at the expense of the By Tom Walker workers.

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INDUSTRIAL NEWS

GPO CUTS THREATEN JOBS

Page 10 The threat of sackings hangs 400 workers at the

OYET

Balfour Darwins Capital Tool Works in Sheffield. Edgar Allen Balfour, the group formed Allen when Edgar absorbed Balfour Darwins two years ago, has announced that it will close its Greenland Road factory in Sheffield and transfer production to Openshaw, in Manchester. The reason offered by manage- ment is a projected El million loss next year. Most of this loss they Balfour Darwins attribute to works in Sheffield. This must come as no surprise as since the takeover investment has been drastically reduced and the sales force cut from 12 to 3 in a carefully planned attempt to manu- Thousands of jobs in the telecommunications industry threatened by $220 aTe million reduction in orders by the Post Office for telephone exchange equipment. The labour force in the industry has already dropped from 78,000 in 1970-71 to the present level of 60,000. Earlier cuts in Post Office orders last year have resulted in a planned 1,000 of these, 10,000 sackings. just under one-third of the installation company's workforce, have been announced, for the first quarter of

GEC,

by next year. of the number of Estimates ackings which will follow the latest vary between 10,000 and cut 15,000 It is vital that attempts by the union leaderships involved to form alliances with employers be fought.

EEPT articular, members of the should repudiate their kadership's call for telecommuni- and industry employers anions to take a joint stance to oppose the cuts. Instead of working out how the employers could make more profit through boosting the exports uncons should be starting from the independent interests of workers demanding work sharing on full and the opening of the books pay telecommunications firms such *s Plessey, Standard Telephone and

STEEL JOBS IN DANGER

facture reasons for closure.

Management's decision to close works has already met with the resistance from the determined mainly women workforce and with Edgar Allen support from Balfour workers who will soon face similar attacks. The determination of the work- force, however, finds little reflec- of the stewards committee and Communist Party committee led AUEW District Committee.

At the meeting last 10:* Monday of all Edgar Allen Balfour's in Sheffield, the stewards workers committee confined itself to a call for district-wide blacking of Balfour Darwin's products. The aim of this was to 'pressure' discussions management mans to make the factory viable n into But the actions of management the works is precisely in closing designed make the industry LO

SEC

LASTWORKS.

FACTORY

of The recognition strike Bingo workers employed by Orr Enterprises, Coventry (see 'Socialist Press' 46), is now in its fourth week. Hoping to break the strike by *we asserting that are open reopened the have halls using scab labour. So far, than 70 people are however, attending the bingo sessions.

Last weekend two mass pickets, with an average of 100 present al any one time, were held in an effort Support for the close the halls. strike has been steadily growing and been visited I.5. Defends Reformist Programme 750 delegates and visitors at Socialists' the International Right to Work Conference on 6th November were urged by the platform to vote for a of reformist programme - many of which demands have already earned the verbal "viable", le. profitable, by the only support of most of the Trade meens capitaliam knows - reducing Union bureaucracy. the workforce, speeding up produc- tion and closing factories.

Unemployment, delegates Were By for "viability", the must be met with a 35 hour arguing told, stewards committee are accepting without loss week, official overtime ban, and five days management's terms and agreeing must be boosted at the. work for five days pay" that profits expense of the workers. The social contract should be None of the jobs will be defena- fought the board with ed this way. Instead management's with no limits on agree- long-laid plans to close the factory ments. and the meaning of their argument!

Everyone urged was to light about 'viability' must be exposed to fight fight again. MorE and the whole workforce by a fight to should be developed, militancy the of the whole open books proclaimed Conference speakers, company. who concluded that what is noodeo Drawing in the other factories in "is a conrod-fle lias he order of the group, who face similar attacks, Compromise to exaimine the workings of the One delegate, Sean the day. company in its drive to force extra Dohorty & London teacher, profits out of its workforce, the for support for a protest lobby at laid for a fight to basis must be

NUT

office backing the defend all the jobs by reducing the teachers suspended from the union hours of work while maintaining for taking 'unofficial action' at the full pay. school. As a first step, Conference , workers commit- North, But Dick tees must be elected to lead the chairman and member of the NUT fight to open the books and to pre- Executive made no comment or call for a campaign within the NUT on pare IoT the occupation of the factory. this blatant example of bureau- Only in this way can the correct cracy. decision to call District-wide black- An alternative programme was put by Mike Davis (endorsed by however ing in support stewards' the from the Oxford

ACTSS

833 Confed meeting branch and from following day), be developed.

Iesolution Central Sootland Federation of jobs in With thousands Trades Councils which called for a Sheffield threatened by the reces- policy of occupation of factories to sion in special steels mass suppor demand work sharing on tull pay must be won for worksharing ot introduced under the direction of full pay in defence of jobs.

There is no solution to be found in searching for alternatives to the factory viable, the fight make be directed towards the must nationalisation of the industry

LETTER:

without compensation, not under the old state-appointed managers but under workers' management.

Dear Comrade I do not object to your criticism That is your of my political line. and I would always defend right that right. What disturbs me is your inaccurate report (6/10/76).

state that I was installed You President of the office as Oxford Trades Union Council by TUC officials. The facts are that I was elected 88 votes to votes at a by 147 rank and file meeting of members elected by their branches.

this You can check many of your supporters voted in that election. you will print this trust correction.

BINGO STRIKE SOLID

Yours fraternally, John Power. • Our use of the word "installed" refers to the disaffiliation and Ie- of the Oxford Trades organisation Council by the TUC following a contrast to the strikers is in sharp activities of T&GWU officials. The walk-out by an extreme right-wing District Committee has voted support for the strike and is circul- ating details to branches.

particularly But active support, help with picketing, , has not been the face of this forthcoming. In attitude on the part of the officials a few women have drifted back to work. of strikers, The vast majority however, are absolutely determined to see a successful conclusion to the strike. of support and Resolutions donations to the strike fund should be sent to: Coffer.

T&GWU

Ann i Toer SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17th November 1976 elected Trade Union Committees.

They demanded that those refused open thei employers who jobs must- books to these committees so that the case for nationalisation can be proven, The resolutions called over and above a substantial wage increase, sliding wages to protect against inflation.

Socialist speakers International attacked these demands. Willie Lee from Chrysler Scotland said it was "not a matter of sliding scales and the books" what was open needed was action and answers.

"My will the employer we sat oper he said, books when ever "but we don't want to see them."!

But Mike Davis Correctly the task is to raise the argued, consciouiness of the working class revolutionary

CONSCIOUSDERS,

That task can bo achieved the fight through which challenge capital. demands, ism - certainly not through reform- ist demands which can be contained within it ending of business In this the secrets, open the books, can bë one of the most powerful demands.

The bankruptcy of the IS refusal to fight for any political develop- highlighted by ment was the by enthusiastic response ‹ the Conference when Alan Thornett from the 5/293 T&GWI delegate in challenging the Confer- branch, 'reformist'" ence programme called to force for campaign Healey and Callaghan to resign.

This remained as virtually the only political note standing in Conference, complete contrast to the 'rank-and-file link- the peddled by up' panacca platform. Oxford Trades Council and Communist Party minority, not attenders, normal Trades Councl wing led by David Buckle, right District Secretary of the T&GWU.

In the reorganisation the existing effectively officers elected office and the removed from including Bro. : officers Hool.. Power were elected with the active and enthusiastic support of that minority. Indeed same right wing the voting lines were clearly drawn between the active members of the old Trades Council • voting I the Gerry Casey as President and and Communist right wing Party minority (bolstered into a majority a three line whip from national almost every affillated offices the union under pressute «from

TUC)

for Brother Power voting first Trades Council attending his meeting in at least five years.

While he may call that a demo- call it a would cratic we bureaucratic carve-up.

TENA

451293 BRA

- NO CUrSI

'NO STRIKE' CLAUSE ON A NE.

SOCIALIST FRESS, Money 17th Noverber 1976

MANIFESTO

The first hospital occupa- tion has begun at the EGA in London. At a mass meeting on Monday 14th November the workers there passed the fol- lowing manifesto: "1. The staff of the EGA have previously declared their intention to occupy the hospital should this necessary. The Secretary of prove State has apparently supported the 'interim' transfer to the Whitting- ton hospital, a solution which he has attempted to justify the House of Commons by false state- ments. It may be now that AHA officers will act arbitrarily to close the Hospital, as they closed the EGA Maternity Home. The staff are extremely frustrated that the case for maintaining the EGA has never yet been adequately examined by the authorities, and that all kinds of tricks have been to disown tried and dishonour this unique women's hospital. The remaining step must taken to occupy the Hospital by a work-in. 2. A continuous 24-hour picket on bospital entrances. Authorised

JAGS BAN ENDS

Paintshop workers at Jaguar's Browns Lane Plant in Coventry have voted to drop the overtime ban imposed since July. The ban was in support of their demand for inquiry into the of the siting new paintshop which Birmingham in rather than Coventry. Jaguar workers feel that this is the first step towards the ending of Jaguar production in Coventry.

failing to get agreement with management a public inquiry, the union leaders at the plant have used sympathetic noises from Eric Varley and calls from Jack Jones for 'more information' on Leyland's future plans as a cover to call off the action. proposals of this sort can only benefit management. The technique is to prevent such proposals becoming known in the factory before the convenors meet to accept or reject. It these proposals went to a vote the in factories they would rejected out of hand. On Robinson reported that Longbridge workers had accepted the principle of the social contract in the current annual pay review.

FRAUDULENT

This had been fraudulently achieved by means of a militant sounding resolution which called for the rejection of wage control, voluntary or statutory, after July 1977. In other advocating, WOrN acceptance of the 4½% deal for this year. So fraudulent is his position that Robinson does not even take this as a mandate to fight wage control next year. Knowing that those trade union leaders who had been circulated the text with Longbridge ol the resolution have been replying with taik of Stage Three of wage control, Robinson is now saying that it will be "up to the workers to decide.

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital personnel only will be admitted.

URKERS

We appeal: to women patients, health workers everywhere, to the unions, and to the community to support the occupation by any Staff will fully means possible. observe their contracts of employ- the ment interests the high. standard of discipline will be The

EGA

medical has committee already stated that medical staff will continue to look after the patients in the event of a staff work-in.

EGA

patients have repeatedly affirmed their loyalty to the hospital, and they can be assured that staff occupation will be in their interests, as the left to save the hospital.

The

EGA

work-in and will continue until the State

AHA

hospital to continue on its present site, by repairing the lift and undertaking needed main- tenance. Decisions regarding the occupation will be taken by meet- ings of all staff." The supported occupation officially

NUPE,

ASTMS,

'Natural wastage' is steadily eroding jobs in the public sector, avoiding the confronta- tion of compulsory sackings.

An example of this is the school meals staffing arrangement recently

T&GWU

David introduced Warwichshire Holloway County Council, which lays the says that calling off the ban is a sign of "goodwill", and it is for sharp attacks.on job hoped that will management security. reciprocate with a speedier flow of The new system was outlined in information. a letter to school meals staff as However, the central issue follows: will Leyland a period of Time to dear remains, produce Jaguar cars in Coventry?

only as natural To get an accurate picture of the occurs and posts become company's forward vacant, the number of permanent planning, Jaguar workers need more inan a school meals employees to the level speedier flow of information.

needed to cater lor the lowest They need to see all the books expected number of meals at each of the company and kitchen and scullery. this remains the most important demand for When demand temporarily them to raise. Calling off sanctions increases, for example, during the is no way to force this information winter months, the extra duties will from the company - but a move by be covered either by extending the hours of permanent staff or by the leaders to defuse LUIl militancy of Jaguar workers.

employment temporary additional staff employed on a termiy basis. Leyland management had offered confine his members within the the straight Social Contract entitle- reactionary limits set by the TUC 5% of gross earnings and the Labour government! Such (inclusive of overtime a view is held by and night- Stalinist bureau- shift allowance, and paid crats throughout the unions.

as an individual supplement). The same sentiment was But even while he helps carry expressed Tractoth and Trans, Arthur through such a wage cutting deal, convenor Robinson is acutely missions (a former aware or the member of the massive pressure coming up in the International Socialists, now supporter of the Workers League).

Нагрет that had reported he the accepted 4%% deal at Trans- missions, making the direct workers rate £66.65. But he added:

EXPLOSIVE

"It is just explosive at the If there is no settlement moment. of the lay-off claim the 'fringe benefit' blind alley, Ed] wil face some very big problems." If the convenors see the problem working class on the wages issue.

as the militancy of the working "There is sheer frustration over wages," "It is leading to a class, for the shop flooI the he said. fight against such negative attitude. Unless there question is a leaders. some reversing of the trend we will It is clear that an able urgent cam- not be to hold our members paign throughout Leyland is neces- until July — let alone after."

and to launch the tient for a ruses.

to reject all penalty clauses,

CONFINE

The phrase "hold our members" tion of the 4½%, and for a substan- spells out Robinson's view bf his wage increase tied to a sliding

AWLI

of scale wages to protect against From workers occupying

KEN

NHS

2,000 London hospital workers stop work against cuts on 21st July.

'NATURAL WASTAGE'

The appointments for one term only will offer exactly the same conditions of

DEVICE

enjoyed by permanent staff except that there will be no entitlement to the payment of retaining fee during school holidays, nor any guarantee of continued employment beyond the end of the school term.

The different existence categories amongst the workforce for the way the County Council to reduce hours worked by cutting the temporary staff. It is the old trick of splitting the work- force prior to organising an attack.

School meals staff were asked to fill a form indicating theit attitude the new proposals. Although the letter stated that the need not be signed there JOIm were cases of workers being instruc- ted to sign the forms. Any workers indicating hostility to the proposals and signing the form would obviously lay them- victimisation as selves open to mithe G&WU did The nothing to fight the proposals and - indeed helped management with their circulation. The union leaders rejected a call for votes to be taken

THE NUM HAS DROPPED ITS

proposals for management of pits to be elected on a one man one vote' principle at each pit - which would have led to workers at the pit controlling who was and who was not a manager. This, whilst not workers control, Page 11 Health stewards organise In the NHS a large but diminishing of number workers are held back by the participation of their union officials in subservient "Joint Staff Consultative Commit- tees" which were everywhere set up at the time of the so- called "reorganisation' of the

NHS

Where there has been any real fight against the cuts, however, this has been led by Joint Shop Steward Committees The demands situation that there should be no delay in building an all-London NHS Shop Stewards network capable of rapidly mobilis- ing workers all • over London response to by management to implement cuts in any areas. Several London JSSC's have started to work towards a Confer- ence of London Area Stewards in the Health Service

(CLASH)

January 1977 at which the main issue will be that of how to fight the cuts. at branch meetings by a show. of hands. There has been official announcement, by management or the union, of the result of the "ballot" but the proposals have now been introduced and there are rumours that they were 'accepted by a margin of 6:1; The G&MWU is in no shape to act defence of its members interests. In there example, are branch meetings - there was a five month gap between the last two, the branch has no vice clairinal. treasurer oI trades council delegate No one is clear just when the last branch elections took place. However, a fight has begun for a change in these methods of "organ isation" At the centre of a fighting policy must be the need for all informa- tion to be made available to shop stewards eg. employed? How many hours do they work; How many meals are prepared now? This information is vital if the school meals workers are to resist attempts to cut hours and speed- up their work.

PARTICIPATION

IN THE PITS?

(which would take the form of an elected Trade Union committee in control of the managers and their the ability to hire decisions; and fire, as well as access to the books) would still be a challenge to the old management. The

NUM

leadership has now this taken feeling for workers control and channelled it into com- very participation

JELLEC.

committees, in which the manage- ment together with the overseers would have a majority and which would have anyway no control over the managers « onv dealing witt minor decisions as to which machinery to purchase. The government is, of course, in favour of similar bodies throughout the nationalised industries, as well as 'workers on the board' in private industries. What they are aiming at is more' and more integration of the trade management require- ments, on the model of the subser- vience of union leaders in Leyland's

STILL CONFRONT FASCISM

Page 12 The Day of Action against recent economic measures on November 12th showed sim- strength of the Spanish work- ing class and the role of its leaders in trying to demob- According to the estimates of - an alliance of leaders of the Socialist Party union the UGT former Catholic union, and the UFO) which organised the action, labour force, were on strike

MINES

In the coal mines and the con- struction industry the strike was virtually total. most affected Euskadi were the Franco died a year ago - on November 20th 1975. His the King and his successors, two cabinets headed by Carlos Arias Navarro and now by Adolfo Suarez, have faithfully continued the fascist dictator's murderous work against the masses of workers peasants They have talked incessantly of "reforms" and democracy. But so political party has been struggle of the workers for demo- cracy or for higher pay has been the record of Spain's Political Prisoners have subsequent- centrist/Maoist Labour Party have been detained in Euskadi, as have a number of leaders of the youth section of the Communist League (one of the sympathising sections

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One year after Franco

SPANISH WORKERS

North, Catalonia in the East and name was progressively diluted to the industrial areas which circle "a day of action". Madrid.

PICKETS OPPOSED

It was quantitatively the largest workers' Spain mobilisation in • since the end of the Civil War.

The COS leaders fought ener- The quality of the strike, how- getically against any demonstra- ever, which seldom got out of the tions or pickets. In the event a control of its Stalinist and reform- few small demonstrations took ist designed place, and were attacked by the minimise the threat to the fascist police; and, cos according regime which such a mobilisation sources, 400 pickets were arrested could have posed. on November 12th and probably from the UGT, sere detened in one organisers,

FORCED

of a month ago, the huge preceeding few days Some have since received heavy wave working class protest against the government's measures fines. The COS deliberately held control wages sackings forced the main trade back the mobilisation of workers in union organisations services such transport as the impact of ated it a general strike onen action, they nomin- order to minimise the strike on the life of the urban ated it a In Madrid drivers on protests came from the Christian bourgeoisie. Democrats and other bourgeois two of the Underground lines who forced parties with whom the reformists began strike were work by the police at machine and Stalinists collaborated in the Opposition" "Democratic the gun point.

A YEAR OF 'REFORMS'

of the "United" Secretariat of the ITA, shot in Vera de Bidasoa, o1 his way to the Basque nationa festival. has even put on Bernardo Bidaola Achega, meetings) a leading member of the disappeared after being shot by Civil Guard in a demonstration. 1976. Aniano Gimenez Santos, and Ricardo Pellejero (20) the Spanish Communist Party).

shot in Montejurra by right-wing Where are now certamv more supporters of a Carlist pretender political prisoners in to the throne. June 1976. Begana Menchaca housewife, shot during a demon- stration in Santurce (Bilbao).

In the year of "reforms" over 40 workers and political militants Hernandez Exposito, have been killed by the police and Civil Guard near Madrid the licenced fascist death squads.

when he did not respond to a call They include the following: Valle Perez (20 years old) killed in August 1976. Francisco Javier 1976. March Romualdo of the Young Red Guard shot by Barroso Chaparro (19), Francisco police while painting a slogan on a (17), and Pedro Maria Azuar in shot by police the September 1976. Josu Sabula,

UCO,

massacre at Vitoria. Castillo Jose and Bienvenido missions, shot in a demonstration Pereda Moral died a few days later from wounds inflicted in the same October 1976. Carlos Gonzalez student, shot in a demonstration.

massacre. Gabriel Rodrigo, Juan construction worker, killed while workers, students and fleeing from a police charge in a housewives murdered by Spain's demonstration Tarragona™ "reforming" in

ONCICLE

the protesting against Vitoria biggest year of slaughter since the Civil War. massacre. Antonio Ferrero, Vicente 18, The "Reforms". Civil Guard in Basauri shot by (Bilbao) in a protest demonstra- On November 16 Spain's fake Vitoria massacre. tion against the votes on April 1976. Oriol Sole Government's "demo- new Sugranves, Catalonian anarchist cratic" constitution which escaped from jail, shot by Civil passed, is due to be followed by a Guard near the French border.

referendum in the middle of Felipe Delgado, shot December and suarez general elections by Civil Guard at a road block.

for a new parliament before next Imanol Garmendia, member of June.

TWO FUNDS

Shortage of space precludes a detailed breakdown of received for our Monthly Development Fund donations and our £1,000 Special Fund.

The total amount received for the Monthly Fund £1 stands at £312.20. With thirteen days left to the end of effort is needed to complete the fund . £2 the mont a big target which is £600. . £4 Pledges and donations continue to arrive for the £1,000 than a hundred pounds remains unpledged and the total amount received so far now stands at £621.40. Donations to either fund should be sent to: Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill London, NWS 1HR mobilisation imposed by the COS reflected its notion of the political role of the strike. This was merely to stage a protest against the econ- munist Party and Socialist Party leaders want to separate complete- from the political struggle for democracy. fascist government and the class Democratic Organisations.

NOT SUPPRESSED

To the chagrin of these leaders, however, the independent mobilis- ation of the working class is not so easy to suppress. Although the recent bus workers' strike in Madrid was defeated the most savage Even if the Suarez government overcomes the opposition of the Francoist "bunker" its "reform" "free" forsees elections under hundreds concens militants of workers' and nation- alist parties remain in prison, and the main workers' parties remain The class collaborationist Plat- form of Democratic Organisations (in which the Democratic Coord- FORCE HEALEY-CALLAGHAN TO RESIGN..... from Page 1 leading from today's conditions of capitalist crisis to the struggle to end capitalism and establish planned socialist economy.

The "lefts" have such no pro- gramme or perspective. While they about cuts whine empty and their unemployment, only alternative is the nationalist policy which import controls serves only to line them up with 'British' employers against 'foreign' workers. serious fight for a All a socialist programme means break from all the 'lefts' oppor- tunist relationship with the right wing within the Labour Party and Te and being a repared o taking stand principle, lead rather than politely follow behind the struggles of the work- ing class. Tribunite Not one appears willing to take on such a fight. And therefore not one Tribunite is able to demand the resignation Callaghan-Healey clique, while they the even witness hammer blows the right wing are striking at the Labour Party.

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 1 7th November 1976 Mass meeting of Biscay province building workers police intimidation and company of victimisation strikers, of another major strike that over 20,000 building workers Biscay province - has now lasted lor over a month, despite the minimal strike which the pay illegal unions have collected for the strikers.

DISPERSED

Until the employers made an offer of an extra £20 a month last week, all the workers' meetings have been violently dispersed by police. Both employers and government were shocked when in permitted mass meeting 5,000 workers their offer was overwhelmingly rejected. The workers have decided to hold out for their demands of an £80 increase (far in excess of the government's wage regulations) and fight for the release from prison of two of their leaders.

The murder of Aniano Gimenez Santos by gunman (right) ination is linked with numerous other political of organisations the opposition) has so far, under the pressure of the working class, maintained its stand that, unless all political prisoners are released and all political parties legalised, it will call for a boycott of the refer- endum and the elections. But there is a strong possibility of opportunist breaks with this line by bourgeois and even reformist workers' parties.

This political paralysis of the traditional "left' wing means that tab fur Party thor a new political in the unions and the leadership based on clear of demands is programme essential. A central part of this fight will take the form of forcing the 'lefts?

to declare openly their position by demanding they fight for the removal of Callaghan-Healey from the Labour leadership. *End Social Contract! the Reject the 4% limit! *For substantial increases, with a sliding scale of wages to ensure automatic rises in pace with inflation. *Reverse all cuts! Protect the inflation social services against through a sliding scale of state spending. *No to all sackings! Where redundancy is threatened, demand work sharing on full pay! Occupy and demand the employers books be opened to trade union com- mittees the case for prore nationalisation without compen- sation.