Press K from Joint Platforms with Tories Wilson Confronts Railmen

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The world economic crisis now forces Wilson, acting for capitalism, to confront the working class in order to driv down wages and increase the rate of exploitation.

To do this he must take on big, organised sections of workers and defeat them in battle.

It is in this context that the importance of the decision of the NUR to call a national rail strike from June 23rd can be seen. That decision is now central to the defence of the living standards of the whole working class. If Wilson def eats the NUR, an all-out oftensive will begin against every section of workers.

The British Rail Board met the NUR decision with a statement threatening that if the strike went ahead, 10,000 more rail jobs woul be lost. Yet the railwaymen are not making an extravagant claim. The 27.5% offer made by the Board would, if accepted, represent a substantial reduction in real wages when translated into take-home pay at today's rocketing prices. A third of the Board's offer is simply consolidating previous threshold payments. -Yet, speaking on behalf of the Government, Gerald Barrett, chief secretary to the Treasury, said last Monday that British Rail would no get cash assistance to cover "unnec essary" wage rises. He too threatened rail jobs, saying: "Limited resources cannot be used to subsidise overmanning and inefficient use of labour. He went on: "There can be no question of simply paying for a high wage settlement and being in hope of improved productivity; we have been doing that for too long."

Barrett says this under conditions where British Rail reduced its manpower by 20% last year (with full collaboration from union leaders, and has cut it by two thirds since the war. The policy he is advocating is clear: break the NUR in order to attempt to cut inflation, and make workers pay for the crisis of capitalism.

The same strategy underlies the vigorous campaign by Wilson and the Labour right wing to remain in the capitalist Common Market. They succeeded in winning a "ye! vote in the referendum.

UNDEFEATED

The importance of this decision for Wilson is that it creates the best terrain on which to fight the coming battles with the working class. How complete is Wilson's victory, however, is yet to be decided. It is one thing to create favourable conditions, but the battle: still have to be fought against an undefeated working class.

Even as the Labour leaders were sitting on pro-Market platforms mathing nies nationainity speech the strength of the working class was emerging through the 20 - 3 vote for strike action on the NUR Executive.

Under the pressure of this movement of the class even extreme right wingers like Tom Jackson of the postal workers union are forced to pledge support to the NUR. Demands must now be put that the other rail unions, ASLEF and TSSA join the action.

Weighell has done everything in his power to avoid the strike (including fighting for and using a reactionary vote at the NUR branch secretaries' conference.). Yet he is now forced to lead the action. -He will of course sell the action out, given half a chance. The NUF Executive, despite the correct call for action, itself has no programm to defend railwaymen's living standards against raging inflation. At no time have they put forward the demand for the new wage agreements to include a sliding scale of wages tied to a cost-of-living index worked out by trade union committees - which is the only answer to inflation.

The Labour government is determined. If the strike goes ahead it will be a battle in the traditions of the last two miners' strikes. It will have a profound effect on the struggles of the whole working class.

This means that the whole trade union movement must pledge support for the railwaymen now. If Wilson declares a state of emergency he must be opposed throughout the whole labour movement.

'LEFTS Vital in such a fight is the role of the 'lefts' in the Labour Part They must declare where they stand on this question. In the 1966 seamen's strike not a single 'left' voted against Wilson's state of emergency, .ch was used against the strikers. The eyes of every trade unionist will be on their actions in 1975.

These latest developments - the NUR strike vote and the referendum - bring sharply forward therefore the question of workin class leadership. The politics of the referendum campaign cannot be separated from the struggles emerging after it.

The role of the lefts' was decisive in the referendum battle. continued on back page column If you are threatened with losing a game played according to one set of rules, the best way to avoid further defeat is to force your opponent to play another game with the rules that you invent yourself.

This was the method of the British capitalist class in the referendum when it rallied and bamboozled 16 million voters into supporting the decision to stay with the reactionary, anti-working class Common Market.

The Parliamentary election game is always played with regulations developed by the ruling class with the help of their allies in the mass media and their agents in the labour movement.

The sharpening of the economic and social crisis during the 1970's has weakened the force of parliamentary majorities especially since the decisive struggle of the miners overturned the Tory government early in 1974. needed to lest the guli seal s approval' on its policies of "rationalisation" and international monopoly. What better method of doing this than to take up the suggestion of 'left' cabinet minister Benn and hold a referendum A referendum is in no sense a democratic method of arriving at political decisions. It is not the case, as Benn claimed in Hyde Park on May Day, that the editor of the Times and the ordinary elector have the same influence on the outcome. All the cards are stacked on the side of the millionaire controllers of the mass media.

The questions to be voted on always be posed in a way that makes it easier for the views of the ruling class to succeed. The June 5th referendum asked whether British Capitalism should stay in the EEC on terms "renegotiated" by the Labour government. How different might the answer have been if the question posed had been whether Britain should join in the first place.

A decisive role in the campaign was played when the leaders of the Labour Party endorsed the plans of the Tories and the monopolists.

They turned a blind eye towards virtually every opinion expressed within the working class movement, and joined in open alliance with Tories and Liberal in a sickening betrayal of everything Labour voters support the party for.

In the face of this, the bleatings of the lefts about "sovereignity" and "British interests" could only serve to obscure the basic class issues that lie behind the consolidation of the EEC. They simply allowed the mass media to mount the favourite game against "extremists"

Even Powell and Du Cann, whose semi-racialist and anti-working class rantings are often reported with approval, were cast out of the "moderate" sunshine in which the rest of us were invited to bask.

The clear lesson from the experience of the referendum is that it has been an important step towards dictatorial methods of rule. By going beyond the "democratic" Parliamentary methods, it allowed the capitalist-directed media to direct the outcome on behalf of the ruling class.

ILLUSION

The referendum is the classic method for right-wing dictatorship to create the illusion of mass support for their policies. It certainly could become that in Britain too.

In view of the massive pressures placed on the electorate before June 5th, and the confusion sown by Labour leaders both right and left, it is a considerable achievement that nearly 8½ million people voted against the capitalist EEC.

There is little doubt that only a small section of these votes came from extreme nationalists. The vast majority constitute the solid irreducible working class Labour vote. Despite the enormous pressure on them, working class electors stood firm, much more than, for example, in 1931.

This 8½ million represents the organised working class, the forc that, given clear and decisive leadership, can win around itself all those shifting and uncertain social layers who were deceived into rallying behind the Tories and their friends on June 5th. It is on the solid basis of these 8 million "extremists" that a revolutionary leadership can be built to take the steps necessary for the struggle for socialism.

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