No crumbs for old - age pensioners

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Veteran Trotskyist DULCIE YELLAND reviews "A Happier Old Age" , a discussion document on elderly people in our society, published for the Department of Health and Social Security Welsh Pensioners fight the closure of the EGA not realise that it would take a continuing mobilisation of the ranks to strengthen and transform the UMWA."

Nowhere is there any direct attack on Miller and co.—simply descriptions of their shortcomings!

No explanation • In referring to the 1977 election, where Miller was opposed not only by Patterson from the old Boyle leadership but also by Harry Patrick who had split from Miller's 'Miners For Democracy' in a 'militant' direction lin fact staying in the same place while MFD moved to the right), the SWP have no explanation of their line.

In such a major article they should have said where they stood in the 1977 election, and analysed the evolution of Harry Patrick who posed as a left winger, who was given a major interview in The Militant, but who is now working for Carter's federal anti-poverty. agency ACTION.

New The SWP in reality see the question of a new leadership in terms of simply the organisation of the rank and file on a class struggle programme. But they are silent in the face of petitions signed by thousands of miners correctly demanding' Miller's resignation.

What is the SWP's attitude to this? Should miners have signed such a petition?

• In "The Meaning of the Miners Strike" the SWP outlines "A strategy to fight back":

Here, they describe the attacks now being launched on workers by employers throughout the USA.

The SWP's answer to these attacks is to combine demands for union democracy with the call for a Labor Party.

"A Labor Party would ... fight to open the books of the banks and corporations... with access to all the financial and technical information kept secret by the bosses, the workers themselves could take control of the production process ...

"The current chaos of contrived shortages, unexpected gluts, business crisis, and inflation could be replaced with democratic planning, of production to meet human needs.

«These far-reaching tasks can be carried out only by the power of the government...

"Formation of an independent labor party would be a giant step toward abolishing the rule of a wealthy minority and bringing to power a truly democratic government-a workers' Two points can be made on this.

UMW The test of this line and whether it is to be implemented in a reformist or revolutionary way will be to see whether the SWP now begins to fight in practice for the organisation of elected workers' committees within the mines, within the steel plants, and factories to fight for the open the books demand.

Secondly, while the SWP las placed increasing verbal emphasis on the demand for a Labor Party, this has remained on an abs ract, propaganda evel.

The continues fight for a Labor Party now by fighting for the construction of labour slates in elections.

In closing this very brief look at the SWP and the miners strike it is important to make it clear that in many ways the coverage given by The Militant was very informative.

At each stage of the fight the proposed contracts were examined in detail showing the extent of the "giveback"

demands of the employers.

Articles on who owns the mines, the effects of the employers' profit drive, etc., the dangers of arbitration to workers, the historical fights in the miners union, were all important background material for those who wanted to counter the lies of the employers and the government.

No substitute But background material is no substitute for a correct political line in the struggle itself.

The fact remains that the SWP not only avoided, but clearly had no conception of how to take up the sharp edge in the miners strike-the fight to construct new leadership through the building of a revolutionary cadre and the struggle to mobilise workers to remove their existing bureaucratic leaders.

The Spartacist League claims to have put forward a revolutionary line in the miners strike.

In contrast with The Militant Workers Vanguard from the beginning of the strike put forward the demand for blacking of the scab coal.

However, this correct and vitally necessary intervention was hampered as usual by the sectarian nature of the Spartacists approach.

As we drew out in Part One of this article, the Spartacists had had a sectarian attitude from the outset to the development of the Miners for Demo= cracy movement.

In the miners' strike itself the Spartacists combined their calls for blacking the scab coal with the demand that the miners be joined in struggle by the steelworkers.

Counterposed

This proposed steel strike was enviseaged not simply as a solidarity strike but also as a strike by steelworkers against the attacks being launched by their employers (see Workers Vanguard, Dec. 9, 1977).

As the miners' strike developed, the demand for sympathy strikes was actually counterposed by the Spartacists to the collection of material aid such as food and money which were vital for the survival of the strike.

Necessary Arnold Miller understood how important the money was. He sat on it while the rank and file of the UMWA battled on for 110 days without pay.

Canned goods and dollar donations though not a complete political • answer to miners' problems were necessary to keep the strike going.

Demands for strike Carter were in our opinion most relevant as Carter prepared to use Taft-Hartley.

if anyone had been jailed through the injunction a massive fight. could nave developed around these jailings and it would have been essential to demand a General Strike to destroy the a anti-labour law.

In the period leading up to that the emphasis should have been on blacking, although we would have supported the calls for one-day sympathy strikes in those union locals where they were proposed and in the Miners Strike Labour-Community Support Committees (for instance in San Francisco where the SWP voted against such a resolution).

In relation to the internal running of the strike the Spartacists put forward a generally correct demand for setting up strike committees, while giving incorrect emphasis to the call for a special convention to dump Miller.

The call for a conventionwhich may or may not have actually "dumped" Miller could only serve as a diversion from the fight in practice for strike committees to take over the genuine control of the struggle.

Desperate to avoid even the mildest taint of "opportunism" the Spartacists also feel it necessary to call not for a Labor Party but for "Workers Burning a sell-out contract Yet this call is not coupled to any concrete move by the Spartacists to build such a party the basis of workers' struggles and the mobilisation of the trade union movement.

Generally correct

The Socialist League (Democratic Centralist), through its paper Labor News, put forward a generally correct orientation on the main issues involved in the strike.

While working in a non-sectarian way in support of the miners struggle the Socialist League was also able to make an important contribution within the San Francisco 'Miners Strike Labor-Community Coalition' by successfully putting forward the resolution to black coal within the area.

- The SL(DC) fights for the formation of a Labor Party through the struggle to establish independent labour slates in The miners went back to work having suffered some important set-backs (see Part One) but the overwhelming point to come out of the strike was that despite the mine-owners bid to smash all the gains won by miners in years of struggle they were forced to retreat.

The strike was a massive show of strength of the US working class-a show of strength which has inspired other. workers coming into A careful study of the role of the trade union leaders and "the revolutionaries" in this strike is a necessary preparation for the battles to come in which the central task is the construction of an authentic Trotskyist party in the USA.

This discussion document from the Department of Health and Social Security has been produced by well-meaning people who would like to be good to old, retired members of the working class.

1 am. sure that David Ennals, Stanley Orme and John Morris mean well, are good to their mothers, and help old ladies across roads, but they must work within limits set by private profit, and they accept these limits.

So the key to the document appears very early, on page six in the foreword, when they say:

"While comments need not be limited to the agenda we have set, they do need to take proper account of the availability of resources. More for elderly people could mean less for other members of the community"

They believe that 'resources' are a cake which is rigidly defined in size, and that if the old people take too big a slice, someone else must go short.

No limits The truth is, of course, that wealth is being created all the time by workers who will one day be pensioners; that surplus value is being creamed off in larger and richer quantities by the ruling class, who acknowledge no limits on the 'resources' claimed by them.

As long as society is run according to this system, SUNGTO SAY TREGA MUsT STAY ETITION Office by HMSO, London, 95p. pensioners will be the useless tag end of the population, which. lives Con crumbs because it can no longer be used to make profit, and the recommendations of documents like this are simply whispers against the economic blizzard which is capitalism.

The first two chapters deal with aspects of old age such as leisure, community support, keeping " fit, etc. and in chapter three comes a more suspect section, when the age of retirement is discussed.

We are told that the TUC has been asking for retirement at 60 for both men and women but, it says regretfully, the cost would be large.

There is no exilanation of why it does 10t cost too much for policemen and officers in the armed forces to retire at 55 in good health.

• If the gentlemen who wrote this document had worked in factories or mines and seen the desperate tiredness' of men dragging out their working life for for the years between 60 and 65, they would know the absurdity of their suggestions that . retired people should do 'community work' , etc.

Of course the retirement age must be reduced, for the sake of elderly workers and because, with increased technology., hours of work will have to be r educed in all industries.

Furthermore, those women workers who can now retire at 60 must not fall for the argument that it would be 'fair' to compromise by allowing both sexes to work until 63.

There is no need for this unless you are afraid of losing profit and no reason why workers should hot enjoy leisure before arthritis and other ageing conditions spoil it.

Chapter four deals with Incomes in Retirement. After paying lip service to the need for 'a respectable level of pensions' it comes to the new pension scheme which began in April.

It admits that those already retired are not so well provided for, and that the older generation of pensioners, most of whom are women, tend to be poorer.

It then refers to the paltry 25p per week enjoyed [?] by those over 80, and concludes:

"For many years ahead the very old will in general be unlikely to have substantial earnings-related pensions"

They can say that again!

The rest of the document is devoted to suggestions for residential homes for infirm pensioners, help with transport costs, and grants towards fuel costs.

If the authors had more contact with working. class people they would know of old people who would rather struggle alone in lonely, single-roomed hovels than go to hostels where they are treated like children and sent to bed at 7.30 p.m. because there is not the money for local authorities, to pay staff to provide comfort.

They would know that facilities are being cut down everywhere; that Library newsrooms are being closed down and the Health Service eroded, in the name of economy, and the quality of life diminished in every way, with pensioners always on the dirty end.

It is of little use to talk of "an active approach to treatment and rehabilitation" while elderly people are waiting for years for replacement hip joint operations, and Liverpool heart sufferers are hoping for charity from private medicine.

Only when the means of creating wealth are owned by the people and used for the people, can youth grow happily into age, and leisure and tranquillity be enjoyed along with self-respect, by all ages.

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SULIALISI "KESS, M'eanesda: jl Augusi.is s

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CARTER WITH PEANUES

ISLINGTUN PENSIONERS EN OUR say to hospital PHOTO: Mark Rusher, IFL cuts!