[The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation…]

Socialist Press no. 116, 13 September 1978 · scan pp. 10–11 · about 1,337 words

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The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation which fights to build a revolutionary leadership that can politically prepare and mobilise the working class for the taking of state power and the construction of a The fight of the Workers Socialist League in Britain is a part of the struggle for the reconstruction of the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution, founded in 1938 under the leadership of Leon Trotsky. The basis of this fight is the theory and practice of the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International.

The Workers Socialist League puts forward a programme to defend the interests of the working class today against the attacks of capitalism in crisis. The aim Public meetings of the programme is the independent political mobilisa: tion of the working class towards the overthrow of capitalism and its state machine in the capitalist countries.

In the workers states whioh must be defended against imperialism the task is the political revolution to overthrow the parasitic bureaucracies which repress the working class and endanger the gains that have been made.

The fight for socialism is impossible without the fight to expose at every step the misleaders of the working class: the Labour and trade union leaders (both 'right" and 'left'), the Communist Party Stalinists (both 'Éurocommunist and "pro-Moscow'), the petty bourgeois nationalists who derail anti-imperialist struggles in the underdeveloped countries and those groupings which pay lip service to Trotskyism whilst rejecting its basic methods Only through such a struggle can the working class find a road out of the capitalist crisis-falling living standards, unemployment, denial of basic rights, colonial repression as in Ireland, and the threats of fascism and socialist society. and programme.

war.

For more details of the Workers Socialist Please send me Socialist League.

Name .

Address Send to: WSL, London NW5 1HK the policies, programme and work League, fill in the form below.

information 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, ORKERS SOCIALIS LEAGUE Public Meeting "British Leyland and he Crisis in the Moto1 Industry"

Friday 15 September 8.00 p.m.

at East Oxford Community Centre Princes St.

STIONY on Pool-me St calindan ISL Social Wor Group Public meeting "Regrading" hursday 14 Septemb at 7.30 p.m.

Leeds Trades Club Saville Mount Off Chapeltown Rd.

COW VRASES IVERS WE WORKERS WIST LEADI 5 issues 10 issues 25 issues 50 issues I would 1 off Name • Address 1573813015$ PRESS › The Way Forward for Youth 5,293 € A new pamphlet explaining the policies of the Socialist Youth League. Available from SYL, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR. Price 20p plus 10p p&p..

iasues. I enclose the sum . £1.10 . £2.20 .£5.50 £10.00

Scan page 11

SOCIALIST PRESS. heinesday 13 September, 19°3 PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report.

The building of Londonwide strike action in the hospitals and the occupation of St. Marys Hospital, Harrow Road were two of the policies put forward at the recent WSL meeting on the fight to keep the hospital open.

Though it was not a large meeting, a lively discussion followed the platform speakers, particularly bringing in the experience of the struggle at the EGA, Bethnal Green and Hounslow.

Colin Kenny from the District Joint Shop Stewards Committee lin a personal capacity) outlined the plans of the Area Health Authority to run down the hospital with its closure in 1986.

A new hospital is promised, but clearly, with the continuing cutbacks proposed by this and any subsequent government, no promise of a future hospital can be taken as good oin.

The AHA plan, issued on the 29 June, also planned a £2½ million "saving" over the next few years.

They have called for a consultation period on the plan until the end of November.

This so-called consultation is nothing but a phoney attempt to draw in sections of workers and tenants into agreement with the closure.

Colin Kenny stressed that WSL starts from the defence Colin Kenny of every health job and the fight for more NHS facilities in the area.

He outlined the attempts already made to begin campaign round the hospital.

The fight to organise the workers in the hospital has already begun with the setting up of a Joint Shop Stewards Committee a couple of months ago.

A mass meeting is planned in the hospital on 12 September where a defence campaign is to be set up.

The call for an all-London JSSC was put forward to carry on the fight for strike action against closure and the cuts.

Ted Eames, a leading member of the Oxford City Nursery Campaign drew out the lessons of their struggle against closure which has included a sixweek occupation and ia prolonged struggle for supporting strike action.

Other contributions stressed the need for the opening of the books of the AHA and for a workers inquiry into the health needs of the area.

Westminster Trades Council has already agreed to organise this.

Nearly a year and a half after being sacked for organising a trade union, the Sandersons Forklift strikers have yet to win their demands for reinstatement and union recognition.

• The question everyone must be asking is, why is it, after all this. time, they are still denied the most elementary democratic right?

And why is it that a All labour movement bodies should send large delegations to the Day of Action called on 7th October by the Garners Strike Committee.

A massive turnout would give a real boost to chances of winning this seven-month strike for reinstatement and union recognition, in which the country's biggest union has been consciously held back from victory by its own officials.

• Garners strikers are in fact up against an unholy alliance of Garners boss Margolis, the police and top like the TGWU with its enormous membership and resources has proved incapable of crushing resistance from this tin pot employer?

Determination

The reality is that the strikers have to contend with not only the increasing determination of smaller empioyers to prevent the growth of union membership but also the trade union leadership backing to the TGWU bureaucrats, Margolis already stands at the brink of financial ruin, as strengthened picket lines have hit trade at additional restaurants. Delegations from UÇATT and the GLATC liaison committee have been among the new supporters.

The intensified picketing has • brought renewed squabbles among the scabs who last week held a 1 a.m. crisis meeting with scab managers threatening to resign over a proposed new service charge. hilt a Labour government forcing through year after year of wage controls, and cuts in public spending.

This has meant that, far from being able to defend even the right of people to join a union, the union leaders like the AUEW at SU Carburettors and the TGWU at Leyland's Cowley Plant, are actually threatening to expel those who stand out against their collaboration as they prepare to impose Phase 4.

Whipped into a frenzy, scabs have continued their violent attacks on pickets, with management at Whitcombe Street, protected by police, particularly vicious.

Meanwhile, with the secret agreement of the TGWU Region 1 Committee -including Party members Peter Cavanagh : and Staden (Regional Secretary)-police continue to restrict picket lines to six strong.

The October 7 mass picket must challenge this state attack and TGWU Speakers on the Day of Action will include Regional and National TGWU bureauSo, just as at Grunwicks, where every shade of union bureaucrat, including the most left like Arthur Scargill, and the TGWU's Ron Todd-now responsible for the Sandersons strike-proved incapable of smashing a similar employer, the lessons are clear.

When the chips are down, you cannot defend yourself against the bosses unless you are prepared at the same time to challenge all those who defend them.

Todd There is no doubt whatsoiver. This strike can still be von.

The responsibility for it not let being victorious must be daced squarely at the door of