the retreat on pay strikes! VOTE LABOUR: SACK CALLAGHAN!

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Why not cut your losses, Jim? Instead of printing your own manifesto you could just use ours! losses, Jim? Instead for doubt: workers who wish to fight for socialist policies to defend jobs, living standards and social services must vote Labour and take up the fight to drive out the Callaghan Healey leadership and build a socialist alterna.

tive.

The retum of a Tory government under Thatcher would certainly. intensify all of the anti-working • class • policies implemented by Labour leaders over the last five years-slashing health, education and social services; attacking the unions;

axing thousands more jobs; and stepping up the 'law and order"

crackdown with new police powers and expanded armed Spurious But it would also give Callaghan the spurious credentials of seeming to oppose Tory policies-many of which he himself has attempted to carry out while in office.

Whether Thatcher or Callaghan is elected on May 3, workers face the prospect of further attacks on their rights and living standards.

But it is only through the struggle for a principled socialist leadership in the labour movement that these attacks can be defeated and steps taken towards ending the capitalist system whose crisis means mass unemployment and continuing exploitation of the working class.

Massive struggles by a forward moving working class challenging Callaghan's reactionary pay limits have shown that there is a yawning gulf between the aspirations and the independent class interests of the working class and the policies of its supposed "leaders' at the head of the Labour Party and the TUC.

Willing to fight

Workers have time and again shown their willingness to fight in defence of jobs, wages and basic rights.

But the Callaghan-Healey leadership has at each point shown its determination to press ahead with defending the interests of big business at home and British imperialism-both in the occupied North of Ireland and on a world scale.

With the collaboration of TUC leaders their policies have . thrown 1½ million workers on the dole, wreaked havoc in the NHS and the schools, cut the value of workers' pay packets, slashed house building programmes and set up picketbusting police detachments.

They have used / "sus" laws marass working class youth on And the complete inability of Labour's so-called 'left' MPs to mount anything other than the vaguest verbal challenge to Callaghan's policies is also highlighted only when the government is seen to be implementing those policies without any socialist opposition.

During the life of this government, the Workers Socialist League has consistently drawn out these lessons and fought to construct a revolutionary leadership in the Labour and trade union movement.

TUC leaders, who throughout the life of the Callaghan-Healey government have fought to hold back the legitimate struggles of their members against it and uphold successive phases of wage controls, have predictably used the pretext of the General Election to move in and knife pay struggles.

UPW leaders have abandoned virtually the whole of the postal workers' claim, in a bid to steamroller through a wretched 8% deal: and NUPE leaders too have exerted every muscle to ram home a 9% settlement for hospital manual workers and nurses.

Raised offer

Hoping for a similar climbdown by Civil Servants' leaders, the Callaghan leadership late last week raised. its pay offer to 9% -only to see it rejected by the two biggest unions, the CPSA and SCPS.

Fearing the wrath of their members more than the wrath of Callaghan, these officials have gone so far as to threaten withdrawal from the reactionary Whitley Council pay set-up, and to continue with industrial action during the election campaign.

The militancy now developed within the workers' movement is also reflected in the strike decision by stewards representing British Leyland craftsmen-which if implemented could bring car production to a grinding halt at the beginning of next week.

. It is this independent fighting strength within the working class which offers the only hope of resisting the attacks on living standards planned by both Callaghan and Thatcher should they be returned to office.

Extend struggles These struggles-and unofficial action in the Post Office-must be stepped up, extended and strengthened.

Any attempt at an industrial Heath "truce" or to suspend meetings during the election campaign must be resisted.

A powerful, combative working class is the decisive answer to a right wing Thatcher government, which, under such conditions, with mounting inflation fueiling workers' wage demands, and with its planned programme of cuts, could soon Share the same fate as Heath's hated 1970-74 government.

• There are already signs that the declaration of the Election date and growing publicity for the Tories' anti-union programme has begun to swing class conscious workers back towards a Labour vote.

Such workers will vote Labour not because they support Callaghan's policies of unemployment, permanent wage controis, repression in Ireland and support for big business, but because they are determined to keep the Tories -the open class enemy-out of office.

•We say clearly that such workers must be offered a perspective of à struggle to kick out the Callaghan-Healey leadership, and a programme for action to defend their independent interests.

Already in Hayes and Harlington, London, Labour GMC delegates have voted 31-25 not to adopt sitting right wing MP Neville Sanderson, and instead to endorse Mr Peter Fagan as their candidate for the , election.

Wherever similar opportunities arise, the defenders of Callaghan and Healey must be removed as Labour, candidates, and candidates pledged to fight for alternative socialist policies put forward to replace them.

All Labour candidates must be pressed by union branches and Labour Parties to declare themselves committed after the Election-whatever the resultto campaigning for an emergency recall Labour Party conference to drive out the Callaghan clique and adopt socialist policies.

Crucial months

Indeed, whatever the precise developments, te sex tem months as be suca gms tor the consistor ship in the morting eats The Morters Soca=. League, fighting ID Sule site = leadership, mil continue to campaign for the organised working class to take up the struggle, for policies:

*End all wage controls!

Defend living standards through wage claims with cost of living tion!

*End unemployment! Defend existing jobs through occupations demanding work-sharing on full pay. Demand a crash programme of useful public works to craate new jobs! employers that refuse wage demands or threaten sackings! Prove the case for the nationalis. ation of major industry without compensation under workers' management.

*Strike to stop the cuts in parolic services! Fight for diding s de of public soon allaces.

Bricade troops now! Scrap the racist immigra. tion laws! No to import controts! the following