Why Should Join Us

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Whichever way you look at the struggles and lems now facing the working class throughout the w one thing stands our above all: the necessity for a cipled leadership capable of leading the struggle for power and the establishment of a socialist society.

The massive revolutionary upheaval that has now toppied the seemingly impregnable might of the Shah of fran and which is now already coming into conflict with the restrictions placed upon it by its Islamic "leaders" serves as a vivid reminder that socialist revolution is not only possible, but essential if the apparatus of capitalist repression and exploitation is to be destroyed once and But such a revolution requires a conscious Marxist leadership. And the fight to construct such a leadership is inseparable from the fight in the day-to-day struggles of the working class internationally for the principles. method and demands of the Trotskyist Transitional Programme. The Workers Socialist League has time and again proved to be the only movement in Britain that fights patiently and relentlessly on such a perspective.

We alone are the movement that does not shrink from even head-on battles with the existing leaders of the working class - whether these 'leaders' be open right wingers, left' talking Labourites or Stalinists of the Communist Of course this policy has made us no friends in the. trade union and Labour bureaucracy, or amongst the opportunists and centrists of the British left' . But it has meant that the WL has consistently offered the most The strength of our movement lies precisely in rejection of any attempt to find "shortcuts" around necessary fight to construct a Marxist leadership In each struggle we set out to prove to workers both in theory and in practice the necessity of a new, revolutionary leadership and for a programme of transitional demands which, starting from today's problems and today's consciousness within the working class, lead for all. powerful lead to workers in struggle.

working class. roborld, prinstate the the More inforr.

Name Address.

Workers Socialist League, 31, Hill, London NWS 1HR details Dartmouth

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closure Pemberton speaking at 'Action' Committee mass meeting On Thursday April 19 the Dunlop Speke plant closed as planned, without the slightest opposition from its 2,400 workforce.

The successful closure was the direct outcome of weeks of political manoeuvres by the plant's "Action" Committee, headed by TGWU Executive Council chairman Star Pemberton.

From the outset the "Action" Committee vigorously opposed and witch-hunted Workers Socialist League leaflets calling for them to adopt a policy of occupying the plant as a central plank of any fight to prevent the closure.

Nor did the Committee dissociate itself. from an early statment by TGWU Rubber section official John Miller, conceding in advance that the profit hungry Dunlop management needed to "streamline the industry and make it more efficient" and that "there would be difficulty in maintaining all 2,400 jobs at Speke"

Stab in back

Instead the Committee proceeded with the preparation of its own so-called 'Workers" Plan", designed to prove to Dunlop that the Speke plant 'Action" Committee's to lead a serious fight.

A "community picket" of the Speke plant-including only the tiniest sprinkling of Dunlop workers (who only met each other at weekly mass meetings) -had stood aimlessly outside the gates while "Action" Committee leaders opposed the notion of going inside to occupy.

Futile sit-down

Pemberton led token groups of Dunlop workers and othersnever more than 120 at a timein a series of breathtakingly futile sit-downs in main roads and side streets, while management calmly finalised their closure plans.

The March 29 Dunlop Spekes sums up the utter bankruptcy of these protest stunts:

"The lightning lunchtime swoop on Lime Street was, said Stan Pemberton, "just for starters". Timed like a military operation, it caught the police on the hop.

"They were expecting the Dunlop platoons in Williamson Square".

In fact they were expecting Pemberton's platoons anywhere other than the doomed Dunlop factory! Despite the brave talk about "this sort of action composure, and will proudly. boast of his successful seli-out to his colleagues on the TGWU Executive, most of the Dunlop workforce face a bitter future as a result of this betrayal.

Yet astonishingly Socialist Worker, which claims to fight for the right to work' has chosen this very point to come out with a eulogy of praise for the "Action" Committee's campaign, which, they say:

"has been an example to all trade unionists. The road blockades and occupations, the regular mass meetings, and the excellent workers' newspaper [!] have built up the morale and confidence of the workforce to fight for every job".

Certainly the Dunlop campaign is an "example": a golden example of how not to fight a closure threat.

As for the "excellent Spekes echoed through Dt with workers' newspaper", not only reformist but outright nationalist policies entirely inconsistent with any independent struggle against the employers.

Reactionary

An appalling article in the March 29 issue highlights this. Under the headline "Dunlop Patriotism". an anonymous direction. blurs this essential class division and heads in entirely the wrong But it fits in with the "Action" Committee's call for import controls to keep out "foreign" tyres and thus foist off the Speke closure onto "foreign" workers, its call for the opening of Dunlop's books not to a trade union committee but to a cross-class "public inquiry" and its failure to call for the nationalisation of the giant Dunlop corporation.

The demands for an end to "foreign investment" and for import controls are so reactionary that they form a, major plank of the National Front's electoral platform.

They must be opposed wherever they arise within the workers' movement, and countered by a principled programme for independent working class action: the occupation of the plant; the opening of the books to a trade union committee; the demand for supporting action to force the nationalisation of Dunlop and other tyre firms and a programme of work sharing on full pay throughout the tyre industry