Who will lead fight for NUR pay claim?

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in the basic rate will be adopted.

Even right wing General Secretary Syd Weighell has declared that with inflation rising at its present rate any less than this would leave railwaymen's living standards standing still by next April's review date.' But Weighell is an old campaigner, and is accomplished at trotting out hollow left' phrases in good. time to head off multancy auring ine union's ... 4h- -la annual conference, only to abandon them at the end of the week.

Indeed his recent conduct of pay talks for the union's 15,000 London Underground train staff indicates that he has no intention of using the NUR's colossal strength to win the 30% pay deal from British Rail next year.

An inadequate and complicated claim for 17-20% increases met a pathetic response from management; who offered 10.3%—which is only just equal to the current rate of inflation.

Bluster and threats of strike action by Nun itagers wno antian his. ALID landaun declared that it was "difficult to control" their members faded away as an arbitration board was called in.

As the Tories piled on huge new burdens on the cost of living, slashing the real wages of Underground workers, the arbitration board has now recommended an increase of only 14% which the NUR leadership has declared itself willing to accept.

This settlement, if endorsed effectively secure a 6% cut in accompanied by the threat of fare increases, cuts in service and a further intensification of productivity.

A similar miserable climbthreatens to be gobbled up by rising prices.

A new leadership is needed in the rail unions that will fight for the independent interests of their members, including a policy of cost-of living clauses to protect wage levels against inflation.

Suspicion

The militancy among NUR mempers ana ineir suspicion of their right wing officials were demonstrated last week in South Wales.

200 railwaymen struck in Weighell support of a train crew disci-l plined for refusing to conform to British Rail's "fuel saving" cuts in service.

The strikers refused to meet NUR Divisional Utticer ArcIe AlIN n:... - Niti... Auckin Kirkwood, but returned to work as soon as British Rail management climbed down and withdrew the disciplinary notices.

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SOCIALIST LI Nothing interests a right wing Labourite as much as the state of his own wallet.

Plainly no other force could have moved arch wage-cutter Callaghan to his feet in Parliament to oppose wage restraintin this case the Tory plan to phase in the thumping 82% SSE ow pay strikers-witch-hunted Labour reactionaries who now tell workers to sit tight and suffer Tory policies of 20% inflation, mass unemployment and swingeing cuts throughout the social services without taking mass action to defend their rights.

For workers to force the Tories to resign through indusIt iș becoming more obvious each day that pay claims that fail to protect against inflation through cost of living clauses run the risk of leaving workers bearing the full brunt of the runaway price increases that are now a central plank of Tory policy.

Union, conferences and nego. tiating bodies must be called upon to fonnuate coins that " include automatic monthły increases to keep pace with the real cost of living as assessed by elected committees of trade unionists and housewives. Where possible such committees should be established now on a locar level to reveal to the workers' movement the full extent to which living standards are being savaged by Tory policies.

Other Tory attacks on social services and jobs must be met by similar independent mass action.

As such struggles emerge, growing numbers of workers will echo demands for the resignation of the Tories, but with two important differences from Labour's careerist MPs at Westminster: workers will mean it,and be prepared to fight for it; and they will know that in united mass action they can achieve it.

What plainly worries Callaghan and his fellow Labourites-right wing and left" sika is that in' the course of the struggle to come workers will also step up the demand for. the removal of the cryptoTories and roactionaries that claim to lead the labour movement.

And workers are also likely to demand that selfstyled 'socialists' take up a real fight for socialist policies within the Labour Party-a demand which could only lead to the exposure of the existing leaders and a political ferment in which workers could break from Labour's reformist politics and a revolutionary party could be built.

Only days after the fanfare of publicity surrounding the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) in Vienna last week, it was revealed that US imperialism is to put a 110,000-strong strike force on a war footing.

The SALT agreement epitomises the dangers to the deformed workers' states and the world's working class by the reactionary Kremlin Stalinists' policy of "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism.

In exchange for a piece of paper bearing Carter's signature, Soviet leaders will actually destroy a number. of existing nuclear weapons, while portraying the deal as a step towards 'world peace' But in reality US imperialism driven to desperation by the upsurge of mass anti imperialist struggles throughout the world, is now contemplating the prospect of new military adventures that could diarf. , even the Vietnam conflict.

At the centre of their plans are the problems of guaranteeing oil supplies to the West.

Hence the plans to establish what the US Pentagon describes as the "unilateral force" based around the • 82nd Airborne Division, together with air, navy and marine units, designed as a "quick strike force"' to hit targets in the Middle East, Persian Gulf or North East Asia.

is being whipped up within the USA to create the climate of public opinion to force this plan through Congress-though it would consume enormous sums of money and almost certairiy require the reimposition of conscription.

•But this leaves out of account the scale of the conflict that would be engendered by a US military intervention into this highly polarised area of the world.

The reactionary feudal rulers of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have maintained explosives rigged on oil installations and declared their intention to set them alight in the event of any invașion.'

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NUR members' living standards over the next year-and is

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Conscription Propaganda on the oil crisis