Belfast 'conducted Tour'

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London Eating House workers demonstrate unionism among the largely immigrant workers who staff the catering trade.

The only way this can be fought is to subject the employers claims of bankruptcy to the scrutiny of elected trade union committees. The proven bankruptcy of the employer must lead to the demand of the nationalisation of LEH by the Labour Government. If LEH is to be "sold" to another employer then there must be no reduction in employment, and no refusal to re-employ or employ trade union members.

These demands could only be fought for from the position of occupation of the larger restaurants organised by the T&GWU to prevent victimisation of workers under the immigration act.

At a mass meeting in Conway Hall last week the question of occupation was raised by a few workers, but was quickly squashed by the Stalinists who form a party block in the Turkish section of the IT&GWU. These Stalinists were prepared to use the tactic of forceful removal from the meeting of anyone who opposed their line of restricting the struggle to demanding overdue back pay.

The complete failure to take Continued from Page 6 ional politics, not a ready key our own crisis...

This position reflects the determination of IS itself to wipe clean the slate of Trotskyist tradition, as a superficial reaction to the temporary weakness in numbers of the Trotskyist movement METHOD The method which lies behind this sees history not as a process determining present conditions but as a series of static vignettes. The Left Alternative see only the apparent differences between 1938 and 1975 and underestimate the importance of the essential continuity -the dominance of capital in the age of imperialism and the need of a small Trotskyist vanguard to mobilise broad layers of workers in the struggle for power.

The demands put forward in the Transitional Programme were designed to lay bare to workers, up the question of the defence of wages, and trade union rights cannot be separated from the demand for the repeal of the work permits system and the Immigration Act itself which acts only against the interests of the working class.

The attempted deportation last year under this Act of the Italian trade union militant Franco Caprino makes it quite clear that the Immigration Act which was brought in in 1971 precisely for the purpose of preserving immigrant labour as a low-wage, strike-free labour force, needed now more than ever by the employers in an attempt to preserve profits in the economic crisis.

Needless to say, this aspect of racial discrimination is completely ignored by Jenkins' proposals published in the White Paper last Thursday to "strengthen" anti-discrimination legislation. All sections of trade unionists have an interest in the fight to repeal the Immigration Act, both to prevent the employers from forming a reserve of low wage docile labour, and because of the attack on trade unionism implicit in the work permit system is only a particular example of the attack on trade union rights now being waged by the Labour Government through the state control of wages.

qualities of capitalism, and the requirements of the working class in the struggle for power, not merely those factors which were accidental to 1938. If there are demands which are no longer relevant, the case against them must be argued specifically. Most of the demands retain complete validity in 1975 and can be a powerful factor when fought for in the workers movement.

To defend the Transitional Programme is not, however, to restrict the movement simply to those demands put forward in 1938. The requirements of both capitalism and the working class have developed continuously in the post war period and it is certainly necessary to struggle for demands which apply the methodology of the Programme to take account of those developments SLIDING The report-back conference of the Greater London County Association of Trades Councils "fact finding" delegation to Belfast was held in London on Saturday 13th September.

While in Northern Ireland, three of the delegation, Mike Knowles, Gerry McMorrow and Rosemary Sales had been expelled from the delegation. They had protested that the GLCATC name and reputation was being used to organise without the knowledge of its constituent bodies what was in fact nothing less than a "conducted tour" , calculated to reproduce the statement in support of the Communist Party.

DELEGATES EXPELLED

Before the expulsion they had met the executive of the Belfast Trades Council and had toured the Harland and Wolf shipyard where management representatives and two loyalist stewards guided them round the shipyard where only two to three hundred Catholics work in a total workforce of over 10,000. Also on the itinerary was a visit to the government training centre,_ and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which although it previously influenced many Catholics, is now in its own words "irrelevant"

services and education takes account of the increased significance of such expenditure in the post-war period and provide a means to defend it, as part of workers' living standards, against inflation.

CONTINUITY

The inability to see the sig nificance of continuity both in history and the revolutionary tradition (even at its weakest) leads to a failure of the Left Alternative to analyse the historical roots of IS's opportunism.

Such an analysis, turning to the historical and theoretical lessons of the fight for a Bolshevik party flowing through Lenin, through Trotsky's fight against Stalinist degeneration, the founding of the Fourth International and the struggle for Trotskyist parties, is essential if a thoroughgoing challenge is to be mounted to the The tone of the report-back conference was set by the Stalinistdominated GLCATC's executive calling the police against a picket called in support of equal speaking rights for the expelled three. Within the conference, the platform accused all opponents to the CP line of "red-baiting" , compounding one case with accusations of "Trotskyism" And although members of the Communist Party were in a minority on the floor, the Chairman ensured that they dominated the speaking time.

In keeping with the views of the people they visited, the official delegation's proposals consisted in the implementation of the Communist Party's reactionary programme for Northern Ireland.

That is, enactment of a "bill of rights" , (presumably enforced by the British Army) to include 1) civil rights - that is, an end to internment, confining the troops to barracks, and their 'phased withdrawal by 1980 (as suggested by the Belfast Trades Council); 2) reduction of unemployment by the creation of an effective development corporation with pow: similar to Benn's NEB, and t enactment of a "fair employme bill" for Northern Ireland; 3) expansion of the housi Not one of these policies = hope to be implemented, and any event they go no way solving the real problems of Iri workers, because they acce completely the continued domin tion of Ireland by imperialism. They result in c Stalinists continually opposing ca for the withdrawal of Briti troops and self-determination the Irish people.

The alternative programme p forward by the minority, ar receiving the support of most the people they met outside of tl official delegation recognises tl national question as the cent: issue. It calls for the immedia withdrawal of British troops fro Ireland and its right to natior self-determination.

Trade union organisations in t London area must invite minori speakers to their report-ba. meetings.