Socialist Press no. 175

Union leaders reject call for action

STOP THE RETREAT!

OCCUPY THREATENED

STOP THE CUTS! ALL OUT NOVEMBER 28

PRESS

Weekly paper of the Workers Socialist League CLOSUpE STE

I'CORBY

STAIRE SE

Another week of the Thatcher has government brought another of

COD

as the capitalist closures, crisis forces on the break- neck pace of rationalisation speed-up throughout British industry. Hard on the heels of confir- mation that steelmaking is to

COST

CIOSC

BSC

JObS, mast WeeK revealed plans to sack another 8,000 workers. to join the dole at Shotton, where the long-threatened steelworks is to 1,500 close anel • anotie! Cleveland. Scotland Meanwhile news the that Ferguson Massey combine harvester plant in Kilmarnock is to close brought notified redun- dancies in Scotland to over 30,000 since April. And British Levland manage.

ment, gloating at their hallot the workforce, forge relentlessly on with their has official trade union action two-prongea plan or closures on the one hand, combined with an been called to resist a factory all-out attack on working con- or plant closure. antions and wages on tne orner.

But what the union union leaders have moved from leaders, who get up in confer- last year's tacit the ence alter conterence Closure denounce the evils of unemploy- plant at Speke, ment? What have they at sure and detend done where fight the Tought mer men ders terests. cowardes Dan Tor tRe cosure or The answer painfully part-closure of factories.

OBVIOUS.

SOCIALIST

November 14, 1979 * 15p

SARY COLERIE

STEN SAYS. (

SAYS

NO OTA

STEEL

1 CLOSTRIC

PLANTS.

And the Communist Party- com bine committee which last t week bacted the the ballot and pledged to support workers in any factory who take action to closure, overwhelmingly oppose relectea a soece Cal Jor immediate policy of occupation and token strike action in the unreatence brants Bluster militant similar combination bluster and ungainly retreat has been shown by the leaders biggest ot the steel the Iron and Steel Trades union, Confederation. After months of inaction on Derek Robinson closure not one recent instance called national overtime ban, blacking elective strikes throughout the British Leyland, industry to prevent the Corb closure. acceptance of Yet even this partial action much for the other Triumph une Was Loo to a position the Confed has actively thesed to endone the Tee refused endorse LavOul cal ana relence it back to urel 13 executive committees. Sirs, who earlier

CORBY

SAYS

NO!

STEEL

CIOSUREA

Corby demonstration last month reject the firms terms In the chronic recession • obtained only by destruction of InTenSITiCATIOn that the 100,000 of the working class. eclarec trong ISTC would go it alone i the action if necessary, immed- iately began to retreat, saying simply that the union may Capitalism, go ahead alone-in another two weeks. profit, not And as news came in of the closure deadline or the snotton expansion OT plant, Sirs was quoted again- to save arguing not tor the threatened

JODS.

DUE TOT

improved redundancy Everv payments! the working Meanwhile the whole focus demands the campaign this period directed away from what must unemployment the crucial bedrock of any and worsens Struggle against conditions. closures: the occupation of the Cony, into ta c Shotton and Cleveland and demanene No perspective met not by sackings but by Why is it that every variety of trade union leader from left necessity to arguments about profitability.

right wing nOW impossible to put forward The books for the industry-in

UCLSPCCLIYC

struggle COSUTe a100 StaTe unemployment? opened I01 It is because the Tories' des perate moves to force through reveal The

SOTTISI

industry seriously and the Cal Five years of the PTA Page 8 Benn fears mass struggle • p.5 USFI splits . p.2 . p.7 Hobbes .. Quadrophenia • p.9 Industry axeman Joseph ISTC leader Bill Sirs challenged only by those who suppliers, contractors, retauers notion of making ane Dankers. capitalist Such figures will prove that jobs will remain anG wages present and crisis of. under continuous attack so long crisis, a as workers remain victims of the profit can be of exploita- capitalist ruthless the least profit- They will prove the need for able sections of capital and an the nationalisation of major exploitation industry, without compensation OT and under workers' manage- ment. Trade Labour Blocking expansion union and leaders who refuse to face up to this reality, or who consciously as an anarchic members, conceal it irom thei system of production for private now daily prove Themselves social need completely unable to defend the stands as a block to the further interests of the working class.

in lighting lor occupalIon forces-which is the only way in and for supporting strike and which jobs and living standards blacking action prevent can be protected and improved.

closures, workers must recognise by the need combat such concession made

•LOT

class the leaders. of the employers in Councils of Action mccase. anne DoverLy. Councils of action must be working formed in each area to link up with the local labour movement In resisting all redundancies, and provide the means of com- reduced demand in industry be bining struggles against closure with then has nt the outs, and policy or work-sharing on ful laws pay, workers must recognise the attacks of the Tory government.

capitalist Mass action must be built combat to bring down the Thatcher of capitalist government press for ane To the and ward the fight for the removal private of the Callaghan-Healey sectors alke-should inspection by and the tormation or a gover- elected trade union committees, ment responsive to the needs of the interconnection the working class. For this task a revolutionary between oss making sectors leadership is crucial. profits reaped by

USFI split offers chance of Crisis gripping the regime of Ayatollah Khom- eini from all sides. The drive towards the dicta- torship of the 'Islamic Republic' is now shuddering with convul- sions, and every dav brings the political situation in Iran closer to an explosion that : will burst beyond Control the religious leaders Khomeini's authority now depends on the success of des the manoelvres crisis of proletarian leadership.

The pressure of the national movement Kurdistan has forced Khomeini already into local onla major plank of his programme-the integrity of the state as inherited from lallar the Shah. But even while the emissaries the Council' negotiations InTO autonomy with the bourgeois nationalist leaders the Democratic Party, the

LU UISI

finds unable control the development of the struggle against national oppres- Ignored The KDP's truce with Khom- eini's army has been to its property by significant groups of Kurdish fighters, who lave contmued fo alert, advance with military successes.

as in been most dramatic diplomatic indication of this breakdown of he has met with little success.

authority both Iron central government and the nationalist Leadership came with the assass- their heels in Turkey, ination week General Sharifi. them. " Sharifi-commander Kurdistan-was killed police o his own helicopter by Kurdish militant. Although But it is not only in talking with the 'children of the devil' agree to nuncio. that Khomeini has been forced to make violent turns in policy.

produced no results massive

CTISIS

the Iranian crystallised fully exposed round the occupation of the US forced to Embassy in Tehran. Palestine This action has demonstra- t1011. ted once again the extreme But real discussion The biggest single group- supporters. ing calling itself Trotskyist, Meanwhile for United Secretariat the troyed of all time the Fourth International

SUTS

democratic has split on the eve of its tendencies, the XIth World Congress. tion rousine Throughout Faction (comprising the bulk of the USFI's forces the

USFI

sections, Inose members adher- America and some supporters in ing to the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency have in the last europe) confirmed its decision been boycott the wureaucatcaly from espened by ine Ustl majority already caucus-which comprises unreatened sup the its supporters American SwP The BF denounced the USFI and the former International leaders' Majority Tendency: refusal Expulsions enable a discussion to take place implications Nicaraguan revolution, in which In France some 400 mem- majority organised in 60 branches, bers, adopted position have reportedly solt away political support for the popular from the LCR: a similar number frontist Sandinista regime.

appear to have been expelled in This has Spain. Expulsions

USFI

are aso Greece, Portugal, wancinistas Belgium and Denmark. wing opposition, In Britain, the LTT deportation wnere trom force within the the BF-organised 'Simon Boliva _a malor hM mess alriens seem brigade' have avcrece eleventh-hour by Boycott cumbdown John Strawson-a capitulation echoed The BF also pointed to the other expulsions

KHOMEINI FIGHTS

TO KEEP CONTROL

vulnerability of US imperialism.

seem to have made little head- Carter's administration has been with Khomeini, wav powerless to launch any military though they have successfully intervention against this outrage exploited the diplomatic career duvance unem Forces have been placed on to international respectability in Bahrain. but Carter forced rely on the ÜS itself, Iranian methods. here loo have demonstrated StudenTs with demands for the extradi- The two US emissaries sent of the Shah, 1019 remain kicking developmen provoked while the reactionary response in some Ayatollah refuses to deal with sectors. One student, ITanian by chauvinist harassed youth, No results retaliated by shooting at them and killing one. Khomeini did At the same time there are reports of of dockers will the rapa. this exchange between blacking exports to Iran.

the powers of religious reaction Amid this chauvinistic out- cry, , Carter has been unable to Carter's desperate plight was with anything more substan- when tial than vindictive DeTTy turn for help to the attack on Iranian students who Liberation Organisa- have supposedly stayed in the defiance of bourgeois

PLO

Aratat and the law. unmistakeable evidence that the would not permit a as the USFI des- maority democratic ITs preten- congress-and decided to boycott the proceed- of allowing full| internal minority effectively splitting from

JC S

•••OSI

The la, the Bolshevik This split-however it na. tactically arisen-creates entirely new and favourable conditions LaTIn in which to advance the struggle Fou the nternational. of the reconstruction Congress majority since 1953 nad

NOT

has there a ferment of activity to exclude been such and confusion within the world movement, opportunity clarify Clic the Congress political problems have dogged the movement for the last 30 years Ine The immediate move of the leadership BF and the Lil has been to take steps, in conjunction with the Communist Organisation for Reconstruction the involved official Fourth International lled by the French

OCI)

to convene "democratic conference open to crush including the claiming Trotskyist". Nicaragua 01 they say, , is in order to "struggle against the dispersal of themselves identify Fourth International." commission parity been established, VorI as and a become the focus lactions dings, and this been particular cadets and groups Who se Khomeini has remained amid tusionment pretensions. Such barrage against US through allack. Snow Khomeini with PLO leader Arafat head. The This will undoubtedly himself the for wide- Drovide imperialist cheerleader spread police harassment of the of on Iranian community. "satanic does precisely

DUL

nothing relieve Carter's humiliation while it succeeds it hardening the anti-imperialist humanity. movement in fran new The seizure of the Embassy finally broken the was carried through shreds porters of Khomeini, although it remains unclear how far the meeting *Revolutionary Council' Brzezinski, was involved in the planning provoked violent Their action was based on Iran when it became contradictory he had not demanded the extra two Political positions, lorced together in an dition of the Shah conflicting unity of unstable

ALLACKS

forces. which accused of wishing Extradition the regime of the Shah withou the Shah in The students and youth acting in the interests or even as rallied round calls of support for the direct agent of US imperia- lism while they Anomelni and Islam attacked the role of US imperia pressure lism in Iran and demanded the Bazargan extradition of the Shah. defeat, and to offer once again tentative date of February set the post-war for this conference. Trotskyist movement The parity commission However the declaration points out that: convened with no preconditions of a break-up cancer on those participating: it is not of the forces of the Fl is much called on a platform greater than it was when Pablo.

forming new since develope in 1951 sarisation attack on our what level of agreement exists.

The principled positions [by the USFI major- ity] is much more brutal than Possibility it was in those years." There is indeed a danger that And in offering the possibil- without initiative of a serious ex-USFI forces could many of the become demoralised and opportunity ¡rotskyist

WWIT

lnem te conference will Trotskyism could be lost.

offer the possibility of taking a Parallel danger major step forward to the fight principled

JOI

But the tion of the Fl. commission address • fails farallel danger: socialist such, • itself that in seeking Locale -While they put it to "reconstruct its political Tainino and recombine the International ments with the BF, LTT and the and OCRFI-welcomes the initiative its one realisations reunified Fourth International' for the conterence the BF, OCRFI and LTT could We find themselves rushing into the to participate and fight within formation of yet another oppor- tunist bloc along the lines of the historical positions. USFI "Reunification" in 1963 Our National Committee has The prime movers in not yet unree are themselves the conference StUd Ine divided on a number of political commission. on those declarations and questions- ment extent agreement on others can only be . alte to the building of established through a thorough conference InIS and objective discussion Socialist Press in the next few on ar explicit programmatic statement weeks, the historical lessons of and on SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 An obvious target-the Shah with US sponsor Nixon come me to us cup tonical resignation of his cabinet the political final acceptance of Khomeini's activity in Iran, and has served the resignation (which has often function to Khomeini been rejected past) major political reflected his awareness that i the new crisis in Iran Bazargan's Hundreds of thousands cabinet and other trappings Iranians have participated in the orthodox bourgeois demonstrations outside the buil state had become a complete irrele- movement has vance carefully drawn InTO The central authority in Iran organised campaign. Sunday saw now rests solely with Khomeini demonstrations Council and Revolutionar workers the aides which schoolgirls-three surround them Around support nucleus of religious "bly ry solid there the rapid growth of dis lies the Assembly Experts, still debating the const with the Islamic ¡tution of the 'Islamic Republic' Republic' and its revolutionary and forward teauy lo step necessary as a surrogate parlia mobilisations have ment. gone alongside an orchestrated Reaching down from these imperalism institutions is the network of and tinece Islamic militia 10ca (the no signs of falte- Pasderan), tribunals and commi Khomeini himself plainly ttees authorised this development and oI which still wield considerable power.

is determined to remain at its Alongside this hierarchy stands the shaki apparatus Ayatollah has thrown knocked together from the rem- as the anti- nants of the Shah's machine of A series forces, the us as th all cu police, mein citant covent on. culmin- super power Khomeini cannot count Call for the weekend mith tot the absolute loyalty of either impeachment structure. President Carter as an enemy to situation has last flim sy authority gan's cabinet. Bazargan's recent Algiers with Carter's responses in clear that mounted his was daily lo restore person At of fre saom and equality time, hopes with the downfall of the Shah have been shattered as Khom eini has made no moves to end forced exploitation and oppression acknowledge Continuing unemployment, inflation, poverty and tion have produced a crisis of religious connaence leaders. In these conditions, socialist opposition to the reactionary Islamic bigots can clearly make major advances. It is in the battle to head off development dangerous By d to Working oas any moves the working class to assert its crisis in the political independence as a that Khomeini been conference is • forced to by asset and aried by ner.

resort to the lacies pioneer. radical nationalist leader in the of at once Middle East since then. Khomein seeks to divert -but rather to see political attention from away the total crisis of his regime, by focussing on the popular target of US imperialism, The Khomeini press is now urging the masses to "act spon- taneously whenever the govern- oskyist moblemen ta ing ment does the cbentry aid the behave in movement, the interests of without Islamie revolution. But as one of the Ayatollah's chief advisors admitted, reconstruc "It is not possible to govern a country with permanent popular spon- the Workers taneism main- Already disagree organised oil in workers Khuzestan are demanding government US, impetus ourselves ready this movement is ready at any moment to break programmatic and beyond by the religious leaders Playing fire had the opportunity to piled declara. A full state- explosives is a dangerous game Khomeini played before and won. will appear But this time it is his seat of power Com and not Peacock Throne which will blown sky high at the point of

Indonesia butcher to visit Thatcher SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 The scheduled visit to Britain this month of Indon- esia's Butcher President Suharto against CHines background of an increasing political and economic crisis within Indonesia, the world's fifth most populous country. sunarto s regime was estab- lished 1965 military The "relax- supposed of the 15-year old Brazilian military dictator- ship, apparently signalled by the return from exile of the aged Communist Party leader Prestes and the opportunist Lionel Brizola, head of the Labour Party, over the last few weeks, has been revealed as nothing more than a charade. of The regime General Figueiredo did not hesitate to Inove dudinst une seconu maur strike called by the Sao Paulo metalworkers this year. Assassinated Following the mass stoppage end of October least at the 700 trade unionists mano doen arresteo ano santo Dias da siva a leader of the Christian Demo- cratic National Workers League, vvd. assassinated On line ov the oolice. The strike had been on the point of collapse with only 40% This was clearly due the enormous demands made ot the workers in the last two largest massacre of CP members and supporters ever to occur reino. backed Indonesian Communist Party had been a classic restate- men Ine DasTe eTTOTS Stalinism: seeking an alliance of the working class and peasants will army ano Indonesian capitalist class.

Unprepared This policy left the com- munist organisations completely 100,000

PRISONERS

OF

KONSCIENCE

IN

IDONESIA

Mass strikes unmask se Brazil's reforms maior stoppages, late in 1978 and this summer, which had been sold out by the bureau- CIaTIC leadersnio neduca Joaquim dos Santos Andrade, president of the union. United But the brutal actions of the police drew a remarkably united impressive response from ano the workers Over 30,000 marched in a the demonstration centre of Sao Paulo bringing all activity to a halt. were forced to The police and pickets were sten hack trengthenec death of da Silva has from causeo church hierarchy, which is now supporting the strikers' demands Mustan and waut increase contesting •the •ng regime's accusation of "encour- aging subversion' But this, although it reflects The oroz bor gooston fo new 'stabilis- the ation plan", will scarcely alter matters. The metal workers are in the vanguard of the Brazilian prolet- arial ane nove e consoeaoe unprepared for the coup and the ensuing bloodbath, in which one minon communists are thought to have died. Within a few months the largest non-governing party with three million and ations, was totally destroyed Since Indonesia has then where me independent organisation of the working class is virtually non- Amnesty International picket of Indonesian Embassy Figueiredo and friend dictatorship- pressure on the but they are headed by a bunch of opportunist lackeys who have successiully avolued dily confrontation with the dictator- ship and manoeuvred away from pontica demanas ana oreanisa• tion. The struggle to construct a labour party and bring down reouires

TORT

for the removal of these figures total and numerous bouroeoisie to dain control the workers' resuscitation some Headershis spurious alliance with sectors of the opposition MDB party.

STILL AVAILABLE

'Communists' Against Revolution Two essays on post-war Stalinism by Adam Westoby and Tim Wohlforth Price £2 including postage from WSL 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 Page 3 Although the US owns most existent. Although of the oil and mining sector, the regime has Japan shown itself to has recentis become the solving of the pressing financial and more ally problems of the Indonesian military supporter of the masses. the vower of the army the one hand, and of the The main public oppositior Islamic church to Suharto is from the Islamic the other on extremists who want an Islamic Ilaye • comomea lo prevent wide spread revolt. TeDuDEC Resistance has occured, such Their support is particularly the mainland strong island, Java peasants in south-west Java, and riots in Jakarta student Churches 1974; but Suharto has ruthless deported wnele secuons the population to the wild outer Many Javanese who are islands opposed both to Suharto and has also been waging a genocidal war against the people since suddhist and tristan charches around East Timor, which he wishes to incorporate into Indonesia because virtually these are Sone B02S producea famin every bita bas as that There is also resistance from publicised students and intellectuals to the namouched

DUT

extrene suppression known because Suharto 1S 0 cratic rights. trusted friend of Western imper- And sections of the army lallsill. and class Cavilalsi encones an economv nas occasion peen surticientv out- received massive "aid" from the raged by the corruption and US and the Japan, mostly arbitrary economic decisions of ot loans and aid tied

LOTI

•unario to break une censorsole goods from purchases the laws and threaten to withdraw donor country. support fron Suharto since last year's Foreign owned Meanwhile Suharto 33% currencv devaluation. infla The net result has been to tion has risen 25% and workers have initiated a series of create modern economic it will be very important seCtoT wach s amost wnoly surugeles o aelena tne living apreciate ara owned by foreign imperialist standards political significance of Unfortunately apparently "religious" conflicts interests-the remaining share the CP has learnt being held mainly by Suharto's notning hom the events Dur tas coer not mean own family demos and istal oposit any way compromising on the "democratic need for the independent mobil- it has also brought Indonesia alliance Suharto- close ine posinon Tne . worker. ano

GNP

whole charges es repay whatever their class interests.

peasants around a party fighting on loans, interest coming struggles for a programme for the defence dividends to toreign capitalists against the Suharto dictatorship Bolivian coup worsens crisis - The Bolivian political split in the army similar to the brink of armed conflict.

that in The stalemate cannot system is in total crisis • occurred 1952 much ContInut 10. and threatens to disin- longer. Then the split enabled following tegrate the sensing this the nationalist MNR to take urucvald mass resistance to the from hiding and came power insurrection and the total disguised in a wig and tennis right wing coup by the scuttled gear, into Colonel Natusch. defeat of the military The fear of a repetition reopened Congress The daily demonstra- reaffirm the legitimacy of of these events is also shared tions and week-long general his "parallel government' by the opposi- strike forced Natusch into and urge opposition to the but tion; they correctly repression Natusch regime-before hold the view that any siege, censorship, that escaping from the military solution a series of arrests and the intelligence by way ofTa includes Natusch's continua- of shooting least kitchen door. will simply reproms tion power of the hundred Colourful episodas suchT result in civil war dictatorial regime which he as this serve to illustratestherio the. laby- However attempted to establish on 1 that chaos rinthine negotiations TOta November. within the bourge taken place the its incapacity turisti over The resistance prompted last week Natusch has been ex-President Guevara and tion to the crisis. holding out for his inclusion Although the ul of the Commander-in-Chief Padilla some form of govern- to hold against

OUL

bourgeois parties have been Natusch sector of the army meNE able to retain their demorri Union delegate -and this has led to near- total repudiation of the that canyon patently The compromise thought to bourgedis demos by the bourgeois return

COUL

likely most was three- political cratic forms of rule will not"s parles as well substantial sectors of the person Junta comprising avoid theo escalation, fi member of the army, a rep- military. class struggle in Boliyiąs resentative of Congress and An attempted counter- The, Natusch coup is on ly s trade November 3, the aelegate irom the the färstyd thoroughly rahn

COLO

union federation, the

COB

wavering allegiance of conceived, attempt to stem une but this was rejected by the advances of the prolet- artorce ano rne coposition Juan Lechin, of the country's police force secretar general of the

COB,

and virtually under arrest in its barracks follow- the bourgeoisie now shied away from this too.

ing execution its Tnfi OI sThe issuezis matthe Ilegit- Commander Tuesday) Lechin has been wavering last in his position and has only have forced Natusch into been held back from the : or whateysdo Aglitisian Bayto negotiations and the lifting opportunist 19 of martial law proyide MOs manoeuvres by the resolutele Avoid split action of the have brought the mines tgrabra defended their radioort aries is to cut througeothe halt, Natusch's position ibyw the extremely weak, and for continueno of coluson caused although he has the support of ex-dictator Banzer's ADN dictatorship. "the party and a substantial pro- Released rear irit divides amongst itself the :ande portion general strike haso? echelons of the military, The primarily hecause these sectors see the main- to Natusch's • tofgio prisoners but theind forsathe a tenance of the regime as the political way to avoid a total only

CBl's 'rank and file' prepared Page 4 for action Tory The conference a "moderate" platform failing to control a "militant" rank anc showed that the political party of the employers is 387 leaders tailed by firmly and with embarked votes to 321 in their attempt to determination on the road argue down a motion calling tol confrontation with the [ne Chosee sho• mace illegal-and then used working class. majority an excuse to of Last conference week s hold back on a tight tor the new British The Contedaration policy! in ust er hia red nhe new mood The platform was also over- determination the turned as conference-in am novers themse vec as•iay ThaT WOUle

COUOT

In each case the prepared- have delighted the nationalists ness of the capitalists to attack of Labour's Tribune Group and chartno contrast Tne Wue „onimunist ra-voco abject confusion, compromise favour selective import and collaboration of Labour and trade union teaders at alr levels.

But a move by disgruntled firms. a motion Trom Driven to wall National Farmers' Union, tc Thatcher's of oppose- policy This is not to say of course, KecoH. wu terest vales dite that the

CBI

does not face vatue TRe O•UDe internal divisions at a time when crumbled in the face of oppos- ition from that Tnne t orles

_DOTICY OT

recession companies and enforced rationalisation and cicauiy lancy anem chance. closures driving more and picking up increased profits more ailing firms to the wall.

from ruin and collapse of Indeed there were echoes of mew weaker comsertors the TUC Congress as, The high value of sterling, of issue ot the closed shop, the CBl adversely affects British course, showed the familiar spectacle of exports by artifclaly increasing Can we hope that these Tories are shortly to join a mass rush over Dover Cliffs?

Smelling a rat The widespread belief off a cliff into the sea The Lemming Club is open amongst workers that the to those reactionary VIPs who Tory leaders are rats was visiting the boost ary wot dit challenged last week by the BriTısI occupying army British army. beleagured the "bandit' country of South Armagh Hiah i ne wueens Vwn landers, currently stationed •ul nacher nas not mdae Crosmaglen South Armagh, any effort to boast of her award -which announced was not awaroee Maroaret i natcner Lemming" "Urder ot the une ouwaaisis wro coveree ner her visit to Cros- visit. she reluctant to me cn dd d vedv nelicopter the wake ot ine boost ine nopes ou worki dics IRA's successful Warrenpoint men, women and children that at some not-too-distant point of amousi Lemmings are, rats, the Tory Party and the parasitic #Ike wu• Ical small, unpleasant rodents. But they employers. they represent in have one relieving quality; suicide would that a perlooie wt or urenzy. Enev commit mass suicide by rushing universarly doplduded. No new jobs New industries are not emerges clearly. of production emerging to take the place IC SyScl: not social TOr need

OUT

•ТОГ of those now in decline as a private profit incapable of result of falling rates expanding the existing forces of profit, Employ- admitted oroouction. instea• t us torceo to turn on many of the existing ment Secretary James Prior forces and destroy last week. inem. in a cannioanstic autemot In what promises to be i preserve the profits of the pretty neree wora tecessiom prospect rising the one ot Only a planned, socialist unemployment, he went on.

economy oners a way oul ou So far all the Tories' talk of this impasse. tax-cuts and hand -outs achieve the employers stimulating Tory covernmelt Tiusu the the new jobs, creation of brought down, and a new, prin- revolutionary leadership Stark eattV une Current world crisis of capitalism bullt in the labour movement By John Lister prices. And high interest rates make difficult for weaker TRuIS To carry out lavestnerı plans period slack markets and world recession.

Last Chance Saloon But. in line with Torv anc CBI policy, the conference over- "Last whelmingly endorsed this wrance baloon

DOHICY

as unt impetus to force through speed- up on the shop floor and the least profitable closure ot the plants. "Don't let us turn industry ¿¿ш e d íc -cvo cccd vnc nc guts" pleaded one speaker.

And indeed while steel and other Uton jedaets were DuSI demonstratina their lack of aut.

and total inability lead defence of their struggles , CBI leaders Memoors Interests. arrogantly spelling were

OUT

to wage renewed attacks on their work. odé-cnd c vo vo c d duction of legally-enforcible pay agreements. course with the recent Employers Federation still stick- climbdown on working hours by Teroats TnE the militancy of the employers in LoUu-LaKIe cncinee ue resisting wage demands was also moderateo ov a certamn note o fatalism: "For three years we've given ourselves dn sutttrtes triree tiffieo trust rece ve• ov our comoetitors and with a 17% pay rise and 3% profitability we'll be doing the same doain • moanea ont top IC! manager. But others were more aggres- sive: "If you do not learn to stand up to your unions you'll lose nanar cu. jobs," prociaimed one speakei who the union notanct way Jeaoers colaooraton Is actia assisting the loss of jobs by the thousand Indeed the services already rendered to the empoverss ov trade union bureaucrats were generally underrated, "enlight- Deciarin. unal ener ane ertectve trace union leadership" prepared to "lead front" from the and United front of mediaeval bigots! For a supposed socialist there could scarcely be more naked statement of conservatism and ideological bankruptcy than engaging in a last-ditch campaign for the of 1662 continued use England Church ot prayer book. the Michael Foot, But tor extreme right wing voice of the t oune uruus, duirg nto sictid Ture camoaion #IsT inCor porating William Whitelaw, Lord of Carrington heads Carrington, inree armeo torcer é ane c vev hell-for- latest Beatner rusn To •In the rignt wing "establishment" following the oot is merely Lm wor dn y d traitors over the decades.

Trotsky And while no doubt few now workerc cherish Tne illusion the ire-breathing Foot as a "revol- Utionarv Is WorIn pointing to the way Trotsky in analysed type out the distinction between the Tencous telorisi re loious o eas femeel Writing in Pravda, he pointed amongst sections of workers and Prior spelling out Tory anti-union proposals "'control" while displaying CBI "wisdom" "judgement". "tenacity' Woule Worl £40,000 a year to the employers CBI President Sir John Green- borough snubbed potential TUC applicants by adding that: "I'm not making any nomin: ations" And in the closing speecu CBI director general Sir John Methven issued a rallying cry to "Get out from behind vou!

desks; pussy-footing around". With the bosses on the often sive it is high time that similar marching orders were given to Tite arme. trade UnIOl officials whose political bank ruptcy is a contributory cause oi nsue unemoovmer dond side the bankruptcy of the capitalist system While employers search Tor Inew rau.uuu a vear tradt unionist", workers must begin the task the exist- ¡ne avaesea dna corraboratul Ist bureaucracy, , and bullding e revolutionary leadership to defend their interests those consciously defended by their bu is completeay is completely maisout able that the revolution will find good share 01 Welsh the grip miner.

STHI

religious prejudices. "It cannot be doubted that despite , the miners will do (LIlS their job. From some prejudices they will free themselves in the heat of the struggle, while from i only arter victory "But we categorically deny the minérs and th that British proletariat in generai car be snowr Tne correct patn people who have not separated infantile non- trom LuciuscVes not sense une erstand The structure of human do not grasp its dynamics uncerstano Tne role or rellaior and one degree or another are ready to subordin. ate merr actions to ine oreceots of ecclesiastical morality which unites with oppressors resed oucn eaders are unreraote From them the working class can expect capitulation i or direct treachery-Justifiec vermon on Tne vount-*t the most crucial hour." Writings Britain, vol. pp. 1678 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 Tories oppose parts of Corrie Bill Under considerable pres- from sure the medical profession the Tory govern- ment has in moved to of oppose aspects John Corrie's anti-abortion Bill, now in its Committee stage in Parliament. Gerard HeR TN Ministel Vaughan has spoken out strong- against Corrie's attempt CUL i LIl! 1 O1 abortions from 28 to 20 weeks- shoup be ed hat the new limi recommended Ana ne that there be no change in the for abortion -through criteria Which Corrie's Bill set out dras restrict abortions •T100 |1V Significantly Vaughan medical also alceoteu coence ma more , Women ot in childbirth at full term thar Irom abortions And he has also stressed the - fact that a number of foetal s can only be detec- ted after 18 weeks' pregnancy - ane tnelelot. cusrit: reduced time-limit could result problems for major women concerned but wille this constitutes a considerable shift by the govern ment-which, led by Thatcher, gave LaCIT support ld the Corrie Bill-there are still Hlall) pi upsal. waen memen na ac a threat to abortion rights.

There must be no slackenin In tne siruggie lor tne uereal o.

the Corrie Bill. Central issue It is vital, if the struggle is to be advanced, that the tigh against Corrie is tied in con- the militancy on the cuts, and that leaders …rorCedl raise the defence of abortion central issue 'NHiS sururuies acrene facilities. onis mouse emat tae unIufISLs • must ucland February • • oe adoptea by the TUC for a one-day sikc as its much-promised against the cutsand that this incorporate a massive lobby of Parliament against the Corrie Bill. TN 6 same time prepara made to defend tions must be women' rights in the event of the bill becoming lav Vaughan NHS unions, and doctors- who have almost universally condemned Corrie Bill- must be called upon to adopt a policy of safeguarding existing and disre. garding the barbaric : restrictions Bill oI une cole wnctucr not it is passed in Parliament.

Thes declare them selves all-out ical' tak. strike action in defence of any- penalised by the state for carrying out an abortion-or to _dereno exist chantaolf abortion institutions threatened with legal attack

Benn fears mass action on SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 jobs their own hands: The fears of Labour left- "If industrial policy TOllOWs wingers that anti-Tory milit- this course, the next instrument overflow the Cabinet might channels of peaceful parlia Special problems created were protest trialisation are mentary in reflected cleariy Deo pie week's much-quoted speech order Underlining the from Tony Benn. orationist In what posed as a radical National Enterprise Board, Benn challenge to the role or ine advised Joseph that: Special Patrol police

SPG

Group, Benn in fact conveyed a substitute for the NEB" stark warning to the Tories that yout. ne going policies interpreted

LICI

limits within which beyond the lory LEIt they could count on The l assis- detention centre. tance of Labour and trade union "short, sharp shock" of frightening them off. leaders. true

AIS

Wd. Asset-stripping where police circled over demonstrators and He was speaking on Sir Keith police had turned out with riot shields-and also on Merseyside misnamed "Industry Joseph's Bill", which is designed further where there has and to strip away the industrial base British capitalism, treatens upward in own servile role wage-cutting unemployment. This, warned Benn, could: ments headed "Kill off once and for all the Callaghan, Benr declared thạt: ot the post- consensus politics war years". these conditions, until Unael elected which as anyone else Benn as much fears that employment plainly yout, particular, will take matters into objective." Students hit back at racist fee rises demonstration proposal or a heen unanimousiy was staged by Manchester Salford students and 1114. October Wednesday 31 The against the vicious increases occupation in fees for overseas students continued unfair and unle differentials between them two-thirds sary members present. and home students. week Manchester And meeting Salford University University. left from Polytechnic and

IMG

wanchestcl SI0112 students' unions members to occupy at once.

administrative buildings twenty-four hour 'sit-in' demon- Salford strations. for such militant action.

Tory orators However, The decision for the Salford conclusion was taken by occupation TAe well Union been premature. Students attended treneral November Tuesday despite im passioned outbursts by one of the Federation of Conservative Students' liveliest orators.

He called members resist this by the rees Action Committee minority committee put forward by proposal, leTt O 'Hara, reformist' Shaun Affairs full time нхтетла. Officer, called for an occupation unspecified Renort some 1ululC "surprise" order call advantage over the college authorities! It was defeated. Prolonged negotiations 0a0l the Fees between commies Salford University Vice-Chance!- lor since the beginning of term.

Fee strike Vice-Chancellor had The persistently refused negotiations serious and remained unmoved even after a will be the Group deindus presented to the of law and class collab- be not Joseph pointed out, had Just how he intends to fight talk against a conference for such an objective new provide Labour right-wing pace shio coat-tails of the IMF as a nicalis TeC TO LIC or course not and the Corby- explained had Benn's speech, in calling for 100% public ownership of British oil and (like the CBI) for import controls, still does not revealed that he massi Deer planned socialist prolonged unemploymer avocate forward, a silence on t economy as tne way and in job-slashir opposed nationalisation of major indus- Labour oo ve without by Wilson tries DaliNg compensation under cynically management Tory to the 'There is no future for this

HIS

warnings inter- is government should a government preted in this light. full makes his ignore its prime Torie: Ent advice and proceed vigorously mental inadequacies and will be angel called for vecause twenty-four hour period only - amounting to merely a token demonstration call should have been for permanent occupation unti demands are met. fees strike had the occupation carried at a linked to an academic strike by Students' Union General Meet- students-and thus weakened tion Dy students correctly res- conscious students deserting to ponded by calling for immediate attend lectures and tutorials.

of the University's And the organising commit- building -a call tee failed to enter into immed- which was passed by the neces- with trade тате majority unions representing administra tive staff and university teachers declared the supporting strike press 101 over and amia cuecis action. wingers including of the Salford But many instructed caucus, took part in the students will now have The Conservative dominated occupallulls savoured their first real struggle University Students against the ruling class.

Union has rarely been renowned must be leadership developed that will build on this invaluable experience and map a foregone it 1S in a united step that any the next oul celebrations will prove to have struggle students and workers join to fight Tory cuts occupation has funda- and racial discrimination.

Students-driven into action by Tory attacks with their attacks, Benn and his Tribune Group colleagues, know they are expected to huff and to puff-but intend to do nothing else. The hollow character of such verbal protests can Party Labour exposed activists and militant workers by raising demands throughout the that Benn, movement Labour with along MPs who claim oppose put their policies carlaurian s words into practice and launch all-out campaign

TOT

of the present right removal and for leadership, wine alternative genuine socialist policies defend the interests of the inter- national worry base Maynard's invitation supporter Maynard •Joan standing Labour Party echoed the invitation and a celerate wou "all social- Tony Benn for Tony the Labour ists" to published in last week's Socialist Party. Press). Speaking at a Labour Club Maynard at once pledged to meeting held in occupied Sudon block administration comes before the Labour Party Leicester Polytechnic, Maynard National Executive. declared herself opposed to all Press doctoris t proscriptions-even Dals urged to seek simila Party ion the from Tell! ments from the and winders crypto-Tory members the the the un The Social Democratic Alliance.

the freely Expulsion within ranks She was then questioned as for the on the expul wing to her position right sion in Oxford of Socialist Press leadership

PRESS

GANG

brought not a single blush When a BBC Panorama team, which had allowed its "Pur SWeDI Commons cameras to focus on an IRA irresponsibility member came under attack 'Convincing detail was intro from the Tory government to add duced there was an immediate res- autnenticky ponse from the leaders of The Daily Star reported: "freedom in the press". the heads of the Calls for pace arose with one mighty

BBC

team anciers Panorama rifles were shout. in front of the cameras".

First reports were, of course, a trifle exaggerated. grand military 100 The

BBC

had hired machine guns and Provos with bazookas to hold the village for eaked out troll several hours. November-more were supposed Hooded men weeks later! the streets nave The chatting amicably

WITN

residents. amicably? (What? Chatting What happened to the contempt and hatred they are hel in by ill decent men and women?

national British association. LIlt did Guardian papers only ine be fair not lead with the story Few headlines came more subdued than the Sun ('Blunder- their fingers, deal ama-BBC's with the Provos'). troops 11021 Irish The rest rose up the Fleet Street scale shock-horro

COT

trol ho reached the at ed detect. TrOODS out duvuvales Mirror, which outgunned all its with the simple banner rivals headline Treason!' from a Paras regiment It is also late editions But Fleet Street was already aware the 100 Provos had that dwindled to ten, and the several hours of 'occupation' had been adjusted to 11 minutes! is due. ship that also so from all sides calls more Page 3 Benn Ted Heslin, a long the 5/833 ober appeal when readers are commit- other campaign

PHOTO

rarly socialists their policies cam- and to the oustina o1 Callaghan-Healey Maynard parts of Ireland had fo1 that Irish the been occupied through years and women-the press was astonishing treachery swilty Into Dallis The Daily Mail wanted no corners to be cut in an inquiry "as searching and thorough as that touch of possible. The Sun said Corporation "Within MoU machine guns, eithe clearly RPG7 rocket propelled grenade there a Te Armalite devoid of with deliberate purpose the mischief Ireland. [! village of 400 people for display They booted out." Yet somehow news ol inl The Telegraph, that. bastion tattOo took place on October 17, only of press freedom, said this integral appeared, it would rage come "Had have con- part of the British Empire on already than three firmed • impression widespread in Northern Ireland that many people on this side of reported one Sea look on Ulster's villager as explaining this slight the Irish hiccough in the swift process of tragedy with the • eyes who feel the dissemination of news by detached spectators that they are not involved either sayint concided with the annual morally or portically residents' the outcom mem member of this news paper who was guilty ot any to the nonest news hounds who let the battle ted mbling is the thing • conduct through attributed Panorama team would be dismissed. • is one ol lne there are journalists in local difficulties faced by British "If of the media who positively want 'occupations to be martyred in what is falsely villages by Irish men and women are a little difficult to a tibedom he car west should freedom' their wish should be promptly satisfied." They tend to blend in better has joined in the with the background than, say The declaring that a friendly morale-boosting visi "guidelines" were flouted, and true that much of Haunchine is own meally With such stout defenders of • Fleet Street was somewhat busy bourgeois democratic freedoms need does this what non-existent bomb plot against arounu new Princess Margaret in America its government nave information suppression of But give credit were creal bill? Once the truth was out-

McShane's classless view of "press freedom' Tory bid to gag re Page 6 Denis McShane locates himself in the radical left of the early 7Os. He was one of the NUJ militants who prided them- action

SOLVOS

pulling before dogma; and who had a mystical concept of 'real trade unionism' which they struggled to achieve. Like many of his co- thinkers MeShane now 1S firmly on the ot Labour Party/TUC ladder to success. Press freedom left combined with an increasing awareness of the neeas ol the labour bureaucracy's machine has ideally equipped him topecome ot most regular oe Tne speakers and writers freedom'

TUC

meetings. relies past support for picket lines. His future already mapped out in the Tribune group of Labour MPs. His book Using the Media, union Liade bible admirably and demonstrates the familiar parabola of his career. It exemplifies the dead end retormism, TOdU festooned as it is with anti- capitalist banners, while it heads firmly and unyielding- ly away from conflict with the capitalist class. The book is subtitled 'How to deal with the press.

television and radio' and it officials the prospect of an unending round .of. radio phone-ins, television inter- views and heart to LUsy hearts with progressive lour- on the virtues and reasonableness of the latest wage claim. Locked into capitalism It begins with a nod in the direction of the class nature of the press. "It needs to be said from the outset that even if every single technique mentioned in the book is deployed to maximum etect cannot favourable guarantee even fair treatment. "The British media firmly locked into (or in the BBC's linked case, to) British capitalism. In the first place there are all the implications of formal ownership. He goes on to describe some of the 1978 press serase oi the pay strikes, including the Evening Stan- identitication an uura s IRA bomb at Canvey Island with secondary picketing.

For this sensible solde the "usually Evening Standard. Capitalism apart, the world MicShane inhabits is one where of questions sensibleness and reasonable- Sacrifice where trade 1S union officials must make any sacrifice, no matter how bical, lo ensure unar tney ac

NO BORRAL

PHOTO: Laurence Soarham. IFT 29 10 732 Ford strikers-their nine week struggle had more impact than any press release not portray themselves. as McShane says: the Morning Star's signific- «Labour correspondents 'stereotypes ance in terms of "commun-

STOL

stewards' who give wrote about how impressive icating with influential Tnem- selves away by 'surly unco- and its publication activists in the trade union was operative responses' gave the union a command movement' "Dealing with the media ing position at the start of He is unable to explain negotiations". can mean doing the reasons pontical wnly things. Although suspicion There is no mention here the Morning Star should be is justified and a watchful oi s one which regular reading for colner one in might have been helpful to attitude always necessary, it three of all union officials.

is essential to try to make Ford workers-namely McShane's easy

OWT

nine week official strike accomodation the the that Stalinist contact with journalists.

press and left-talking ovelas received. trade union official bureaucracy-who would Of the many tables pub- will have to give 100% a nome backing of his lished phone number to journalists one most division of the world Tne into is -something which interest on the reading may be and reaction- progressive of kept close from pattern trade union ary tendencies-is also secret colleagues and members [!] officials runs" evident from the frequency -and yet it that home follows: with which the name "Guardian 65%; Mirror Jack Dromey-darling of the may all the difference 45%; Morning Star 35%; Morning Star-appears make Times 30%; Sun 25%; Tele- between and the book. TavouraDie unfavourable graph 20%; Financial Times being buly published." Express 10%; Mail from press release 10%." (Better Dromer calling for support make sure now- ever that the friendly jour- McShane acknowledges on the Garner's picket line nalist does not leak the There number to members. is nothing more off putting for •a union otticia. prepar ing for a TV inter- view than being rung up al home by a gaggle of undisc- iplined mem pers Dev- aching about some strike or other). Ford claim With only extremely low- injury defence or inter- The media, we learn, can opposition key (spear- be extremely helpful during And publication of headed Guardian any by the information relating the negotiations in putting newspaper and backed up security the services Liberal by and Labour would automatically ment. peers) the Tory government become an offence -raising the Of the TGWU pam phlet is pressing ahead with its Prospec o a oumas vosso Ford claim 011 Lue being jailed for up to two years reactionary Protection of for disclosing Official Information Bill.

of MIS takes his coffee break.

Designed the discredited and virtually Publicly available unused Section 2 of the Official This would be an oftence far from a liberalising reform.

even if the information in ques- Despite bland assurances tion was already publicly avail- from Lord Chancellor able in this country or abroad.

101. that with ing Hallsnam there would be no AnO which will means of appeal the renderedital bo this the Minister's pronouncement that legislation opens up asciosore plece prospect of investigative journal- information was likely to cause ists, civil servants and unwitting damage. public being mem ders addition, in specific prosecuted on the say-so of

PHOTO:

government minister. allent co alue une through which journalists Crispin Aubrey and Ministerial decision Campbell and ex-soldier John Dolly lau escapeu In last yeal: mammoth "secrets" trial, the Tono make r an orene. to reveal information which a Tory would make Minister-after the disclosure- illegal to accumulate and collate Murray Certisee cause sman piece o miormation

MAKE

VELARMEN

INEWANT 15

FORD FAY

is used-to praise the format in which the release is sent out It would not occur to McShane examine the blocking role that Dromer actually played the Garners dispute. Nor, prudently, does he consider the tiny handful of pickets actually mobilised by Dromey • 1n the Garners fight -for all his deft handling of press releases. In tact more were mobilised by members through ot mouth and the Word campaign conducted in Soc- ialist Press! Of the Grunwick dispute McShane acknowledges that "distor- press coverage was ted in favour of the manage- ment and police" but urges that this should not result in piece together overall picture of government activity. The British puls ash of gag the British and workers course the movement at a time when the fories must be secretly preparing for a wave Whitelaw SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 "The strikers and pickets bitterly were angry, and justifiably so, at some of the disgracefully unfair report- ing of the Grunwick mass picket, but Dromey and the strike committee wisely swallowed their anger long enough to go on holding the daily press conference "Even if the newspapers did not print their comments fully, at least the journalists would not have tu acuse lnat. no-one was willing talk them about the strikers' point of view." This he compares favour- the ably with workers in 1977 "The unofficial strike would not commitice interviewer tried remain anonymous. "It is certainly true that news coverage was bound to be hostile because of the disruption caused and because the action unofficial "But by not talking and trying to remain anonymous the workers chance to put over their cast "Holding a daily conference would not have won the media over to the side of workers, but

ITN

and BBC TV news and all the press would show inter- explaining the griev- vens ance, instead of relying on employers, politicians and other bureaucrats, all whom wanted to see the strike defeated." The workers Dowel position unfavourably compared of witch- hunting right winger Frank Chapple to use the media. McShane would recognise a class division if it landed on his head Chapple's was not ability to use the of intensified class contronta tion. woule become mega to' a militant to complain that hi was being tapped; public discussIon ol the role and activ ities of the Special Branch other politica i police would be Guardian would be prosecuted for its revelation of the jury-vetting scandal and similar issues; civil servants who preparations or damaging figures to expose the effects of cuts and other face altala. sentences; and all of the implicit threats of the discredited Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act would be made explicit in a revamped law : clearly passed ready to be used Publishers ABC the defence lawyer at the trial, Lord out House the Lords (where the Bill receive its second reading last week) the sword above journalists heads".

110 V suspend Even newspaper publishers nave emerged

MeShane puts union bureaucrats through their paces on the TUC "Using the Media" course formally connected with the which allowed his message to get through, but the con- General Council's business.

"The which whole exercise, fidence Will the whether or not there is a ruling class regard the next day, page lead for Chapples of the trade union helps to oil the connection movement. that the TUC has built with McShane does not truly the corps of national indus- regard the problem of press witch-hunts as being rooted trial reporters. It is to this task of oiling in class ownership. 'connection' that the He sees it as a problem of that winning over journalists to book should be dedicated.

of the side 'progressive' politics. Yet McShane makes clear that what they are to won to is not defence of the independent interests of the working but the Class bureaucratic interests of the labour officials. "Every month the TUC's General Council meets. The news value of the meetings Sometime decision Council mill take a great public interest; some- Dromer times The question of day to but routine, without any with the aay aealing press humdrum matters having for workers in struggle is a been discussed. tactical one. "Yet the TUC holds a But unless such tactics. press conference for indus- based strategic VIl trial after each understanding of the what nature of the capitalist press the news value-and the all struggles will inevitably diverted from General

TUC

Secretary become taking action to win, into comes along and chats with playing the game of trying reporters. "For both the journalists to influence 'public opinion' and the TUC it does not and win favourable LO articles in the press. really matter if the General Council The question meeting not provides The not. news news conference maintains article not contact at a personal level actually hostile will appear, individual because an Len Murrav and betweet the TUC press officer and journalist is favourably dis- posed. (That indeed can and lne Journalists. It also gives the journal- does happen). It is what happens when ists a chance to question Murray the interests of about capital are

UCISUL

which under attack. some poll porters opposed to the new Tory Bill. Lord Gibson: of the Callal parent company the financial times, delated that it Report which unworkan e invoked "than implement the new Bill Wiand Union of Yet the national which have most at risk Andrew from the legislation, have as yet Concertce campaign against the Bill, which could be law next Spring.

This is plainly urgent if there to be any struggle …Tor tne defence of democratic rights against this latest Tory attack.

NEXT WEEK

A review of the book "Beneath the City Streets" The witch-hunt then is not a product of 'bad jour- as McShane appears nalism 1979 marks 300 years to believe, our oline essen- tial role that the press plays since the death of Thomas attacking workers Hobbes, the most perceptive struggle. philosopher of the English It is more important for bourgeois revolution. Yet it workers to understand that is an anniversary that "bad press" is probably passing with the minimum a sign that they are doing of acknowledgement. right, than to somelling indulge bureaucratic Hobbes wourd nave under stood that. The uncomfortable manoeuvres to try to square laid bare truths he concerning the circle. nature Workers whose leaders bourgeois society were generally are praised for their states- ignored or reviled in his life- manlike qualities in •a als- seldom since Time. one nave pute can be sure that they then been valued at their true are being led to disaster.

worth. public Chasing after Value opinion is a euphemism for subjugating the class The concept of value lay at the heart Hobbes's reactionary interests of the philosophy. petty bourgeoisie. showed his varx aborecla The task of tion of that when in Volume 1 those who quoted irom Hobbess Legia Capital approvingly truly speak in the interests ot the working class 1s not Than. an occasional provide of a antidote to the dailv dose of is, of other things, man poison but to mobilise and his price that to say, forge party capable much as would be given tor the the seizing of use of his power". leading to This grasp of the concept of control of the press as part labour how of the struggle for socialism.

power Hustrates firmly rooted in the emergent bourgeois social relations was ine inount or roodes He rejected the outmoded feudal concepts of man's value PHOTO. John Stumpsk. Repor being determined hi: place in divinely ordained social hierarchy A man's value is decided by his economic staus a mee competitive society problem The central for Hobbes, however, was how society such were The competing economic interests to as to establish be reconciled sc a stable social order! Anarchy Tailed acnieve Chapple reconciliation then the prospect was anarchy, chaos and death.

It is this tear or dearn tal Hobbes sees as driving men to establish political common Will ЛЮТО check the tendencies to disrup.

tion and anarachy writing in the tion of the seventeenth century.

He was acutely aware of the necess ou cected entica power capable of achieving, in the short term, a stable social the radicals, and, in the long social equilibrium that term, would hold balance the aynamic torces released by tne bour is revel a on.

,SPY

achieve a stable society ment choost lo crecid

WITH MY

common scoterest they erection of

LITTLE EYE

self-interest erection Power, the

SOMETHING

Some fear whereof, may they

BEGINNING

compelled ... to keep the Peace amongst themselves

WITH

van's oblation to obev tne state based rational self-interest, not upon a recogni- tion divinely ordained natural an varied interests societv find common cause ir the recognition of a supreme power which reconciles the orivate ane oublic interests This rigorous definition of the roots of political obligation appalled cal atrol. bourgeois portical pailosopners whơ have found the philosophy of John Locke more congenial Locke. •Ine ater seventeenth centruy, also con- Supporters of Aubrey, Berry and Campbell jectures that political power is

HOBBES

He stripped bare the mechanism of religion and state Hobbes based on a social contract, but it is an agreement from which either of the parties can i Will ails of the suspend sure e not a currencer as described by aullullly sucH Yet Hobbes's vision said bleak, logic is rigorous his than that of Locke. Hobbes makes the present- day sopher uncomtortanie because he pierces to some of the central of the elements in nature capitalist state. above dil. unal there must capitalist society a sovereign power whose du Enorit no coutale For Marxists, , whatever the form of bourgeois rule, whether monarchy republic, democracy fascism, the Catalis sidit guises remains the supreme arbiter. relatively freely competitive society of which Hobbes wrote has long given the era of way imperialism, TO • a wore capitalist economy dominated multinational competing states battling natur survival More the existence of a sovereign indivi- sible authority essential for the of mantenand Catast system. No amounts of effort reovene coveremen tion the and the proceed unfettered can detract trom the centra. tac that the capitalist state, far from surrendering its powers , is today summonine surenoun major trial of strength with the organised working class the modern The advance of •roleranat cour not nave beer conceived by Hobbes. Yet he well aware of was orders to a state of obedience.

For this, reasoned, the instrument of religior was vild along with Bacon, Hobbes was of modern mechani- cal inatellairsil! seT about establishing a scientific understanding of the workings of society him society was com human atoms each posed or proceeding on its own individua course yet all held in check and supreme reconcier sovereign authority. It was, as Marx explained Page 7 Locke in The Holy Family, an attempt to reduce human passions to the mechanical laws or naluic This thorough going materialism Hoooes part of that continuum of mechanical which Materialist stretches throuch ho bach and Helvetius in eighteenth century France Feuerbach the nineteente century consciously negated and dialectical subsumed in the materialism of Marx Engels As Engels wrote, "if English- Men co compliment he [Marx] paid their ancestors, the more's the Socialism: Utopian and Scientific). This addition the human under- development standing nad tor Hobbes a very practical political conclusion.

Hobbes, religion is part of "policy". it is an essentia instrument inculcate obedience among all classes it is the society. cement social cohesion Certainly •Hobbes did conceive of the extent of class capitalism ment would he create, but was acutely of ConscIous subversion and the role religion could play either fomenting or string Unrest Repays study Howeve scholastic he may appear at first readina. Hobbes repays study by Marxists.

grasped, inadequately the new released bv the bourdeois revo lution; Essential nature of the bourgeois spelled state as an orqan of repression.

Of course he could not go beyond that to Marx, the state • as the "centra committee of the bourgeoisie", but he sharply delineated the elements of political power in a the manne Tha: is much discomfiture of the apologists for the ruling class • unev to any mor appealing his materialism and his • explanation of the political purposes of religion. his tneory of tne sovereignty of the state, his materialism and his rationality distinguish profoundly him Jovolu contri- tonary minker bution to our understanding of the

SOCIOLI

amanas our attention

PTA-FIVE YEARS OLD

Page 8 This month marks the fifth anniversary of the introduction of the Terrorism of Prevention Act. This Act represents one of the most serious attacks democratic hard won rights this century. Linder it alndreds oriris workers, socialists and republi- cans have been intimidated and na tassed CaDilais! is important, theretore, tor the working class to have an undersanone Wnat Ine Prevention of Terorism Act is, interests and how it serves the ruling and ine imperialism. Like piece of legisla- ellyi BOn state produces to protect its interests, the Prevention of Terorism Act Was Icsult vul liluial mater conaions olme cas struggle. rHU1U: werek spiers, Year of crisis 1974 was a year of crisis for the capitalist class in Britain.

February had seen the lall of the Tory government under the Heath. brought down by miners. This was followed the Labour adminis- TeLUFI tration led by Wilson, which was forced some of the scrap obvious anti-working class more legislation

LONCS

DUI

nevertheless was pledged the interests. work onuse CaD alsIl This less relation to Ireland. Ireland had seen mass working class movement lake lo the streets in 1968 against the im perialist backed Orange police state ot Northern Ireland" This was but the latest in a series of heroic struggles against im per amst sule DY lIS WOIKELS. Ro* huv d cor ąe British ruling class become the

MOST

senous After five vears of British occupation the army Republican resistance forces had ST141 not been CrusICu. uCSic squads, concentration vamps and TortuTe. Unholy alliance against nack ground that the Catholic middle the 'Social class represented Democratic and unholy alliance with made class Protestan1 known ( the Sunningdale Agreement this shabby deal, Under • by British wnie.n was batket imperialism and its puppets (tass ere, obe cobbed omt wile the Catholic the South seats while the Catholic Tew revanDCO Stormont, were to continue working to bear the brunt of im periallst rule. of the After the collapse Heath goveraienl, Wilson administration continued to pursue this policy. 1974, the Power In vay Executive' Sharing it was called, met for the first time at Stormont. It was also to be the last. In the previous fitty years the Protestant rulers of the six county stateel na0 usec iobs discimination and Protestant favour hunsiz Catholics workers azansı maintain their class rule.

Mythology And whenever the Catholics rebellion against the state the Protestant class had used ruling and a of 'privilege' *Protestant state for a Protestant people" turn Protestant their workers against orotners anla sislers the NoW "ea ec T Protestant working class, things were different. leaders', it seemed, Wheir were prepared to sit down with 'Fenians and "papists", the "enemies of the state' the Protestant ruling what

THIS MONTH

Mason Paisley openly collabo- and injuring hundreds more.

led by Faulkner, were class, Win monist denied actually doing of course, was to rated with the UDA. Though Ine The British responsibility, the press and the government protect inent Cass mieress in launched a the immediately relation to British imperialism.

alenatt cecioed 0O T miculd But fifty years of Protestant workers any further.

sectarian- comen o ao-s ny setle Executive collapsed, in which the anger and frustra- The ism had done the trick. of British at the workers exposing the futilty of im peria- list inspired 'political initiatives' bombings was directed at Irish Under threat in Ireland. workers. this political The Protestant working class vacuull Frame up sought protect imperialism had only one now military solution-continued orivileges-which in a time of Subsequently Irishmen nationalist growing economic crisis, seemed IcDesiol convicted of the population in the six counties.

were to be especially under threat.

these events, the • stage-managed In these circumstances there TO UTeCI

IRA

frame-up framenes of tip to 30 yers en given •Provisional wrongheaded launched was no enersao exceo or ę most acas nary sa ture, CisStrols these reactionary am paign of bombings on the 01 SU11 ritish mainland convicuon, came forces. by lan ca n alcalal she det thd ants thad taitene ts had been bombs Paisley that now took the initia- n nele defendants made Phis ed te pre cam pagan bat tive against the Executive.

campaign time ponce custoay nad been estrac ovel LilC ted through beatings and more widespread. thousands of loyalist workers inconsistencies were on strike in protest against spite of garing Increased repression in the statements and prosecu- the Faulkner led Executive tion evidence British imperialism in the six ahe mai assto c orsec h a bombings gave the 'now faced with a counties was excuse the government needed.

course. cam paign Tota sau wa m cuceiccils.

ore epr es and On November 29th the alienate British workers and shipbuilding and electricity Terorism Prevention industries most dominated by leaa to cals Dy. Tory MP's for smorea sed «emporary PrOvIsIOn was Protestant workers. and harrassment passed th rough Parlament wing Ulster repression

TIZIL

hours-with vote Irish people in Britain. Detence Assoclarion sel up road Thursday blocks everywhere and there Finallv analist of November Explored in Che Milberry Bus 21st bombs The Act-was certainly not a open intimidation WaS hurridly drafted document.

«atnoie workers. It had been in the Town preparation the lavern in the for The British army, public houses in ne cene o solle Utuld Birmingham-killing 21 people traditional supporter of right bombings. no w was

BUT

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 Atkins British soldier Elimate for it to be passedlitical right parts. Pro- part une scribed Organisations'. Part Two, exclusion orders and the third part general and laneous provisions'. Under the first section the Home any ecretan •Cali organisation considered connerted with frish affirs.

concerned In effect this has meant raids on republican organisations Ireland and suppression Teoroucan proparanua The second part is in many ways more infamous. the Home Secre- Umdet ll dy itel de fis to hain tary, deems have anybody "terorism' been in volved This, in effect, is deportation of the state from one part another-something not seen it Britain since the Poor Law.

In hundreds of way Irist have been people, maily acoottea lo South-though few been charged with any "crime in 1976 a whole unaceo Coventry Irish family was served exclusion order-with hittle or no protest trom the A Special Feature by

MARTIN FOLAN

labour movement the Act udil designed to intimidate clearv Irish people The third part of the Act w pcnea anu miscellaneous' specifically strengthened the powers of the police It allows for a police con- stable he arrest person suspects to be in reasonably the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terorism' Few charged Under this section hundreds of people have been picked uj and held for questioning about "terorism'-though very with an beel Cnaleeu offence. Indeed while held in custody the 01 maiole

OCUDIC

lidye been asked details about thei lives, their friends and private metotaca dtplations laleı than specific acts of "terorism This is obviously a cheap and bunle nient way focahe plese to DUlC DostCa militants within the labour and republican movement therefore, lai sUCl th e PA s nO so muCI designed to prevent terrorism' to stifle any flow Ireland and Ilalil abuut prevent OSCuCOn Britain's role in Ireland within 3,000 wel over people have been held under the PTÀ though only a handful have with an actualy oeen chatscu terorist offence and still fewer convicted. Once a year When it was introduced the PTA was to be renewed ever six months. That period noW ucreasea to tweive monus Though a number of left Labour MPs have : voted against still Denuul remains on. the statute books. The capitalist state seems determined that it shall remair more or less permanent is important that those 'lefts" who have correctly taken PTA be a stance against ine forced to put their talk into make sure that this practice and on the working class 1: aLaCK smashed. One in which their way can be tested out is by words fight for the dem anolne removal of the right-wing pro- Callaghan-Healey- imperialist Mason leadership of the Labou: Party, and spell out a principlec internationalist policy 1 of the PTA gucslol and Ireland in general must be raised in every Labour Party and raue unnon orancl There must also be a call fo the immediate removal of political troops from Ireland, status tor Republican prisoner of war as a step towards their release self-determination for the Irish people as a whole

DEMONSTRATION

Ten years of the Irish War, five years of the

PTA

24 November 1979 2 p.m. Kennington Park (Oval Tube) March to Brixton Prison

QUADROPHENIA

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 Who The album

QUADROPHENIA

1973. appeared in Although in part a loving nostalgic trip back to the days of the mods and their confrontations with rockers in 1963-4 at south-east seaside coast also resorts, the album shows considerable disen- with the chantment trappings of youth sub- culture-casual sex, drugs and rock music The trouble with this disenchantment

ILS

thoroughly reactionary per-

SUCCLIVE.

Self pity the mod-life- Because provide style doesn't an adequate release from the of work and the drudgery emotional-sexual of traumas adolescence, the album's hero Jimmy rejects his mod pals and sinks into self-pitying withdrawal, where he finds a perverse consolation abstract notions about love and the self as some essential core divorced

ITOM

an y historical (eg. the reality song 'The Real Me'). in Jimmy, This change from being a mod to being a far escapist Guitarist hippy, results in his suicide: Townshend dropping-out torm death-wish.

OCCUTO

Eastern mysticism Such mystical claptrap is partly explained by the Who's teachings of own previous After

TOMMY

career. Townshend's rebellion in the early '60s (eg 'philosophy'. Generation'), they. surprise in moved with the psychedelic crackpot Ken Russell directed times and sought something a the film. little sullied sand profitable. album was no This turned out to be the

ZOSS

self-consciously rock- its arty opera

TOMMY (1969)

and setting the the which the early wholesome religious with values which were packaged vaguely with it. meant that the film proteci

OUT NOW!

BATTLE FOR

THE

ROTSKYISM/

PARTY IN T92

Second edition of the opposition documents presented inside the WRP by the present leader- ship of the Workers Socialist League With a new introduction Price £2.50 plus 20p postage and package from Workers Socialist League, 31 Dartmouth Park Hill London NW5 1HR Pete needed a director like Frank had, in fact, Roddam who had proved himself adept at TV realism.

obsessed with and Whatever his credentials, the Meher Baba. the QUADROPHENIA film is only realistic intermittently reflected and remains imbued with the new-found album's dubious values. and 1975 when Condoned

QUADROPHENIA

Jimmy's disaffection than a with his life is seen in terms more

TOMMY

madness, one, but a madness which the film condones as a autobiographical mod milieu sort pessimistic, suicidal Who' liberation from things associated, earthly-parents, job and mod. Being very much the ex- mod Jimmy suffers " from something little more than schizo- tellouldly phrenia: i.e. quadrophenia.

As a plot this would have had some saving grace if the pressures which push Jimmy out into the quadrophenic had been sketched in more fully But they aren't. Even on the level of surface detail the film many period in accuracies. The type of NF graffitti seen in the film just wasn't around in the early '60s; nor '70s design United football Manchester scarf; even Brighton 1101 marina! Symptomatic would be These quibbles they weren't symptomatic of the greater social inaccuracies in the film.

I don't necessarily expect to the skull-cracking adventures of the SPG in the cinema, but the police in QUADROPHENIA are a joke. They docial mind as mohair-suited flash mods fight back while being arrested. these scenes are TO t straight out of Dixon of Dock Green' The sequence in the court-which is meant to be funny-can't even claim that By Guest Reviewer PAUL TICKELL status, as youths being done work for assult give the magistrates much lip they like. The picture of working- faces Many young class life in the film is equally lacking surface aead-ena • authenticity the rest of their lives working-class seems However, to comprise two camps: the take its slow mums and dads who are very into apathy in tront of opts SulK the TV and the fast completely-off a cliff! screen, sons and daughters speeded up on amphetamines, very early Tamla Motown and scooters Still, better solution than When Jimmy turns his the hero back on all this we're meant

NIGHT FEVER

feel of

SONI

But because what sympathy. for opts he turns his back on is such a caricature anyway, bathos is 'good woman'. the dominant mood It the bathos to that the point of ridiculousness is no Phil Daniels, the actor playing Jimmy: he has a repertoire of leisure industry. expressions which stretch all When the way from a grin (he's so emerges, happy!) to a grimace (so sad!). capitalist Caricature already mentioned. comes Who gives a toss when, in authoritarian • a final welter of self-pity, stance, tops himself-to the sound of political direction Who their most pompous and inflated ('Love ficial and te hose does brer- theless Reign Oe'r Me')? Can this be the band same who've the press and media out in a occasionally produced such lather of moral panic. powerful, direct rock? Bourgeois The film's tendency though soon toward caricature means that themselves, it doesn't say much about the to this is the mod era itself

QUADROPHENIA

is incorporated and made to fit mainly interested in youth as a generational SuoCuLLuTe culture. phenomenon, ie parents v children. Commodity Although an important aspect of subcultures is their the nuclear

CONTICI

family, working class youth styles of clothing and music come up against other which is initially the sport of capitalist institutions like the rebellious, law and there ark lace. minority, mentioned being transformed into a mass alical!

QUADROPHENIA'S

commodity: rebellion can enfeebled view of the role of fun, fashionable the police and the courts, but everyone it must be admitted that the The Page 9 scenes of Jimmy as a music have praised messenger boy, have more of

QUADROPHENIA

for basis in the reality which realism; but, leaving aside the working- bigger question of the validity class people: that they're in a itself, cinematic realism job-probably for how film tell the can real(ist) story lot mod it m the film can't doesn't have a grasp of the analysis of this area process incorporation to far, when it has a hero which all subcultures are out SO doomed? This not to mention

QUADROPHENIA'S

lack of Domesticity realism when detailing the wider social mildly films angry that's maybe ConteXt. like Saturday Night and that of The

SATURDAY

Sunday Morning and who, tiring Loneliness of the Long Dis- of the 'bad girls' of the disco, tance Runner say much more petit-bourgeois about post-war working class domesticity and the love of a life. without saying

QUADROPHENIA

has •tures put it closer to understanding of Carry On film than to thes subcultures in relation to the earlier attempts British subculture first realisone thing which the whether ted, mod or reviewers have been right challenges the about that institutions I've QUADROPHENIA will be a Of course, this challenge financial success and a shot in the arm for that ailing body an anti- the British film industry. individualistic Whether it will provide a pose without similar shot for the current mod revival remains to be But it's a challenge never- however super- But who cares about that? Subcultures repeat themselves: the first time ideologues rebellion-without-a-cause.

the second time compose lace and one Anyone ON reason for CARRY

SPEEDING?

rapidity at subcultures are acceptable face of mass

RED YOUTH

Monthly paper of the Socialist Youth League Price 15p including The fetishising of certain postage from SYL, 31, Dartmouth Park narcissistic Hill, London NW5 is made safe by

IHR

and for national press and

Page 10

INDUSTRIAL

Hospital workers fight victimisation Engineers and elec- This case follows on the heels of other victimisations tricians at London's of NUPE, stewards Charing Cross Hospital in lne West London Hospital are currently the picket lines after in a newsletter issued by the committee them a the tight to shop steward gellne mer reinstated is clearly placed were dismissed 23 on within the context of the October. general fight against attacks The men were sacked on the health service for refusing to do the work The response of the of unskilled They capitalist press has been to mount a witch-hunt on the were implementing policy of their union which strikers similar to that seen was made necessary by the against hospital workers last the management have way winter cut back on the staff. For the last 18 Shortage of oil months vacancies for assis- tants have been left unfilled The employers and their and skilled men have had to friends in Fleet Street are cover for their jobs. trying to stir up a campaign sackings represent against the action by claim- the conscious ing that lives are endangered part of the district manage- because of a shortage of oil weaken the fight to the hospital. against the government's The strikers themselves policies are adamant that there is goungra of key militants.

JOIN OUR FIGHT-

AGAINST TORIES!

Returned ta office after five years of Labour betrayals, the Tory government has immediately begun wielding a sharpened axe on jobs, conditions and social Trade Union rights face imminent legal attack.

services. Prices are already beginning to rocket upwards.

Plum sectors of state industry will be handed to the Tories profiteering big business backers; and the pay rises to police and urmed forces mark only the prelude to increased state violence ayainst pickets and antı-fascists.

and an intensified army crack- in the accupied North of Ireland.

Gonn The Callaghan Healey leadership has made it clear that it will opppose any perspective other than settling down and meek.

ly accepting five years of Tory devastation.

though they have once AnG. more dusted off their near "socialist" speeches, Labour's Torcotten MPs have lett wind continued le duer, too hame set gut to emanesh hans have set out to establish a basis for colaboration with Thatcher and the Tory cabinet, their anti working class alliance with Wilson and then Callaghan.

But the working ciass has experienced and overcome such betrayals before-to topple Heath's ünion bashing government in 1974, and smash through Callaghan's reactionary Phase 4 o1 wage controls in a series of monumental pay battles last winter.

These experiences are not dead. They point to the way that Jobs, social services and hard won union rights can be defended against renewed Tory attacks.

But a principled, revolutionary leadership is needed if the Labour traitors, the TUC collaborators and their hangers-on in ine Communist Party are to be exposed and pushed aside. and the mass struggies mobilised that can defeat and remove the Tory government suen a leadership must tight day in and day out for a pro- gramme of transitional demands which, slate om today s conditions and today's consciousness within the working class, lead workers to grasp the necessity for socialist revolution And in taking up democratic demands-such as an end t racial and sexual discrimination, it must show the crucial role that must be played by the working class as the only consistent- ly revolutionary class capable of leading the struggle for the emancipation of mankind. And it must fiaht on an international basis-mobilising anti-imperialist TOr anti capitalist struggles- whether in Ireland, in Southern Africa or elsewhere through- out the world, and drawing strength. and political lessons revolutionary upheavals such as that which ousted the hated Shah in Iran. This means fighting for the reconstruction of the Trotsky.

ist Fourth International.

This method of approach, rejecting any descent to simple trade union militancy, , or concessions to any wing of the labour bureaucracy, is the method fought for by the Workers Socialist League. The next period will see major class struggles in Britain. A principled, Marxist leadership is essential. Our movement though strong in programme rertains small in numbers.

JOIN US and take forward the struggle for socialism!

NEWS

and essential supplies are being allowed through and are heves by themselves Monored ano stewards representing tanker drivers from Esso.

Inis strike is an impor- part lant the against Inis round of cuts in London and maximum sup- port must be mobilised • 1n and out of the hospital to get reinstatement and con- tinue the fight to defend the

NHS.

STILL AVAILABLE

SOCIALIST PRESS

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THE CUTS

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Following the tradi- In tion of recognition disputes among poorly paid workers comes a dispute atthe Chix sweet factory in Slough. nearly атте 90% of the workforce, which mainly Asian women, had joined GWU, they sought recognition from the employer Denis Rose His response echoed that of George Ward of Grunwick and Margolis ot Garners when retused to recognise the union.

After three months in mem- bership, the workers issued an ultimatum-recoanise face industrial action Rose stood firm, and the strike is now in its fifth week factory being kept

ITOP

For a clear lead in the struggle against wage control, cuts and redundancies SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 Bitter fight at sweet factory open mainly by the use of scab strike that this blacking is 100% labour from agencies, who are airtight well over £2 per The main ingredient in the hour (before the strike workers product is sugar and the main got only 95p) supplier Tate and • Lyle. also trong picket in man ace of organised into the GWU. harrong pickerm the face fact that Lesolti harassment was blacked Tactory lorry which load of sugar was delivered.

has already resulted The officials claim that this seven arrests. and that they •Was accicental Mass pickets are looking into it But essential that no more gets through. Support on the picket has The strikers are also anxious come from Fords, other GMWU branches and also local workers.

to know who supplies starch to the well The strikers have a policy of as some sweets that are sent there to bi calling a mass picket • in order to publicise and build up support No strike pay wur unel strike Some blacking has been implemented One scandalous aspect of the crucial to the outcome of the strike Striker is official the strikers are that despite the tac as, receiving strike pay according to rule they have not been members for long enough.

A fight mus gee ake supie UnIon adequately funded avoid any danger of it being lost for lack of money the meantime donations should be sent to the address below. Struggles like this give the lie to the argument that immi.

workers are prepared to wages and undercut conditions of native workers. It essential sufficient lnal i mobilised to ensure SupporT IS that it is won Information from, and messages support and conations to Anwar, 271 Goodman Park, Slough. Grunwick pickets

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SOCIALIST PRESS 1980

CALENDAR

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ballot: but hedges on SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14 November 1979 Farmworkers 'no' to offer Farm workers' leaders last week made spluttering threats of selective strike their pay claim— •evendent and were no doubt alarmed Supplement with a living wage. to be by roars of

WICE

approval. The farmworkers' union has tabled a claim of £100 tor a 35 South hour week. After years of union inactivity week in £48.50 for rates are 40 hours. General Secretary Jack dismantled Boddy, clearly worried that the equipment. itself Tine 60 in a struggle warned The emorored employers that their first offer had been "so removal of equipment from Pac factory that no way even coule in consider a compromise." WelC preventee He approaching the scab drivers.

hoping Thor ant w rather jess ludicrous! small offer neatenino the ludicrously inadequate action of SLIKeS on one-day strikes every week.

claim, at a cost of 260 jobs.

Murray opposes 'hysteria' on cuts Some 2,000 workers in eager defence of the spending marched through Newcastle cuts and wage out by the Labour government, last weekend in a demon- Murray long ago stration against the cuts technote organised by the regional workers' jobs

TUC.

dards being stripped away.

Though there were shouts substitute for clear of Tories Out' on the march he went on, there was little evidence of any willingness to fight for such a Ist given nim an policy among platform speakers weat he in the ill a pe spee at the concluding rally among that he whom the star was tive for a fight. rUC General Secretarv _Len Tae nearert Murray. actual defence of the Tory Speaking a rigorously Murray went on to announce stewarded gathering, Murrav's that: main emphasis was on avoiding "We must find a way i cutes. "hysterical" reaction to the reaching agreement on how we get the right balance in the use As a bureaucrat who reacted of resources productive public services and how we ge agreement on priorities in public spending. The

O'FISHALL

ment that workers in in hoolithat one are service presento prior ar WE REGRET the temporary above preserving this dosance ot Urishail trom ability of the private sector issue of Socialist Press.

He was last seen by one of wutTav "Teal problems our leaders walling expectantiy relations and trade union struc- at the head of a queue outside the CBI headquarters at Tothill that the TUC St., London. police trade entire time queue-wearing "Last Chance Saloon itself rather than face "new legal badges- could entanglements"! Were '€40,000, eh?' really We anticipate, however, that he will be unions, back Trace with us next doubt that the Tories would not week. need to bother with their anti- The task in fighting the cuts, Meantime, don't miss your closures and other Tory attacks 1980 is COPy to drve out Murray and his calendar-12 cartoons for only ilk and construct an alternative, £1 plus 20p p&p. socialist, leadership. The British Leyland Shop Combine Stewards Committee has re-affirmed its opposition the to Edwardes plan despite the majority which Edwardes Boday received in the recent Company run ballot. Meeting last Friday, the Committee passed a resolution rejecting ballot outcome of "the wording of the • wimpany uticals, and the abdication of responsibility by the Confed." The resolution went on of the 13 affected plants i ally they decide resist the closures. addition the resolution called for a continuation of the previously established policy of But even such partial action, to be eagerly

AVL NOOR

tarmworkers.

FIGHT

vear were Family Income

UNEMPLOYMENT

provide them

SHORTER

An army of 200 police surrounded a closed down

WORKING

Wales factory last order to force a

WEEK

passage for scabs to drive plant and pickets who oppose the the Rosedale even TrOM closed in the the Conted the engineering pay brings defeat controls carried The strike at the DeTected Vauxhall Ellesmere Port calmly watching plant has ended after eight and living stall weeks, although the strike spasms are no by 250 setters continues in thinking pursuit of a grading claim.

rapidly losing sup- Separate mass meetings of

AUEW

enthusiastic members lUWU illusory hope both voted to reject the stew- ards recommendation tinue the strike thing to an Following the pattern of the Talbot cuts, officials strike the both unions have played the decisive ball Killing never fully which recovered after convenors THe NUJ appeals between our industries and the demonstration had of been a forthright state- Newcastle Denning ruling Ine public

PIULIL

went on to talk of of industrial The House of Lords last week reserved judgement on pleading with the Tories would prefer to the appeal by the National Union of Journalists against mem ders court ruling by Lord "leaders" like Murray Denning that effectively declares secondary blacking m Irm control of the there little illegal. The arose during last cast strike by Winter's provincial journalists. To make their action effective its members at the Press

OUTI

Association, which traditionally supplies strikebreaking provincial papers, enabling them BL Combine rejects struggle blacking work from any of the orever the threatened plants. received only 3 votes. The conference of some 200 This convenors

DOLE

Leviane Leyland Vehicles Alan and plants was Cowley Assembly for ommittee bilalilan occubanon up member Delek Kobinson He said that already plants and for the blacking policy had been effec slare all tively carried out at Longbridge, strike to demonstrate and Cowley-where BL trim workers work from Castle brought into the plant had beer blacked and sent back. opposed by the But armye to call for a the threatened plants. policy Indeed

NEEUS

one of the biggest to

PRODUCTION

highling negotiating

REWARD

ments terms of found "unacceptable" HE

LUCERS

question crucial wonder

LST

review. Management 5% workers on and 10% to skiled Grade 1. In return offer, Edwardes every amOs ment in BL fill ar Strings are demands for: Robinson Concession to courts abandoned the picketing of the officiais Harwich transit depot At where E15 million worth of cars were with the bottled up. depot, when the support of the That national union was needed most , was the lynch-pin of the whole strike and the leader- urgently to mobilise the labour ship buckled under the pressure movement, the secretary crucial

COULS

building moment group of the TGWU sent a strict Subsequent picketing of the instruction showrooms him picket altogether. in the eyes of the members and was not sufficient headquarters the volt at le mass meetings House, From the start the strike had to contend with campaign to mobilise the the conscious labour sabotage movement national Trades picket lines in the manner of the miners at way to figh police, officials. to call presumadly sprinkling of and do gooders, trade examine the police The Vauxhall strike were incapable of such a to continue production without because they NUJ journalists. have shown in the past that they away WIl Scabbed actions asalist • Das: ine buck to When half the NUJ members officials or blame the members at PA scabbed on the for their own cowardice. union called on its Fleet Street ult lesson to be drawn from members to black PA copy.

this experience The Daily Express immed- resolutely ¡ately sought, and obtained cipled injunction rrom DenninG leadership, against this blacking-a decision through upheld in the Court of Appeal. interests of If upheld again by the Lords Such a leadership must it will stand as a major prece willing to openly challenge anti- dent for further anti-union liti.

union actions by the courts and gation. Page 11 f as a result of disputes within BLI to be ENDED, Complete mobility and flexibility between jobs; commo work sid agreement, scrapping any form plant closure studies, and giving industrial emaineer amendment, moved by unlimited access to the tracks Bill Mullins from Rover Solihull with stopwatches. Thornett from The combine Plant was called massive generalised attack committees to the threatened BL workers. those plants "Biggest apple" milal one day token to other that Jack Adams, T&G convenor they proparca lo oppose the closures . Longonage described it as amendment was "the biggest apple that Edwardes is looking for" convenors from Like the Edwardes closure McGarry, plan , proposals Eddie thes have implications con of the bites on be posed.

beyond BL. It would be a blue print for reported that he had been busy other Lesened closure but Workers eft after initial closure speed those massivel redundancy pay redundancies which he had Have call our Despite all these implica- tions, no action was taken from Crucial question the committee Convenors were informer The Conteste ducked the that the LCJNC had avoided outright the wage Company my proposa to preven "The have offered pluparalla machine into they were told Inster workers in workers would be receiving the full proposals for this insulting newspape form days, next leaflet from the be strape agree trade union side scrapped 1ne docu Determined Among the most brazen After that the LJNC would The 80% layoff pay 17 reconvene for further negotia- days per quarter for those laid tions The problem that Edwardes is determined. With the ballot result under his belt Will not back down easily.

While has achieved corporate bargaining structure the Maue umons are still no similarly organised The Combine Committee tomals wear allel ine lavage.

of 3 years of workers "Participa tion" Despite the weakness their leadership BL workers are bitterly hostile the 5% offerut faced with a determined the height of the battle employer and no central leader- police at the Harwich ship, each plant is looking to the other for a lead. There must be a lead from the Combine Committee. Grenville Only strike action is of the going to beat Edwardes-and he vance must be beaten if automotive trade , workers • not going to be driven back 30 years and subjected to super- to withdraw exploitation bosses. An occupation of the TGWU Transpor together with a vigorous local through man the was the onl the joint assault courts and Instead, the convenors chose for a public inquiry' consisting clergymen alongside top bureaucrats behaviour of the existing leaders of the determined campaign are reformists who MeGarry from Tories and

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20,000 march against cuts: all out on Nov 28.-2- that Despite tact there had been no official action last call for strike Wednesday massive 20,000 workers turned out to support the November 7 Lambeth lobby of parlia ment against the cuts. Delegations included council trom over London, miners from Kent and and strong students contincent under the banner of the NUSS.

though platform speakers in the concluding rally Central Halls Thatcher, chairman JaCK romev rettera. ted his belief that the Tories are for the next five in power ycals Lambeth council leader Ted Knight called for Labour councils major implement the cuts and defy the Tories. A contingent of at least 4,000 workers is expected to travel from South York- shire alone to attend the November 28 lobby of Parliament against the cuts.

This is just one of the many indications that the tion or nostry to te lories on that day will be massive.

nave added their support. support of the

TGWU,

calling on all of the unions 9,000 bran- emphasis those trade state-owned indust- groups The right wing AUEW Exec- has also declared utive has backing, is calling on branches to support. Special train And with the NUM National supporting the exerutive also lobby, the Welsh NUM has orga- nised a special train to London.

La Dour Mant. hester and Sheffield have agreed that wish •••von Movem or co can gave leave of absence; and Birming- ham City Council said There sanctions against those who do so In Liverpool a 5,000-strong demonstration the cuts ast we necav was backeroy one-day strikes by GMWU and

ALOU

work at 11.30 am in order to lobby council urging chaorsoner proposal give committee • O council workers November 28 off with pay to back the lobby.

The plan was narrowly defeated.

Work-ins Elsewhere the level the cuts is struggle against mountina. Last Wednesday saw 700 people from all over Derby- shire the county council in Matlock. Ane creativ under. •ressard show some signs of action,

NUPE

leader Alan Fisher has echoed the decision of the 1880na supporting work-ins in threat- ened hospitals.

SOCIALIST

PRESS

Fisher But, conspicuously, even more cautious

COHSE

Spanswick Head ar spelling out NUPE's restrictions this policy, and noser work-in action g opposite to strike action against the cuts. Non-cooperation Meanwhile

NUPE

has instructed officials to develop a policy of non-cooperation which involve loss of jobs

CUTS

increased loss earnings workload. Assistant General Secretary spelling bernard call, did not rule out strikes in certain Circula lances But though miitancy is cler clearly on the increase clear that no amount of toker the Tories actton offensive. One-day action and November 4 must o up aga part of the fight within all the public the sector unions. policies of: Occupations and suppor- ting strike action stop crosure Open the public services! Reveal the profiteering by private suppliers bankers and contractors. * Fight for the nationalisa- tion these without firms, com oensaton. uneer workers management. Restore all cuts! For a public sliding service scale soenaine L0.. against rising costs, assessed elected trade union committees!

Full support sector actor cuts. For national, indefinite strike action to defeat the Tory government ano orensive Link up in action with the private sector! unions of action bulle local councis delegates from Cavitie workers' organisations! Prepare Orin

COWI

_i ories: * Demand thos speak out on the cuts campaign demands fighting une only way to dereat ine rory attacks. Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR Printed by Anvil Printers Ltd, London. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office

LAMBETH

AGAINS

THE CUTS

AGAINSI

CUTS

Head of'last Wednesday's Lambeth demonstration As Tory Minister Raison puts the finishing touches to new, racialist anti-immigra tion laws, further proof of the barbarism of existing legislation was provided last weekend by to deport a 7-year-old Asian girl. Communit relation. workers were desperately trying Khatun, Ayesha stor alone Cole vine la being put on a plane for Bangla there Raison dash-where is no-one to meet or look after her. No troops to Zimbabwe! Though estimated the valiant guerrilla struggles of their members in the bush as a 2,000 people marched through London on Sunday Counte debates on the technicalities of calling for 'Victory to the continued bourgeois rule it can be Patriotic Front', Zimbabwe. assumed after weeks of con- The whole sordid affair-in which the bourgeois petty Lancaster fusion at Front

TROLIC

Have House talks that not many been as anxious as the imperial- realised actually what the ists to prevent the war of liber- the over into slogan meant. alol socialist revolution in Zimbabwe inceed tne oniv outstanome -is now apparently question that appears to divide topped off by the sending of a the Patriotic Front leaders and British police force to supervise Ine covera. the "transition" from one pro- ment how long capitalist regime to anothe supervised "transitional period" Those in Britain and Afric should last. who want novance Tine struggles of the black ote es of Sell-out must Patriotic Front energies in tne coming montas asking for six months. to the struggle for a revolution- there is "no question of British say leadership capable prepared or Enal

-OUT

deTentio The interests of the workers and increase ineir monte sodosa to three or even four months.

of Zimbabwe peasants words the sell-out other • treacherous policies ot the liberation of Zimbabwe Patriotic Front. 2418 struggle complete- -with Front leaders having exploited Ireland press -gag tightened. on the one hand Stung Yet those that defy the state by the rising tide of oppos- able to count on support from ition to the British military Labour leaders occupation of Northern Callaghan last week joined Ireland, and on the other by Thatcher in condemning miserable failure of Panorama film-continuing the Labour's cringing for Humphrey Atkins' recent half-baked political "initia #u•larist re•resson in wrearc to detend even basic demo cratic rights today in Britair or in Ireland demands the buildin down on media coverage of Trev teadership | labour movement. provisional Ra on use streets of Carrickmore, Thatcher,

FUND

the Tory backed usual by press, nas instructed the bbc to suppress the film and to further tighten the gag on reports from are ano. The now been A great week for the referred Director of fund this week. We've had Public Prosecutions in £222.30, the Indeed. PTA laws and stand.

bringing ing BBC instructions, originated total so far to £342.50 Heath under If we can keep up this further and Wilson and Callaghan, already pace we stand an excellent make it virtually impossible to chance of raising the full present a serious examination oi £750 this month for the fighting the politics of those imperialism in the six counties first time since we raised of ireland-while endiess Britis , our target in September.

propaganda is retailed without All -donations → are criticism Cringing support welcome and should be sent to: Socialist Press Monthly But the fact that this latest and interview Fund, 31 Dartmouth Park bobb Hill, London NW5 1HR. arisen indicates that not even all the BBC's hand picked hacks are

CHOLESSN

down under state censorship.

—No to Tory racist law.- For the Tories however they Cone ACAnT attempted deportation of nine- Akram Dogar, such National Demonstration Sunday 25 November ima gide erect ot their moves to further cut the minute trickle of Assemble 12 noon black immigrants into Britain Speakers Corner, Hyde Park A mao natond i monstra Stop the Tory Immigration tion on November 25 has been Proposals and British called against the Tories Nationality Act! , and is widely backed Ious ation immigrant and labour move- Repeal the 1971 Immigra- tion Act! readers are urged to support. Workers Socialist League Anniversary Rally

SATURDAY

DECEMBER 8

2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

100 YEARS SINCE BIRTH OF TROTSKY

FIVE YEARS SINCE WSL FOUNDED

New Ambassadors Hotel Upper Woburn Place London WC1 Speakers from WSL Executive Committee, plus film. Tickets £1.00 or £1.50 at door.