DLM conference and the General Strike call l Letter OUT NOW! BATTLE FOR

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Second edition of the opposition documents presented inside the WRP by the present leadership of the Workers Socialist League Price £2.50 plus 20p postage and package from Vorkers Socialist League, 31 Dartmouth Park Hill This is an incorrect presentation of our position and the amendment.

The Workers Power resolution stated, in full:

"This conference resolves to campaign throughout the labour movement for a general strike against the Tories' proposed anti-trade union laws.

•Within section disputes that are taking place CDLM propaganda should be aimed at gener alising these disputes, linking them to others and pointing out the general nature of the Tory attacks, focussing them towards the goal of a general strike.

• The councils of action that conference is proposing should have as their target the fight for and eventual organising of, a general strike.

"To do this they must. be rooted in the organisations of the working class genuine delegate bodies embracing the widest possible layers of the rank and file workers.

"They should ensure In proposing the resolution 1 spoke specificially against the 'General Strike against the Tories' slogan on the grounds that, in any period of widespread action against Tory policies, this would have the demobilising effect of implying a call for a general election.

It is for this reason that the resolution identifies the anti-trade union laws as the focus for general strike action because they are the main strategy of the ruling class at the present time.

In addition the conference committee accepted an amendment which deleted the slogan "for cost of living clauses in all agreements" and replaced it with:

"Fight for a sliding scale of wages-1% rise in take home wages for every 1% rise in the cost of living-as calculated by the workers themselves in the form of committees of trade unionists and housewives. idea of. 'democracy in the labour movement' Yours fraternally, Steve MeSweeney for Workers Power.

WE REPLY:

The Workers Power amendment on the general strike was in fact incorporated into the text of the full resolution as reprinted in Socialist Press 174 (appearing immediately beneath the tell-tale sub-headline "General Strike").

"It is vital that sectional disputes that take place around the anti-union laws and other Tory attacks are generalised and focussed on the goal of a general strike.

Councils of action should fighting for and preparing, organise a general strike ..

Secondly, the full text of the Workers Power amendment on the sliding scale of wages was also incorporated into the text of the resolution as published in Socialist Press 174: but it is true that in the concluding slogans (all of which appear in an inevitably abbreviated form) the original formulation was not changed.

In terms of democracy in the labour movement we would point to the considerable amount of CDLM conference time allotted to speakers from Workers Power, which had not participated in the organisation or building of the conference and had only a token presence at it.

We hope that, now these points have been answered the comrades will see the need to participate in the meetings and ION EXELS With a new introduction London NW5 1HR

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Many local councils have now voted to sell off council houses at knockdown prices.

The Tories and Liberals res ponsible for this action have carried out this cynically amid sneering jibes of 'hypocrisy' opponents who live themselves in private dwellings:

The accusation that people who live themselves in private houses are 'hypocrites' and have no right to criticise council dwellers who merely want to have some security and an end to ever rising rents, might appear to have an element of validity to it:

Council housing was originally conceived as a means of appeasing the potentially revolutionary working class in the aftermath of the first world war.

By-product Most social reforms are granted only when the ruling class is faced with the loss of all its property, as a by product of the revolutionary struggle.

The initial conception of council housing was to provide homes for the mass of workers who were unable to save the necessary capital for a deposit on a house.

The petit-bourgeois conception that anyone could save the necessary capital if they tried, and that only shiftless, feckless people failed to achieve the status of home onwers (through squander and bad house-keeping not to mention loose living'): still prevails, even to the present day.

The very same people generally either live on expense account salaries or at least constant staff status salaries that enable thém to save consistently.

Most manual workers how'ever do not enjoy such luxuries.

Arrogant

They come into the 'hourly paid' category. But time and time again the negotiators of hourly paid manual unions find their elementary demands for 'staff status' met with smug, arrogant smiles coupled with euphemistic evasions from well-heeled, complacent managers in company suits, with company cars parked in reserved parking lots, who are looking forward to superior company-subsidised meals in the luxurious staff canteen (unless they are dining out on the company's expense account).

The same managers can look forward to uninterupted periods of saving, with a guaranteed • salary, free from lay-offs, free from waiting days prior to sickness benefit, and with regular salary increases despite periods of incomes policy, coupled to tax avoidance schemes, and all manner of company perks.

KOMO

The fact that some manual workers do find the necessary money for a deposit on a house does notalter the fact that there are still many who do notparticularly those in non-skilled jobs, working in the mass production industries that are particularly prone to lay-offs.

It was mainly for these workers that council housing was nridinally conceived ac a TOTTA ena MAATAMINA as a means of buying off the militancy after the First World War.

A land fit for heroes' first А - нады I A LE of all had to include a decent low rent house for workers unable to put up the money for a mortgage.

There is no doubt that this concession from the bosses was Council housing in Paisley a historic gain for the working class, one which, along with the health and education services, the Tories are now trying to dismantle.

Mixed In the case of the health and education, services the social gain is fairly obvious to most nrhero hut in the race-of WULAVID, VUt HI LIL VasE Ul council accomodation, after the enormous rent rises in recent years and the gradual collapse of the direct works mainten- LIV LEENIE ance workshops, workers can be forgiven for looking upon council houses as a mixed blessing.

Rents in many areas have now escalated to levels comparable with mortgage repayments, thanks largely to the betrayal of the tenants struggle against Heath's fair rents' Act under the last Tory government..

Direct works maintenance departments have also been substantially decimated-thanks again to the same betrayals by reformist politicians and trade union leaders.

Now, with council housing in the run-down state that it is, and new council housing at a virtual standstill, the Tories and Liberals have seized upon workers' fears in order to opportunistically undermine the concept of social ownership, in the same way they have done for years in other areas of the public sector.

Not mortgage If workers live in private houses it is certainly not for the privilege of having a twenty year mortgage around their necks.

Tory claims that people want the chance to own their 'own' homes is like arguing that workers want the chance to be exploited by private enterprise instead of nationalised firms, under capitalism.

The sole reason for workers opting to buy their council houses is in the hope of seeing an end to the endless drain on their wage packet and in the hane of alterina the dacian to their own tastes, free from bureaucratic dictates.

It has nothing to anv nreference for PIVIVIVIN property.

NOI, housing would it GLC lea. available Yet the fact. that many workers now live in private accomodation is not because of any secret ideological preference for the private ownership of property or 'the freedom of the individual', but because the years of stagnant house building programmes has meant that council houses are simply not available, particularly in the cities.

In Liverpool, for instance, council plans to build no more council houses but to offer generous subsidies to contractors to build private houses, together with the wholesale selling off of existing stocks of council houses at knockdown prices are well advanced.

Anyone wanting to have a council house in the Liverpool area has to be way up the points system or move out of the city to one of the 'overspill' towns, miles away at. Skelmersdale or Runcorn-that is if you are lucky enough to be able to find a job there (a condition of residency).

do with private under a socialist economy, in which provision . would be to match social needs, be necessary to prevent tler with those who chose to do owing their own houses.

Instead the focus would be on the elimination of private landlordism, and offering every worker the chance of a decent home at reasonable cost.

At bottom, of course, the council sector . is not truly 'public' or socially owned property.

Like all property in the public sector-whether it be nationalised industry or the hospitals-it is surrounded on all sides by a parasitic private ment corporations, banks, etc which exists solely to milk it dry.

The profiteering of this sector negates the "social' ownership and subjects it to the anarchy of the profit system.

So when workers opt to buy and thus transfer their council house to the private sector, it is a vain and misguided attempt to escape from the capitalist anarchy of the money lenders which causes endless rent rises in the 'publicly owned' council sector.

Yet these same moneylenders operate even more aggressively in the private market-as the current 15% Of course the gen offers from Tory and L councils to sell off hous knock-down, bargain pr a fraction of the price i private market-attract te to the prospect.

All talk of resisting tempting offers in the int of preserving existing stoc people who cannot a deposits in the private sect‹ forgotten in the headlong by individual workers to the bargain offer while it In this sense the dilem analagous to the probles voluntary' redundancies. offers superficially mp payments to persuade wo to leave his employment, looking to the long-term p: to be derived from the incri exploitation of the rema workforce, and the benefi can look forward to fro permanent pool of mass u ployment as a means of ho down wages, and possibly breaking strikes.

Similarly, in flogging

council houses by the hur and by the thousand, the government looks for vagenly to me prons u 1- 11coined in by the constru firms, bankers, estate agent Tory landlords from the drado of thariando of ran cus ul livusalus or wu who will as a result be fora pay through the nose in private sector.

Today's apparent "barg

for the individual is tomori misery for whole sections o lerous iberal ies at icesn the 'nants these erests ik for ifford or are ; rush grab lasts. ma is m of doyer erous ırkers he is rofits eased ining ts he inemilding even off adred ward be ction sand hunIKCIS ed to the gain" row's if the working class as a whole:

Meanwhile the new Housing Bill, which specifies a statutory "right to buy" for council tenants is to be bulldozed through Parliament under the leadership of millionaire Enyironment Secretary Michael Heseltine.

A survey by Shelter shows that a massive 60% of all councils are opposed to this new provision in the law, and it is even opposed by 30% of Tory-controlled councils.

Of course some Tory councils that have attempted to implement such policies already -including. the GLC-have run into problems, since even the "cut price" cost of selling the houses creates mortgage payments way beyond the reach of the average wage earner tenant.

'In other words. the provision of the "right to buy" for exist- RA.. V1T41 ц.. ..... ing tenants could end up being merely the beginning of the "right to sell" for Tory councils _eventually squeezing, • working class families out of housing.

Another new report just published in Nottingham, analy sing the sales of council houses in the city, estimates that the real impact of council house sales is a financial loss to the local authorities.

ine sale or luu, uvu council houses would, they estimate, cost a staggering £1,200 million -more than the net yearly payment to the EEC!

But the Tories are relentlessiy forging ahead. Heseltine's Bill includes a Clause 30 which gives him the right to intervene personally:

"to settle any issue in relation to the sale of a dwelling whether arising from dispute or delay, if it seems expedient to him to do so."

This gives Heseltine and his cohorts the right to ride roughshod over elected local authorities and their housing plansor to take them to court.

The fight against this Tory attack on housing must be combined with the struggle against colossal rate and rent increases due as a result of Thatcher's spending cuts, cash limits, inflationary policies and high interest rates.

Wherever possible tenants associations must be built or mobilised to work jointly with the local trade union and labour movement in the struggle to open up the full accounts and plans of local housing departments and town councils, of their bankers, contractors and suppliers, to elected labour movement committees.

• This would reveal the reasons behind the total inadequacy of existing housing provision, and expose the profits being creamed off by private exploiters in the building industry and in interest payments to the banks.

Millionaire Heseltine Rent • increases must be fought by any means including where possible rent strikes linked to mass strike action to defend any tenant victimised.

Labour councils must be forced to take a stand in opposition to the sale of council housing, and for a programme of house building related not to the "cash limits" laid down by Thatcher but to the needs of the working class.

There müst be no increase in the rates. The only cuts that should be made is a refusal to meet interest payments on outstanding loans. "And the anti-working class policies of the Tory government must be confronted head on, with a mass mohilisation nf the lahonr TAIN movement and an appeal for supporting action on a national level.

Only when the Torv government is brought down and a government answerable to the working class put in power by mass action can the housing question be resolved in the interests of the workers.

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DESERTIL NEVES LO DISTRICT INCHES stms SONAL COUNCL

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mortgage rate can testify.. Headlong rush