Conference to draw lessons of steel & BL betrayals

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The Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement is to hold a one-day national conference in Digbeth Hall, Birmingham on Saturday July 5.

Open to delegates and individual observers from trade union and labour movement organisations, the conference is designed to provide a forum to discuss the political situation confronting the working class in its struggle against the Tory We reprint here an abbreviated version campaign leaflet for the conference to Socialist Press extends full support. Further and credentials (£1) are obtainable from Secretary Godfrey Webster, 169 Barclay Bill Sirs with Welsh TUC leader George Wright The steel strike and the management offensive in British Leyland have important implications for the whole of the working class in the struggle against cuts, closures, and in defence of living standards.

These two issues illustrate the scale of the crisis of leadership that now confronts the working class. And this same crisis of leadership was confirmed when, having fought to isolate the steel strike for fourteen weeks, the TUC leaders called their "day of action" on May 14 to defuse the anger and militancy building up within the working class. With no official call for strike action on the day, the field was left open for the media to witchhunt those who took action, and to minimise the scale of the response-in which, despite the TUC, hundreds of thousands of workers took part in protest strikes and demonstrations.

The case for BL and BSC workers to fight the Tory offensive together was overwhelming. Together they could have won: divided they would lose. Yet the union leaders were absolutely determined to prevent such a united fight. Even after BL workers had voted to strike their leaders refused to call them out. When Edwardes saw this weakness he promptly announced that he would impose the pay package on April 8.

But no sooner was the strike call belatedly made by BL union leaders than the steel union chiefs rushed to accept the hastily-convened inquiry's report, and sell out the strike before BL came out. The very day of the steel sell-out saw a national dock delegate conference vote for a national strike in defence of dockers suspended for blacking scab steel shipments.

Even more blatant was the TUC sabotage of the General Strike called by the Welsh Over 40 delegates attended a conference called by the St Georges Hospital Support Committee in London on May 17.

St Georges is due for complete closure on June 30 when the expensive site is to be sold off to a private medical concern.

The union Branch and Support Committee have put up a long and principled fight against the closure, but now the deadline is drawing near and 40 workers have recently been given redundancy notices. Warley, West Midlands.

TUC. Workers will now pay the price for this treachery as in Wales, the NE Coast and elsewhere steel unions negotiate redundancies and closures that could have been defeated.

The TUC leaders know that the steel workers had already developed beyond their official leaders-and could easily have joined councils of action alongside other sections in joint action which could have moved rapidly in a revolutionary direction. They know inat LIs 1... ---- 1Lat thei would spell defeat not only for the Tory leaders, whose privileged positions rest on the continued existence of capitalism.

This is why these leaders confine the working class to protest politics which they know cannot stop the Tories. This is why they have not lifted a finger in practical action to stop the cuts in health, education, wellare or the civil service. Yet the readiness of workers to fight was confirmed once again by the strikes on May 14-the largest strike action since 1926, carried through in called inside the hospital to re-establish opposition to the closure.

*A picket on the hospital beginning from early June.

*Resolutions through union branches and divisions calling for a mass picket and day of strike action on June 30.

of the which details CDLM Road, the teeth of a media witchhunt.

An alternative leadership must be built to unleash this strength and mobilise it in action against the Tories. This requires a programme of policies which fundamentally challenge the capitalist system and its logic of restoring "viability" at the expense of the working class. Workers are not taken an inch further forward by nationalist capitalist 'solutions' manh tho mall for immrt suvil as Ene 101 controls-now the platform for every fake left in the labour movement. Leaders who start from the viability of the industry or a supposed common interest between British workers and British employers can only betray at the end of the day.

Only policies which start from the independent interests of the working class can answer today's problems. The CDLM conference on July 5 will set out to discuss such a programme in the light of the lessons of the betrayals in steel and BL and the fight yet to come throughout the public sector and in the forthcoming wage round as inflation climbs to 22%.

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Tie Daily Mail thought rwise. John Edwards shatd his pen for a personal alt on Murray that ended On Saturday 250,000 had • in the streets of West Ham n the road from Mayes›k Park to see a soccer team e home with the FA Cup. The biggest event in TUC ery for 50 years had pulled out to see the man who was le head of it"

The Sun ran two editorialsattacking Murray and the er defending their reporters' • hounded his holiday. The lessons that the Sun d to drive home was orkers do not believe in istrial action for political s," (though presumably the s Journalists do believe in ch-hunts for political ends). If there was one sweet ment of revenge for the :king class it was the brick 1 of fact that the press ran ›. On the Day of Action they not publish.