Ws L Founding Conference

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A major step forward was taken in the struggle for the continuity of the principles of Trotskyism in Britain, and towards the rebuilding of the Fourth International, when, at its Founding Conference on October 18th - 19th, the Workers Socialist League formally adopted a constitution as a This conference came after ten months of work in the mass with important new areas of work (especially in the Midlands and the In the daily struggle to take the demands and principles of Trotsky's Transitional Programme into the trade unions, the WL has been at the forefront of the fight for the sliding scale of wages, and work sharing on full pay - demands which at the T&GWU Conference were the only alternative to Jones' treacherous £6 pay plan and the wholesale In the Health Service, WL comrades have led the struggle for the sliding scale of NHS spending and for trade union committees to open the books of the Authorities, along with the fight to end all private practice -policies adopted by ASTMS National Conference.

In local disputes also, WSL comrades have tested and developed the demands of the Transitional Programme, putting forward in every case the only real opposition to the Stalinists and the right-wing. Our struggle for the "open the books" demand in the motor industry has won a mass response, and is now aped by other left groups. The WSL alone among the groups on the left has fought the speed-up proposals of the Ryder Report since its very publication, and we have leafletted almost every major BLMC plant in the only national campaign against its implementation.

At the same time we have put forward a policy to fight unemployment calling for unity of employed and unemployed through the fight to mobilise the trade union movement, and following this initiative, the first Trades Council sub-committee to fight for these policies has already While these practical interventions have developed the League's grasp of Trotsky's Programme there has been a consistent drive to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history and the present crisis of the Fourth International, as an essential part of any serious This has gone alongside the development in the International Pages of Socialist Press of programme and perspectives on a whole range of international struggles against imperialism, in which again the method and the principles of the Transitional Programme are an essential startim point, and on many of which no other movement puts forward any It was on the basis of this all-round development of the movement, therefore, - its practice, its theoretical work, its international orientation and its press • that the WSL was able to adopt a democratic centralist constitution and perspectives at the Founding Conference.

Our perspectives from the Conference will appear in Socialist Press in and Tasks. weeks beginning with "The Fourth International - Problems This forms the basis of our attempt in the coming period to initiate a discussion in the world Trotskyist movement on the theoretical and and practical problems which lie at the root of the crisis in the Fourth The first part of this document will be published in a LETE and SEND to: 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 er social services as well as defence) action to force a defence of healt went up in money terms by 28% education and social services throl while grants and loans to ailing the fight for a sliding scale ‹ The government's long term been greater. In the NHS, tho plan for public spending is to elim- unions committed to defence ‹ inate the deficit rapidly and to the service must be forced finance it in less inflationary ways support the junior doctors and c (that is, by issuing long term bonds) all-out strike action as part of tl The higher interest payments which finht for thio damond movement.

North West), and an enlarged trade union base.

acceptance of redundancies by the bureaucracy. been established in Banbury.

initiative towards its reconstruction.

perspective.

Trotskyist party has seriously undertaken.

6 Issues.. 12 Issues. 24 Issues.

•84 I would like more information about the WSL The urgency of trade unic government expenditure has nev fight for this demand In education, where even t! Sunday Times predicts 19,000 ne teachers will be unemployed ne year, the NUT and the other teac ing unions must take similar acti‹ and call on the whole labour mor ment for support.

In local government and tl social services also, it is clear no that only strike action can ste further savage cuts hv the Wilo GILM These tasks must be taken i immediately to jobs 21 living standards.

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