'lefts' Come to Save Callaghan -not Bury Him

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STEEL AND BL STRIKES-NEW LEADER Saturday 5 July at Digbeth Civic Hall, Birmingham Write to: G. Webster, 169, Barclay Rd., Warley, West "What shall we tell them. Tonv" "Hmmm. never mind we'll think of something"

There is no doubt that Saturday's Special Conference of the Labour Party will be a vocal display of unity by both left' and right wingers alike.

After all, there is only one resolution- unanimousiy endorsed by the Party's NEC... and no amendments are allowed.

But the facade of unity will be erected at a time when the Tory offensive is producing major cracks in the Labour Saturday's four platform speakers, Jim Callaghan, ric Hefler. Joan Lestor and Tony Benn, will have one simple objective in common: to divert the attention of militants away from the treacherous wage-cutting policies of the last Labour government, away from the necessary mass action to bring down the present Thatcher government and rowards a vague package of policies for a Labour government in four years time!

Nobody pretends that the policy resolution before the Special Conference contains anything new.

Leftovers

It is a warmed-over pot of reformist left-overs, specifically worded io exclude any commitment to a perspective of a planned socialist economy.

Instead the starting point is the reform and expansion of capitalism the system that world-wide is plunging into reressinn and in Rritain has ILLLOMIE. 111 UIld 11.1.3 brought record levels of unemployment and inflation.

*After five years of mass unemployment under the Wilson and Callaghan governments, the resolution hypocritically proclaims that "the restoration and maintenance of full employment" is "the highest priority for the next Labour *After the ignominious collapse of the price controls introduced under Wilson, it pledges once again to introduce "a comprehensive and powerful system of price controls".

*While • talking gamely of "international agreement" and of peace, the resolution nails its colours to the mast of nationalist trade war and class collaboration with a pledge "not to allow manufactured imports to continue to destroy SSER our (!) industries and jobs.

*It calls for '"extending public ownership and planning the economy" , while-with the exception of North Sea Oil and sections "hived off" by the Tories-studiously avoiding any pledge to actually nationalise major industries or the banks. Instead it restricts itself to seeking a "significant public stake-and a degree of control' over various industrial sectors. This amounts to little more than further Callar:an/Wilson-style govurnment cash handouts to private employers.

*And in a section headed "Policy for Peace" , the resolution, tongue in cheek, condemns the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with a ringing and hypocritical declaration of "universal respect for the rights of all peoples to self-determination" -a "universal" respect which of course successive Labour leaderships and governments have refused to extend to the Irish people in their continuing struggle for national liberation.

By avoiding any reference to action over current issues confronting the working classthe cuts; unemployment; the anti-union laws; 22% inflationthe Labour leaders plainly hope to avoid exposing the divsions that now increasingly run through the union bureaucracy.

Last week's tentative move by Tory Chancellor Howe to invite the TUC to discuss a strategy of wage .: controls produced evidence of these divisions.

While some union leadersRay Buckton of ASLEF, Alan Sapper of the ACTT and Ken Gill of TASS-ruled out such YOU Woman Worker continues to be used centrally in work such as the fight against cuts in social services -and Woman Worker supporters played an important role in the Notts nursery conference reported in last week's Socialist Press.

Funds

And this weekend members of the WSL and a number of organisations affiliated to the TILC have been intervening in the Lutte Ouvriere Fete in Paris.

But all this work costs talks, others were more cagey.

Alan Fisher, Moss Evans and Joe Gormley all declared their preference for more all-embracing talks, clearly angling for some new form of social contract.

Electricians' leader Frank Chapple, however, who came under unprecedented attack from other union leaders for his condemnation of the May 14 Day of Action, declared his willingness to talk to Thatcher on any terms.

His stand was immediately endorsed by shadow Chancellor Denis Healey, who once again proudly revealed himself an unrepentent supporter of wage Heffer There is no doubt that under pressure of the working class such divisions are now also opening up throughout the Yet sooner than build on this basis a campaign for the removal of the Callaghan-Healey gang and for a socialist programme as the platform from which to fight for action to bring down the Tories, Labour's lefts' are scurrying around seeking to "unite" left and right and whip up support for Callaghan's policies!

Saturday's special conference will thus confirm the complete inability of the 'lefts' to offer any real alternative leadership to Labour supporters and the necessity to build a principled leadership in the labour movement as a whole. Movement NEEDED!

11.00 a.m.-5.00 p.m. Credentials £1 Midlands Another 1,000 jobs at the Talbot plant in Linwood Renfrewshire have been sacrificed on the bloody altar of "profitability' Stewards voted last week not to oppose the latest wave of sackings, which brings the total since December to 2,500, and leaves only a skeleton crew of 2,500 in a plant where once 8,500 were employed.

The question now being raised is obviously "How long before the closure?"

Certainly there is little to suggest that the latest capitulation by the stewards wil appease Talbot's PeugeotCitroen owners.

The strike record of Linwood over the last 18 months is impeccable by any employer's standards-with only one week lost.

Even management admit that there has been substantial speed-up in the last six months.

But with the car industry in crisis and every firm looking for ways of rationalising its production, even the most abject subservience to management is no guarantee of a job.

The only way that jobs can be defended is not through collaboration with the employers, but only through an independent programme of action-plant occupation, supporting strikes and blacking action-to enforce the demand of work sharing on full pay. GMWU laggers from building sites all over the country are expected to join a mass picket of the CEGB Isle of Grain power station site.

They are protesting against à reactionary agreement by AUEW, TGWU, EETPU and UCATT with management to train 26 scab laggers on the site to fill the jobs of 27 striking GMWU laggers.

Such an open strikebreaking move by the four unions is the most far-reaching response yet by union leaders to a closure threat by management.

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Campaign for Democracy the

WO jobs sacrificed

Grain picket