Boom in army recruitment

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Comic crisis deepens they coula ployment or army recruitment. be pursued any further.

Arthur Pearse, Southampton EETPU, in moving the resolution, then went on to point out why Tameside must be, defended against the undemocratic ruling of the TUC union.

This was overruled, and the inexplicable became clearer when Chairman Berrow immediately presented an EC counterrecommendation that specifically opposed any support for the Tameside conference.

Meanwhile the duty of socialists is to press home the fight for the reaffiliation of Tameside-already endorsed by 46 Trades Councils, as part of the fight to break the trade union movement from the "biThe army recruitment offices have been having a whale of a time.

They have been shamelessly cashing in on the mass unemployment-particularly amongst youth-created by Tory policies. Denied any prospect of useful employment in declining industries or in axed public services, thousands of young workers are being lured into the armed forces-where their job is to kill and be killed in the service of the same bosses that have thrown them onto the dole queues.

Armed forces recruitment in the three months to June 1980 is a staggering 22% up on the same quarter last year and a record for the last 18 years.

Hired gunmen

This • means that 13,000 young • workers enlisted-many of unwittingly-as hired g for a ruthless imperialist class.

As the political and find themselves forced to go Army exploits Glasgow unemployment nearly have them inmen ruling econ-...11 into action against fellow workers in Ireland, in Britain itself-or dragged by Thatcher's government and the Cold War fanatics of US imperialism into new imperialist adventures and even a Third World War.

Defence Secretary Francis Pym, predictably enthusiastic at the new recruitment figures, hinted at this when he called for still more to join up.

"The sustained build-up of Soviet military power over the past ten years is far in excess of what we and our NATO allies have achieved.

The preponderance ‚of strength on their side is dangerous to world stability and we must be especially vigilant until a better balance is secured.

The envernment is making every possible endeavour to build up our own forces as quickly as possible".

While Pym, Thatcher and the Tory warmongers beat the drum for anti-communism and militarism-spending countless billions on defence while axing schools, hospitals and social welfare-the trade union leadership does nothing to combat either unemJobs are being destroyed by employers at well over 1,000 per day: yet the TUC leaders have mounted no serious official struggle to halt the tide of cuts and redundancies.

And despite verbal platitudes by TGWU and ASTMS leaders about union rights for the unemployed, no resources are being allocated to the recruitment of unemployed workers and youth to the appropriate unions.

Initiative

Trades Councils in each area must be called upon to take the initiative, and organise local sub committees with a mandate to wage an all-out campaign to recruit workers to the army of labour, to the organised workers' movement, and to warn them against enlisting in the bosses' army of oppression.

'Don't join the army, join a union!' is the slogan to be taken up with renewed urgency throughout the labour movement as unemployment climbs well over the 2 million mark. ARMY CAREERS INFOR Pym