Call a Genera .all a bener( Strike!'-MP
Socialist Press1980 1980-09-03Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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A Labour MP has underlined the futility of the TUC visit to Thatcher and the Parliamentary "opposition" to the Tories.
Thatcher Adwest pickets So like Brixton, a strike that clashes head-on with the Tory/ police moves to deny the right to picket is deprived of assistance from the union leadership:
All the fighting talk about •The TUC should call a general strike next week," declared Ray Powell, MP for Ogmore.
"We as politicians, despite being criticised, have done everything possible in Parliamente can do very little else because Mrs Thatcher has got such a large majority.
The only alternative I can see is for the trade union movement to demand some action.
Whether Mrs Thatcher agrees to meet the TUC this week or next they should demand a general strike against her policies".
Powell's statement is a correct summary of the situation facing the working class: but it stands in flat contradiction to the toothless motions tabled for the Labour Party conference, and to the position of Party leader Callaghan-who has opposed strike action against the Tories and insisted they must be defeated "through the ballot box"
Other Labour MPs claiming to stand to the left of Callaghan must be called upon to endorse Powell's stand and to mount a campaign for a General Strike throughout the labour movement alongside a fight to oust the right wing Callaghan leadership.
The wave of sackings and closures in the textile industry has grown still further with the axing of 1,380 jobs by Courtaulds in the last week:
Eight textile mills in the Greater Manchester area are to close-bringing the jobs lost in cotton spinning in 1980 to over 10,000. -Yet as in every previous closure the bosses' attack has been met only by weakneed protests and nationalistic appeals for import controls from union leaders.
For textile workers in the North West and elsewhere the crucial question is occupation and supporting strike action to prevent these closures and defend jobs while the industry still exists.
Even more glaring than their ambiguity over Heath's Industrial Relations Act, the union leaders want no part of any action which could spark a mass movement against this or other key parts of Thatcher's strategy.
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Textile sackings