[JOBS BS 1065 The huge November 17 1976…]

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JOBS BS 1065 The huge November 17 1976 march opposing Healey's spending cuts PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report UES Tonna, 22 1070- higgest stonnage on wages since 1926 it and throws Party machine into 'yes' campaign alongside Tories and Liberals. • Anti-market left' minister Eric Heffer sacked by Wilson. BSC management demand 20,000 redundancies: but shelve the scheme after union leaders sign deal pledging speed-up and worsening of working conditions.

Unemployment reaches 9,50,000.

June 1975 Railwaymen's strike threat produces 30% pay settlement.

Healey openly threatens to use "Tory policies" if a new, tighter 'social contract' not accepted.

July 1975 Unemployment climbs over 1 million.

Jack Jones railroads fraudulent scheme for "flat rate" "voluntary" pay limits through TGWU conference. Within hours, Healey has declared state control of wages-top increase to be £6. He says:

"We must accept a 10% cut in the standard of living and public expenditure. The alternative [!] is to crawl to the IMF and accept the terms they impose upon us."

July 1975 160 Labour MPs and 14 ministers sign a motion defending Prentice against moves to oust him as MP for Newham N.E.

August 1975 Closure plans. in steel industry, textiles and engineering to slash over 4,000 jobs.

September 1975 Clay Cross councillors sued for £63,000 for defying Tory Housing Finance Act-government refuses demands to lift the fines.

October 1975 Government accepts Parliamentary Select Committee recommendation to restrict abortion rights.

November 1975 Chrysler crisis No. 1: government turns down offer. of Chrysler boss John Ricardo to pay £35 million to get rid of the British operation; instead Industry Secretary Varley pays out £162 million to persuade Chrysier to stay on-with the loss of. 8,000 jobs.

Healey offers "letter of intent" to IMF in exchange for £1,000 million loan.

December 1975 Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts come into force-little impact in im proving women's relative rates of pay or furthering struggle for equal rights in employment.

January 1976 Unemployment tops 1½ million.

February 1976 Talks begin on Phase 2 of wage control.

"Prevention of Terrorism" Act stepped up. Frank Stagg dies on hunger strike demanding transfer to prison in the six counties.

March 1976 37 Tribunite "lefts' abstain in a vote endorsing Healey's planned £3,000 million package of cuts, producing a temporary defeat. But the same 37 then troop loyally into the lobbies to support a vote of confidence in the government's "economic policies" CAVE SAVE B -and the cuts proceed.

Wilson resigns-and not one of the 37 abstainers is willing to run for the leadership, leaving Wilson's hench. men Foot and Benn to pose as "left wing" challengers.

Political status stripped from Irish prisoners of war by "tough guy" torture chief Roy Mason.

July 1976 New budget on eve of Phase 2 makes £1,000 million more cuts.

August 1976 Phase 2September 1976 TUC threatens to expel Seamen's Union and Jones threatens organised TGWU strikebreaking if NUS proceeds with threatened strike against Phase 2. NUS leadership, despite mass working class support, climbs down.

October 1976 Labour Party conference votes to endorse public spending cuts and wage controls.

November 1976 Courtaulds plan to axe seven factories, cutting 4,000 jobs.

By-election defeats in Labour strongholds Walsall and Workington.

November 17, 1976 Massive 80,000-strong demonstration against Healey's public spending cutsrestricted to one-off single issue protest by union bureaucrats. . In not one instance have union officials taken the initiative in calling for strikes or occupations to stop the cuts. Result: thousands of jobs and important services lost.

December 1976 Strikes break out against 4% pay limit in Midlands engineer• ing plants Rubery Owen and Salisbury Transmissionsfirst signs of a big wave of resistance on pay.

January 1977 Court rule:

that UPW has no right tc black mail to South Africa Start of new legal offensive against unions, at first spear headed by NAFF an tacitly endorsed by govern ment.

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'olice clear route for scab vans on Nottingham Evening Post pick et line. Now the courts have acted to ban solidarity blacking. February 1977 Former CIA agent Phillip Agee and journalist Mark Hosenball deported without trial or charge by Home Secretary Rees on prompting of CIA. Aubrey, Berry and Campbell arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act.

Foot February 1977 Wave of unofficial strikes against Phase 2 reaches BL plants including Longbridge and flows into BL toolroom strike. Threat to sack all 3,000 strikers, endorsed by Scanlon, leads to spontaneous moves towards national strike by AUEW skilled men. Scanlon howled down by toolmakers.

March 1977 Callaghan forms coalition alliance with Liberals to get through Parliamentary vote of confidence and proceed with Phase 2 and Phase 3 of wage control.

April 1977 Major unofficial strikes against Phase 2 at Heathrow Airport and Port Talbot steelworks. Healey unveils Phase 3-a 10% increase in earnings, meaning only 5% on the basic rate.

Summer 1977 Escalating police violence against Grunwick mass pickets. holds back allow firemen Then openly limit.

January 1978 tions of big to finance between the Labour, the Wednesday June 1977 Mason announces intensified repression in occupied Ireland-SAS murder squads enlarged.

July 1977 TGWU conference, reflecting mood in working class, throws oul Jones' plan lor rnase san "orderly return" to free collective bargaining.

August 1977 Queen visits the occupied six counties, congratulating torture chiefs and military rulers.

September 1977 Total ban on marches in Tameside prevents anti-fascist mobilisation-to be followed by similar moves elsewhere.

Owen's reactionary Anglo-American plan for preserving capitalist stability in Rhodesia announced.

October 1977 Hounslow Hospital work-in ransacked by management vandals. Health union leaders do nothing.

October 1977 Labour Party conference another non event. No challenge whatever to the Lib-Lab coalition. The Daily Telegraph pointed out that:

"the left does not want to chance its arm by endangering the new-found unity in the party in the run-up to the election."!

November 1977 Merlyn Rees's SPG thugs go on rampage against Grunwick mass picket-250 victims need medical treatment: 113 arrested.

November 1977 Firemen's strike: Callaghan calls in army scabs for eight weeks. TUC-'left' and right alikestruggles to to fight alone. accepts 10% Amid revelabusiness plots coalition Liberals and Liberal Party votes to renew the coalition 11. 7?д! -deal, confident that it excludes socialist policies. February 1978 Thatcher launches her offensive on immigration aimed at whipping up racist votes from middle class and backward workers: Callaghan offers her joint talks on the "problem"

Labour NEC reveals its "left-wing" plan for unemployment-to cut it to 750,000 by 1981!

March 1978 Labour's General Secretary Ron Hayward boasts that Labour is the party of 'law and order.

•All demonstrations are banned in London for two months to restrict antifascists.

March 1978 Labour 'lefts' join with Tories in racist proposals from the Commons Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. • May 1978 2,000 police break up May Day demonstration called by Leeds Trades Council.

The Leveller Peace News and The Journalist fined for naming "Colonel B'.

Liberals decide to break' coalition deal after the end of Phase July 1978 Police pay to go up by 40% as a reward for strike breaking activitiesbut Phase 4 revealed as 5%.

August 1978 Metropolitan police chief McNee calls for swinging new police powers -favourably greeted . by Home Secretary Rees.

August 1978 Government tax increases on North Sea monopolies-supported by Tories!

August 1978 Chrysler crisis No. 2: having soaked up £162 million of government cash, the British operation is flogged off to Peugeotendangering more jobs and remaining securely in private hands.

September 1978 Bingham Report, though a whitewash makes it clear that Wilson and subsequent government ministers knew of manoeuvres by British firms which which ensured sanctionsbusting oil supplies to racist. Smith regime in Rhodesia. No action by Labour lefts'.

September 1978 Callaghan pulls back from expected October election.

September 1978 Owen steps up public support for Shah of Iran after thousands of demonstrators shot down by troops.

September 1978 • Ford strike leads massive wave of offensive struggles against Phase 4 pay limits: to be followed by bakers, journalists, lorry drivers, public sector and civil servants.

October 1978 Labour Party Conference throws out 5% pay limit-but no opponent fights for removal of Callaghan Healey leadership.

Reselection of MPs blocked by Scanlon flouting AUEW mandate.

Tribunite left' Heffer sums up for NEC motion, advocating greater support for 'law and order' November 1978 Queen's speech debate sees Callaghan attacking trade unionism. Lib-Lab coalition now replaced by squalid deal with Ulster Unionistspromising additional MPs to Westminster from the "province" , and Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, with plan • for devolution referendum.

November 1978 Trade Secretary Edmund Dell resigns -to return to his merchant banking job!

November 1978 Thorpe murder hearing partially lifts the lid on the nature of the Liberal leadershipCallaghan's chosen coalition partners-and their links with the Labour leaders. December 1978 Callaghan defeated in Parliament in bid to enforce sanctions on firms which pay in excess of 5% limit.

In new precedent, court rules "secondary blacking" of Press Association by NUJ to be illegal.

January 1979 Strength of lorry drivers' strike action whips Tory press into a frenzy of anti-union propaganda, Callaghan joins indeclaring his willingness to cross picket lines. He is followed in this 'stand' by most of his cabinet cronies.

Court rules against "secondary picketing" of United Biscuits by transport drivers. Another firm seeks damages from "secondary" pickets.

January 19th Picket killed by scab lorry driver in January 22nd 80,000 public sector workers join a huge demonstration through Lo don to back their £60/ 35hour week claim. Though "selective action" they are confined to by their leaders breaks through the 5% limit, it leaves them, with a 9% settlement, worse off than a year ago.

February 1979 Barbaric "virginity tests" revealed to be carried out by immigration officials at Heathrow on Asian women.

February 1979 Court rules to deport Astrid Prollalleged terrorist-to West Germany where she faces brutal imprisonment and likely death at hands of prison authorities that have already murdered members of Baader-Meinhof gang.

February 1979 Mason publishes four-page broadsheet to "answer" IRA campaign on conditions inflicted on republican prisoners of war in Long Kesh concentration camp.

Two SAS thugs to be charged with murder of 16 year old John Boyle last year.

February 1979 The Concorlat appears. This is a TUCGovernment agreement to mplement Tory policies against union rights and to -And reda PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report impose permanent wage controls: it is signed by TUC leaders with no mandate whatever from their members.

February 23 1979 Civil Servants stage Day of Action. Callaghan, Owen and Foot are among the ministers who ostentatiously cross picket lines.

February 1979 'Shankill butchers' jailed: one turns out to be a member of Ulster Defence Regiment.

March 1979 Devolution referendum brings massive defeat in Wales and bare majority in Scotlandheralds new crisis Labour's deal with nationalists.

March 1979 Furore grows over RUC's systematic torture of republican "suspects" in Castlereagh interrogation centre. Publication of Bennett Report followed by Mason's claim that it "clears" the RUC!

March 1979 Devoid of any pretence of socialist policies DI reforms, Callaghan launches electioneering attack on costs of Common Market agricultural policy. :

March 28 1979. Collapse of squalid deals with nationalists and Ulster Unionists brings government to brink of defeat in Parliamentary vote of confidence: tipped over the brink by SDLP hack Gerry Fitt and Independent MP Frank McGuire who abstain over Callaghan's refusal to sack butcher Mason.

March 31 1979 International Day of Action on abortion rights. Healey's cuts have limited right to abortion on the NHS. Tories would cut back further still.

April 1979 Building on precedents of rulings against UPW, NUJ and TGWU, court fines NGA for blacking advertisers who continue to use scab Nottingham Evening Post as part of struggle for union recognition.

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Geoffrey Weston reviews 'Arguments for Socialism' by Tony Wedgewood-Benn, published by Penguin Books A recent public opinion poll in the Sunday Times found that of all the possible leaders of the Labour Party, Tony Benn was the least popular with the voters, even Labour

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