Miners' Victory Shows Workers Can Oust That Cher

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CUTS CONFERENCE: 21 March, LONDON Details, see page 9 NFAIK When last week the LIVES miners walked all over the Tory government, inflicting LYO the first major defeat since Thatcher conned her way to office in 1979, they did far more than defend their own jobs.

They knocked the stuffing out of the feeble argument that •workers won't fight this government". ' They put the boot into the argument that workers. should respect the "viability" of capitalist industry. They roughed up Thatcher's ruinous monetarist strategy of imposing cash limits in the public sector. And in their knock-out victory they showed beyond any doubt that this hated government of bosses, bankers, union-busters and racialists can be brought downif a lead is given to the organised working class. R.NT INCREASES workers fighting closures, redun- How many times have dancies, or pressing wage demands heard their union officials declare that they are willing to struggle but that "the members won't fight"?

Under cover of such arguments, TUC leaders have sat ROANISE N° back for years, and watched closures under Callaghan and Thatcher turn Britain into an industrial wasteland, while living standards have fallen steadily FIGHT THE behind inflation.

Yet NUM officials-particuRENT INCREASES larly in Kent, Scotland, South Wales and Yorkshire-prepared consciously for this fight on closures. They campaigned in the coalfields for a mandate for all-out strike action. They secured 86% and 90% supportand created a level of militancy ORGANISE N. W* that gave rise to last week's spontaneous walk-outs which in the event went far-faster than DEFEAT - lE the leadership had expected.

What a contrist to the miserRENTS 7! able fiascoes of protest campaigns against closures in British Steel, British Leyland, Bowaters, Dunlops, Tate and Lyle and now at Linwood!

What a contrast to the pathetic surrender of tens of thousands of jobs in the public Rent campaigners in 1973 services-school meals workers; local authority workers; health workers, and others thrown out of the workforce onto the dole queues or back into the home as NUPE, NALGO, GMWU and TGWU leaders sit idly by!

What a lesson to workers facing such struggles in the months ahead! Only all-out action-linked to occupation in the case of threatened factories -can confront the attacks being waged by the bosses and the Tory government.

And if the miners can fight and successfully rescue 30 "uneconomic" pits, doesn't this point the way forward to every section of workers to cast aside worries about the "viability" of this or that employer and instead take up the fight to defend their own jobs and living standards.

The fact of the matter is that it is not so much individual factories or corporations as the capitalist system which is bankrupt: it is incapable of offering the working class even the elementary right to a job and decent living standards.

The miners have been the first section of workers to fight uncompromisingly in defence of their own class interests and challenge the "right" of the capitalists to cast them onto the dole queues.

They forced an immediate concession from the Tories. Were similar action to be taken elsewhere in industry and the public services, it is possible even more concessions could be achieved.

Water workers pursuing their pay claim for instance may be the next to force Thatcher to retreat (if they can first force their leaders to call a national strike!)

But important as such victories are in strengthening the working class as a whole, the only guarantee of protection for jobs and living standards is the mobilisation of the labour movement for a general strike to bring down the Tories, and to press home the fight for socialist policies from a Labour Only a planned socialist economy can answer the anarchy of crisis-ridden capitalism and develop the productive MARCH monstrate against state repressi of Lesbian and Gay people SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY forces of society in the interests of the vast majority of people. Until then a threat hangs over us all.

The miners, for instance, have won a verbal agreement that the closure plans be abandoned. But-even if the agreement had been in writing-the employers are bound to continue to seek ways and means of driving up exploitation in the pits.

Meanwhile the Tory attack still affects the miners-with rent and rate increases, cuts in education, public services and health care and sky-high inflation.

There is no doubt that these thoughts were at the forefront of the minds of those miners who wanted to continue the fight even after the Tory climbdown last week. There is a huge feeling for action to bring down the Thatcher government.

At present a major focus of militancy is to be found in the struggle against cuts in local government spending, and the increases in rates and rents that are being inflicted on working class households.

The example of the NUM campaign-going out to rally mass support to a fight-must be rammed home to every left Labour councillor who seeks a way to fight back against Thatcher.

They must be told to go onto the council estates, mobilise tenants into committees, organise the unemployed to support the fight, address meetings of council workers, and fight tooth and nail for all-out resistance to cuts in service and increases in rates or rents.

The miners have just smashed. the cash limits on the NCB: now action must be taken to smash Heseltine's cash limits on local authorities. This can only be done through massbased confrontation.

The Tories are attacking on all fronts. It is on all fronts that working men, women and youth must organise and prepare politically to fight back. Socialist Press commits itself to campaign consistently for the necessary policies and leadership to take that fight forward.

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