'lefts'& Tuc Help Wilson Put 1,211,460 on Dole

Scan page 8

Workers on the 20.000 strong November lobby against unemployment. UCATT. SMOUTH NºS BRANCH The latest figures show that there is no let up in the intolerable growth of redundancies and unemployment. In December the total number of unemployed workers reached 1,211,464. This is more than one in twenty of the total labour force and double the figure of one year ago.

The increase of 42,000 between November and December shows that there is no shortening at all in the upward trend, which, if continued, would bring the total to nearly 2 million over the next year.

Recent statements about proposed redundancies in steel, the railways and hundreds of other industries show that, unless the strongest resistance is put up by the labour movement, the trend will worsen.

The present figures are already worse than in most of the 1920s; they are heading for the 1½ to 3 million who were unemployed during the worst years of the slump of the 1930s.

Along with the figures grows the crass hypocrisy of the Labour Party and trade union leaders. The reaction of Michael Foot to the December level of unemployment was to say that it was 'appalling':

"We do not regard it as tolerable. But it will not be easy to bring it down speedily"

In other words it is intolerable, but Foot and his cabinet colleagues are going to grit their teeth and tolerate it.

Foot is a good actor, eloquent and passionate; but no one is going to be convinced that his lamentations are anything more than crocodile tears.

The truth is that this 'intolerable' level of unemployment which Foot wants to disguise as a kind of natural disaster has been deliberately created by the policies of the Labour government as part of its policy to restore profitability to British capital.

Tax increases, the £6 wage increase limit which has this year cut workers' living, standards by The jobs of ove r 40,000 steel workers, and the : wages and conditions of the remainder are threatened by the pincer movement of the British Steel Corporation, and the Labour Their union leaders, headed by Bill Sirs, Iron and Steel Trades Confederation secretary, are following TUC lines and avoiding any fight to oppose government or employers.

They do this even though BSC has announced unilaterally that it is scrapping the hard-won guaranteed-week agreement - and proceeding to close down what it terms "high cost" plants.

These agreements must be defended. Neither Sirs nor any other union bureaucrat has the right to allow management to tear up long-standing agreements. All BSC's figures and arguments for cuts must be rejected, and industrial action taken to protect all jobs and conditions, and to force an opening of BSC's books to prepare for full workers' manasement of the cornoration something like tenth, redundancies in the nationalised industries and savage cuts in government expenditure are all causes of unemployment.

And all these policies are supported to the hilt by Michael Foot. What is really "not so easy" for Foot is finding new forms of words to clothe his hypocrisy.

CONSCIENCE

Luckily for Michael Foot he only has to tolerate his own conscience. It is the 1¼ million jobless who actually have to tolerate the consequences of unemployment. And as soon as they begin to take some kind of action to change the situation, they find themselves condemned by those who claim to lead the working class. Len Murray attacked the organisers of the November 26th lobby as "cynically exploiting" the question of unemployment for their own political ends. His slanderous implication was that they are glad that unemployment is so high.

We don't have to direct an equivalent slander at Len Murray. We would merely point out that by saying on the one hand that the latest unemployment figures are "a source of great concern" while at the same time discussing with the CBI how to step up productivity and trying to sabotage • all action against unemployment on the other. he shows through his own actions the same hypocrisy as the Labour cabinet. He exposes himself as incapable of leading any fight to defend the interests of workers.

Murray's continual nationalistic calls for import controls to •solve the unemployment problem, (seeking to throw it instead onto the backs of workers in other countries) has led to the latest barely significant series of government economic measures. These impose some control on the import of textiles and liberalise hire purchase terms.

Not only do they introduce the totally unacceptable principle of nationalisitic solutions to the crisis, they are also too quantitatively insignificant on the PRINCIPLED LEAD . cont from page 1 fight for programme in preparation to defend jobs. Far from the level of consciousness being raised in Ryton and Stoke, massive confusion was fostered by the refusal of the convenors to demand the opening of the books; their acceptance of bogus management figures (designed to justify the redundancies and appeal for government cash); their defence of the Labour government -claiming that Chrysler management are "misrepresenting" government intentions; and their refusal to fight for nationalisation ( a demand condemned by Stoke convenor Bob Morris).

HEAD OFF

In every way the Chrysler leadership has sought to head off the struggle of its members, reducing the fight to a haggle over how much redundancy pay they should receive.

Without this dead weight of reactionary leadership around its neck and given a lead from even a small number of stewards prepared to fight for the opening of the books, for nationalisation of the whole motor vehicle and component industry and for work sharing on full pay and a programme of public works to keep the factories in full production there is no doubt that government's own admission to make so much as a small dent in the problem of rising unemployment.

Foot used to cultivate the image of a 'left'. Now he acts as Wilson's henchman in every attack on workers. This is just the most open expression of the complete collapse of every one of the Labour 'lefts' in front of Wilson.

The demand must be stepped up in every union branch and CLP - make the 'left' MPs fight Wilson, campaign and vote against his reactionary policies and force him to resign. In this way their betrayal can be most sharply exposed.

The WSL says that the problem of unemployment must be fought by the labour movement through policies which do not divide workers from each other but which unite the workers of different capitalist countries and unite employed and unemployed workers.

* No subsidies to private employers - open the books and * No spending cuts - public works programmes to create new jobs at rade union rates under workers' nanagement! * Stop cowering to the bankers -›pen the books and nationalise he banks! • Fight all redundancies - demand work sharing on full pay! * Full trade union rights for the inemployed! • No £6 limit - fight for a sliding cale of wages!

This and coming editions of Socialist Press show the increasing strength of the WSL since we began publication nearly a year ago. Our monthly Fund is to help further expand and improve the paper.

Send all donations to:

WSL, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NWS 1HR.

jobs and working conditions, providing a national focus for the struggle against closures, redundancies and speed-up.

While the pessimists, opportunists and apologists for management will point at Chrysler therefore, and claim "the working class won't fight" , the practical lesson of Cowley shows that with a fight for principled leadership and a programme for action, it is possible to change these conditions and defeat the management's main support in the present crisis the class collaborators within the workers movement itself.

These developments could not have taken place simply on the basis of a principled trade union fight in defence of agreements, wages and working conditions. It was only at the point where these struggles could be waged in the context of a continuous struggle for the demands of the Transitional Programme that the basis of a new stage in the struggle for leadership could be laid.

And with redundancies, speed-up and closures emerging as the constant threat now in every industry, it is only in its struggles for the preparation of the work force to defend itself, and the building of a leadership prepared to stand on principle that a political movement can be judged.

----- pull-quotes -----

E500 monthly fund

the Chrysler work force would fight tenaciously in defence of