Leicester nursery fight

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only way to organise the building industry.

These are the main areas to be cut:

1. Tendering. The Act requires DLOs to submit a tender in competition with at least three other contractors for the following work:

a) General highways work over £100,000.

b) New build over £50,000 c) New build under £50,000 if the value is two-thirds greater than the total value of such work from the previous year.

d) Maintenance work over £10,000.

The Secretary of State will have the discretionary power to efficiency. This has led to a general attack on direct labour workers; redundancies, attacks on working practices, etc. And the DLO will now be looking to make a profit out of the other departments of the council; it will choose contracts according to what is most profitable, not what is most needed.

Secondly, in the longer term, the provisions of the Act, and the discretionary powers of the Minister, are so weighted against the DLOs that without an all-out fightback the DLOs are doomed. At best they will remain as a rump doing the work the contractors have rejected.

LICENS Shortly after this paper comes out parents at Beal Street Day Centre in Leicester will make a last attempt to stop it closing down.

This 35-place day centre will close on Friday March 27 unless the parents can prevent it.

They have already lobbied the Council and the Director of Social Services. And they have written letters appealing to councillors to keep it open-to no avail.

Two weeks ago they called a public meeting and formed a defence committee from parents and supporters including members of Leicester Nursery Campaign.

Unlikely

At their first meeting it was decided that it was most unlikely that either Social Services or the Council would stop the closure at this stage and so the question of occupying the nursery was raised.

The feeling was that since neither the Council nor Social Services could see the importance of keeping the day centre open, we should appeal to the community and the trade union and labour movement to support us.

Within a few days a petition was taken round, gaining almost a thousand signatures and at least 20 names of parents with under 5's who would like to use the day centre facilities.

Hardened

Although the parents have never before been involved in any kind of action, they were heartened by the support of the community and occupation was discussed as a serious possibility.

They ran through the pracrical derails : oten and how this modld zit par. sits. go for suppor:, aDo tici = the occupation and ie prosta of enlisting support to contince the nursery classes.

As mell as contacting satt unions it mas desed id: it mealye seë n a! E importaat role throușt unempioyed workers union.

A public meting has been organısed, where a speaker from Coventry's Wheatley Street Nursery Campaign has been invited.

Determination

Readers may remember that parents and supporters occupied Wheatley Street Nursery June to prevent closure.

The determination of the parents is strong-the main question will be the supporting action needed from the trade unions to ensure its success.

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c/o Surray Docks Child Care Project, Dockland setbament, Redrit Ra, London SE16. of the books of Tate and Lylecoupled with the formation of a joint occupation committee with others fighting redundancies.

As though carrying on dialogue with the WSL, union official Tony Humphries first words were on the bureaucracy's efforts to black Tate and Lyle goods and on "their" proposal for-a shop stewards' conference.

On occupation, however, we were treated to a repreat of his earlier statement that no occupation had ever been successful. Humphries skillfully "forgot" both Gardners and the miners' victory.

Instead, Tate and Lyle workers will be sent round to North West sugar distribution depots to picket them.

Meanwhile, Tate and Lyle workers will be producing sugar for all they are worth!

Tse: will. however, be DATE De sugar from Er terry, but this, by It a cpletely inadequate.

Only when the refinery stops producing sugar and is occupied will the rest of the working class in the sugar industry, in the firms supplying and trading with Tate and Lyle, take them seriously enough to take the supporting strike and blacking action necessary to defeat the employers.

Only then will local workers rally round to form a council of action.

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MO EMENT Liberal banner prominent on anti-nuclear march CRUISE NUCLEAR Unilateralist talk and right wing politics: SOGAT leader Keys SOCIALIS 'ednesday The dec sion by CND to convene a national labour movement conference against the missiles is to be welcomed:

Workers and youth, increasingly concerned at the danger that Thatcher and Reagan will plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust in the name of opposing "international terrorism" certainly need a forum to discuss the policies necessary to halt the drive towards war.

The question is whether CND and its leadership is capable of offering adequate answers to this basic problem.

It is certain, for instance, that a major thread running through the platform speeches will be that of simply building protest action against the Cruise Advocates of protest politics believe that it is possible, through pressure, to persuade the Thatcher government to change course.

Crisis Such a view leaves out of account the material basis from which Thatcher is driven towards her aggressive policies at home and abroad.

It is no arbitrary whim that has brought the Tory government onto the offensive-slashing jobs, living standards. and social services at home, and stepping up its efforts to intimidate and crush liberation struggles by workers and peasants abroad.

Thatcher is spurred on by the profound, insoluble economic and political crisis of imperialism and in particular: the acute economic chaos of the British capitalist class.

Her offensive, like that of Reagan, stems not from a position of strength, but one of weakness As the Budget showed, this Tory leadership sees no scope for retreats or compromise-least of all in the face of merely a protest movement.

It was the class action of the miners' strike, like the threatened national dock strike, which forced the only substantial retreat by this government.

In other words it is only the power of the organised labour movement which can carry through the fight to prevent the deployment of the Cruise It is the organised labour movement alone which has the power to oust the Thatcher government, • and to carry through a fight for a workers' government that will implement policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Defeat The debate at the CND labour movement conference should therefore focus on the steps necessary to mobilise such class action.

It should reject a campaign restricted in scope to protest marches, propaganda and more conferences. Instead it should spell out a programme of activity for trade unionists and Labour Party members, which can mobilise practical opposition to the nuclear build-up as part of the overall fight to defeat this savage government of bankers and exploiters.

It is in this respect that a labour movement conference should mark out its special role, as against the more usual type of CND event-in which workers and representatives of working class organisations are in general outnumbered by individual protestors from the middle classes.

The other way in which the March 28 conference should mark out a distinct position is STV in rejecting the abstract, pacifist notion that the war danger stems equally from "two superpowers".

All the facts show unmistakeably that the pace has been set in the post-war nuclear arms race by the imperialists; that the Cold War was initiated by the imperialists; that it is imperialist intervention-from Korea through Vietnam; from Angola through Nicaragua; and today in El Salvador and the Middle East, that has served to heighten political tension and create the threat of war.

From the other side it is clear that the Stalinist leaders in the Kremlin have doggedly set their face against revolutionary struggles by the working class in Europe, Asia and elsewhere; have responded to imperialist military threats not by mobilis ing the working class in the imperialist countries but by crude military counter-meas ures; and are at present once more on the retreat in the face of the Reagan offensive, seeking once again a new agreement to divide up the world into "spheres of influence", through which capitalist rule will remain unchallenged.

Exploitation

On the one hand is a vicious capitalist system driven by its own internal crisis and contradictions to seek to extend its rule and exploitation over the toiling masses of the world; on the other bureaucratic regimes seeking by bureaucratic means to defend a system of nationalised property relations,: on which they. depend for their power and privileges.

Those nationalised property relations are in fact historic achievements of the world's working class. A genuine labour movement policy against imperialist war must also be a policy ment. for defence of the deformed and degenerated workers' states against imperialist attack.

As such we should call for the unilateral, unconditional nuclear disarmament of the imperialist nations, giving no quarter to lying propaganda peddled both by the Tories and by : their co-thinkers in the labour movement about the tatorship! supposed "Communist threat" or the alleged need for "defence"

For the March 28 conference to offer the necessary lead, it would need therefore to base itself on the strength of the labour movement, and defend the international interests of the working class.

On a practical level it must map out policies for action in the workers' movement.

Blacking

•There are numerous possible avenues for intervention. There is of course the question of the construction work involved in the development of the missile bases themselves.

A fight must be taken up in the construction and transport unions for the blacking of all such work and of supplies and materials from yards and firms.

At the same time local Labour councils and councillors should be called upon to play a leading role, in mobilising mass opposition; in fighting to block planning permission for development; and in blocking any extension of facilities or public services to supply the new bases.

But aside from the missile sites themselves there is the whole apparatus of war preparation-so-called "Home Defence"-for which the government depends to a certain extent on local councils.

Tory plans to step up "Home Defence" include a doubling of local authority John Lister looks at the issues that ought to be paramount at the CND national laboúr movem‹ conference on March 28.

the implementation of these plans through witholding funds and cooperation and refusing to release council personne. for training; and draw out the fact that increased spending on thése preparations means increased cuts in essential social services.

Within the broader trade union movement, the fight must be taken up for a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament, not simply at the level of national affiliation to CND, but in the form of an active campaign to educate and mobilise rank and file members on the issues involved.

Of course many union leaders who happily make tubthumping speeches on disarmament at Labour Party conferences stand firmly opposed to mass action against the Thatcher government. They will use the disarmament issue as a left' cover while betraying the fight on jobs; wages and social services.

•Political obstacle The fight for action on the missiles issue therefore runs up against the same political obstacles as the fight for action on any other problem facing the working class.

The main stumbling block is the reformist politics, the class collaboration and national chauvinism of the 'established leaders of the labour movement. expenditure-at a time of This can be tackled only by the fight to construct a new, massive overall cuts in spending. revolutionary leadership within Nothing could more clearly the workers' movement as a underline the 'guns, not butter' whole, committed to mobilising line of the Thatcher governthe strength of the working class Under the "Home Defence" to defend its own independent plans, elected councils would be interests. immediately superceded by CND and its leaders have no such conceptions. It remains a appointed Controliers and a staff of professional officers, heterogenous, cross-class groupWing with no defined political backed up by police and army. perspective.

Far from defending "democracy", ", collaboration in such It is up to socialists to take preparations is i laying the up the fight within the ranks of CND to raise the central groundwork for military die- political issues and turn its supporters in fact rather than Trade unionists and Labour simply in form towards the Party members must demand labour movement. that Labour councils take action to expose the real nature of these Tory war plans; to block 2G417

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ON BOROUGH CUT TELL HOMLLNFODICLORIE

NOT NUCLEAR BASES TARGETS

ELFARE WARFARE