Linking the struggles

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bureaucracy present such open!

Wiseman. the health service: Lambeth Trades Council, has pation Lambeth of Action never called out.

by an 18 months ban on repres- end the defeats St.

months. of health unions adopting on: from implementing this policynew form, in which political leadership is necessary to meet the growing awareness that jobs and living standards can only be defended under a planned The necessity to link up the various struggles against the Tory public service cuts was referred to by many speakers.

Eric Jones from the Lancashire School Meals campaign emphasised the importance of linking action by school meals workers with parents and with fellow trade unionists in the local government and supply firms.

Anne McKinley, from the Oxford Nursery Campaign, charted the growth and development of the fight to defend nurseries from the time of the first occupation-at South Oxford nursery, three years ago in 1978.

She pointed to the development of the overall Oxfordshire Campaign Against the Cuts as one way in which the nursery fight had helped broaden the resistance-and also to the initiatives which had led to the formation of the National Child Care Campaign.

Colin Kenny spoke of the campaign to save London's medical schools from heavy cutbacks or closure, and emphasised the necessity of linking this fight to other campaigns throughout the London NHS.

And Mick O'Sullivan from Hack for joint spoke stewards spoke committees to coordinate resistance to the the Tory attack on direct works.

But a harsh reminder of the of the union cere malon sections of rice that o as sections of workers that do fight the cuts was moutat by vanessa Wiseman, President been victimised along with five other Lambeth NUT members or refusing an instruction by NUT officials to withdraw branch support from the recent against the Cuts.

of the six have been sentenced to six months suspension from the union, followed enting the union in any way.

Lambeth Treasurer and NUT Executive member Dick North is suspended from the union for and also banned from representing the union for 18 This action by the NUT bureaucracy is part and parcel of its betrayal of struggles on pay and against the cuts.

But it has not dented Wiseman's determination to fight "We are still against working people's living standards being attacked by whatever means. We will fight on for affiliation of the NỨT to the Labour Party. We hope you will invite us to come and speak to meetings in your areas."

Developing further on the role of the NUT leadership, Peter Flack, moving the conference Proposals for Action on Education pointed to the necessity to democratise the teachers' unions.

"Who are the NUT Executive responsible to? Who do they represent?

We must fight against restrictive rules, and light for a programme of action.

To fight to defend education today is to fight against the capitalist system."

Vanessa Wiseman worth, but other hospitals in the Yet for his pains he has been barred from joining the Oxford City Labour Party-of which chairperson McCarthy is a leading member.

Oxford Labour Party apparently extends a welcome to those who close hospitals-not to those who fight to keep them From the defeated occupation at St. Benedicts Hospital, Andrea Campbell stressed the main warning for militants in "If you're going into occubureaucracy, whatever you do.

They won't do anything.

We had hospital worker: who would have walked out in our support. But they were The only reason people are weak is because they are frightened. It is up to us to provide them with leadership. Let's Benedicts, Ettwall and the raid at Longworth."

Both Andrea Campbell Geoff Williams, NUPE convenor in University College Hospital, Cardiff, stressed the importance policy of no cover for unfiled vacancies in the fight to prevent the run-down of facilities and staffing levels.

Williams was able to relate one victory over management and also underlined the danger of inroads into the service being made by private practice.

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"Do we want to fight the Tories now, or do we want to leave it all to someone else?"

This was how John I Bloxam introduced the morning session on the crisis of local government. He emphasised that the issue in the cuts was not the actions of an irrational «mad axewoman" , but the outcome of a system in crisis seeking to restore profitability:

In this situation, he stressed:

"Piecemeal reforms are not on. Capitalism offers no solutions. This is a statement not of the future but of the situation here and now.

We must fight to kick out the Tory government. But we must also fight for a government of a radically different sort-a workers government. That is not the perspective of the Labour leadership."

Instead of arguing that the choice is one between capitalism and socialism, Bloxam argued, Labour politicians are pretending to workers that the choice" is between cuts or rate and rent increases!

Pointing to the link between the cuts struggle and the fight for accountability of Labour Councillors as well as MPs, Bloxam emphasised that the real issue now facing Labour's right wing is not to reverse the anti-cuts motions carried at last year's conference-which they have ignored-but to reverse the democratic reforms which seek to make them answerable to the membership.

Ray Davies, expelled from the Labour Group on MidGlamorgan Council for his opposition to the cuts, exposed the hollowness of right wing claims that they can both implement cuts and protect workers from their worse effects.

"The cuts are like a rubber ball. If you push it in in one place, it bulges out somewhere else!

And if all Labour councillors can do is implement Tory cuts, what are we doing there? Why A AA need Labour councillors?"

Dave Spencer, a prospective Labour County Council candiLondon-wide public meeting No Cuts!

No rate or rent rises! No council house sales!

Organised by Lambeth Labour Left All Labour Party members welcome date pointed to the expulsion of 12 Coventry councillors for opposing rate/rent increases.

Camden councilor Phyl Turner sounded a rather different note, explaining to the conference the background to the decision he and nine other left councillors had taken to climb down, from a stand of opposing rate and rent increases.

"From my point of view, councils like Camden cannot continue to operate unless they go outside the law" , he argued.

There are a lot of irightened people in the Labour Group, scared of personal surcharges and the threat of disqualification."

In the short term he had seen no alternative but to vote for "compromise" rate/rent increases: but, he said:

"The left must organise to get left wing councillors elected. Then maybe next year we will stand more chance.

He was answered by Graham Shurety of the Camden Labour Left, who underlined the fact that:

«We cannot answer the problems of the working class in the confines of the Council Chamber. We have to bring down this Tory government.

Phyl Turner focussed all the time on the debates within the Labour Group. That fight has our full support.

But you must also look outwards to the movement of the working class coming into struggle-the unions and tenants' associations."

From Lambeth, councillor Neil Turner showed how the latest cuts and rate increases had proved the November Lambeth conference right-the supplementary rate had not bought time but defused the Knight had helped lead the fight against cuts in 1976-but built no mass base of support. Now the local Party is dominated by the council elite-pushing through cuts.

"We must learn the lessons of Lambeth-and copy the kind of work done by the Camden Labour Left-linking up with the community, local Labour, Parties and unions before the fight gets under way "

March against Cruise and Trident Saturday 18 April Assemble 11.00 am.

Bulldog, Whitnash

followed by rally.

Organised by Leamington for European Nuclear Disarmament The decision of the workforce at Talbot (Linwood) to refuse to back a call by the shop stewards committee for an occupation at the factory marks the end of the struggle to prevent the closure of the plant with the subsequent loss of almost 5,000 jobs.

No one can deny that this constitutes a serious setback to the working class in the West of Scotland and to the labour movement throughout the country.

The crucial question is-how did this situation arise?

There can be no doubt that throughout the sixties and seventies the workers at Linwood proved their militancy and combativity.

Time and again, in conflict with first Rootes and then Chrysler management, they displayed their determination to resist management attempts to deepen their exploitation.

Despite the inadequate, vacillating leadership elements in the leadership such as the erstwhile convenor John Cartey, they became a byword for militancy in the West of Obviously a fuller analysis of how that combativity was undermined and dissipated over a long period is essential: but it cannot be attempted without a fuller consideration of all the elements involved.

What can and must be asked right now is-was the campaign to resist the closure conducted in such a way as to realise the full potential of the capacity of the workforce to struggle?

On that score some big NUPE bureaucrats have been angered by the publication of the pamphlet Nurseries: How and Why to Fight for Them, produced by the National Child Care Campaign.

NUPE's East Midlands Divisional • Organiser John McGuigan claims that he has been libelled' by the pamphlet's account of his failure to defend 136 Nottingham nursery jobs.

The pamphlet points out Attempted 'dirty tricks' by millionaire Labourite employer Robert Maxwell to undermine the threeweek old NUJ strike at Pergamon Press, Oxford, have come seriously unstuck.

MAHARAS pue pickets had been responsible for an assault on a Pergamon security guard was refuted by Oxford police.

Maxwell had wrongly claimed that an identity parade was to be held: and that a car allegedly connected with the incident was linked to strike supporters. Neither was true.

But a more subtle manoeuvie, through which Maxwell By Dunca must be recorded.

When the closure of the factory was announced by the Peugeot management five weeks ago, the initial reaction of Jimmy Livingstone, the factory convenor and chief representaive of the TGWU in the plant, was to express his "surprise"

that the management had acted in this way.

Endorsed

He and other stewards then went to the workers who strongly endorsed a campaign of resistance to the closure.

But howe could Livingstone and his fellow stewards have been in any way "surprised"when it was clear from the outset that Peugeot had no' intention of making Linwood a viable car producing plant, but had only acquired Chrysler (UK) in order to secure the extensive chain of retail outlets?

Surely the duty of the stewards was to forewarn workers of the prospect of closure and prepare them for occupation on a class basis. The contrary was the case.

The stewards then proceeded to troop down the well-worn prost roards committeed out Dunlop (Speke), Prestcold (Hillington) and elsewheremeetings with MPs, councillors, government representatives, management and so on.

As we warned at the outset of the campaign, "exhausting procedure" has meant exhausting the membership in a futile round of pleading.

What was the alternative? A handful : of stewards at the beginning of the campaien moved that there should be a decision to immediately estabthat the resultant increase in the staff/pupil ratio was the motive force in the refusal by NUT member Eileen Crosbie to teach an over-sized class.

NUPE officials are now demanding that the bookletwhich offers a wealth of practical and political guidance for workers in struggle to defend nursery provision-be withdrawn.

Despite the witch-hunt generated by these bureaucrats, NCCC militants are standing by the pamphlet. hoped to secure a decision of the NUJ's Emergencies Committee to call off the dispute, failed even more disastrously.

Maxwell had hinted to NEC member Vincent Hanna'that the strike was run by 'extremists' and that there was a large number of potential members at Pergamon just waiting to join the union-as soon as the existing NUJ chapel leadership were removed.

But at a meeting last Friday of the Emergencies Committee, attempts to act on Maxwell's proposals fell flat when confronted by a detailed factual account of the background to the dispute.

After discussion, a vote of confidence was carried in the chapel leadership; the official lish an occupation.

Why • was not supported!

Why did not only Livingstone and Rigby themselves move against that but why also did the policy not receive the backing of the Socialist Workers Party shop stewards?

The argument advanced by Peter Bain and other supporters of the SWP in the factory is that such a step at that point was premature. It would "not have received adequate support"

from the workforce.

Better, they say, to allow the Livingstone/Rigby line to proceed and to tactically judge when the situation was ripe to move the motion for occupation.

Why, then, decide to move the motion in the fifth week?

The SWP stewards argue that the mood of the workforce had been shifted towards a more positive stance by the support they had received from Clydeside shop stewards and the Scottish Conference of the Labour Party in the preceeding week.

Dissipated

This, they say, created the conditions for a development of consciousness among the workers, making the acceptance of occupation more likely.

But was not the opposite the case? Was it not that the initial enthusiasm for a struggle was dissipated in an endless round of lobbying and negotiations, which was carefully nurtured by the STUC bureaucrats, and which failed to actively involve the workforce in the campaign?

In the final vote on the occupation there were 1,500 JEANS THE NIGHT after the decision against occupying Linwood, the women workers sitting in at the threatened Lee Jeans factory in Greenock voted 1694 to reject improved redundancy payments.

They decided at a mass meeting to continue their occupation indefinitely-and learned that their action has now been made official by the NUTGW.

Donations should be sent the treasurer, c/o TGWU, Brougham Street, Greenock, dispute benefit being paid to the nine striking journalists. was increased from £25 to £35 per week; Maxwell's press statement was referred for possible legal action as a libellous document; and General Secretary Ken Ashton undertook to take more urgent steps on the crucial question of securing supporting blacking action from the NGA.

With strikers' . morale strengthened by the week's developments, it is more vital than ever that the blacking is achieved, Pergamon's journals production halted, and Maxwell forced to concede the chapel's pay and conditions demands:

Messages of support-particularly from Labour Parties and print unions-should be sent to the strike committee, c/o 5, Union Street, Oxford.

workers who supported the stewards' recommendation. But were not these 1,500 votes there from the start of the campaign?

And were there not more votes which had drifted away ás the prospect of a worthwhile struggle receded?

It will now be said in some quarters, that the workers refused to fight and grabbed their redundancy money instead.

That money, however; amounts to only £4,000 per person at the maximum. There was no word, nor will there be, of larger payments such as we have seen in steel, the docks or the mines. Are we seriously being asked to agree that the majority of the Linwood workers were seduced simply by such paltry sums of money?

More to the point would be to ask whether they had confidence in the capacity of the majority of the shop stewards committee for all-out struggle to defend their jobs.

are not engaged • in factional political point-scoring nor indulging in a complacent «told you attitude, commenting from the outside of the struggle.

We are seriously asking Linwood workers to consider the following questions. Was the course pursued throughout the campaign correct? Should there not have been a determined struggle for an immediate occupation from day one?

Was it correct for militant shop stewards to remain loyal critics of the Livingstone/Ribgy line when it was clearly leading to disaster?

We hope that Linwood workers, and especially those who have supported the policies of the SWP, will avail themselves of the pages of Socialist Press to answer these questions.

bosses BL has received a setback in its plans to break down protective agreements and increase the rate of exploitation of its workforce.

Management at the Cowley Assembly Plant attempted to use current production changes to abolish the plant's Movement of Labour Agreement, which gives workers the right to jobs on the basis of seniority.

Production of the Ital was slashed last week from 1680 to 1080 per week while the Maxi's programme is increased marginally from 880 to 1200 per week.

The move throws up 800 workers of which management intend to keep half to staff the Honda Acclaim when production begins next month. They are trying to pursuade 400 others to take voluntary redundancy.

When the new programmes came into force, management refused to reschedule the Maxi track on the basis of the Morement of Labour Agreement.

Suspended

They announced the agreement would, be suspended until October which would allow them to staff the Honda Acclaim by management selection.

The hard line, however, was short lived. Management rapidly retreated following a mass meet. ing of production workers which voted not to return to work until the agreement was re-established.

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SOCIALIST PRESS

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Friday 3 April at 8 pm Lambeth Town Hall, Acre Lane, SW2