WSL Conference report - TURN TO ORGANISE ГНЕ UNEMPLOYED

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Massi unemployment demonstration in Glasgow growing racist and fascist trade unionists to follow the that capitalism can be for- And the amendment The Workers Socialist League conference document The Tory Offensive and the Prospects for Trotskyism was carried, with a number of amendments, by an overwhelming majority.

It spells out a number of the political and material problems that stand in the way of the successful struggles of the working class to defeat the Thatcher And it examines various sectors of struggle and outlines a programme of policies designed to mobilise maximum action by the working class and create conditions for the building of a new, revolutionary, leadership in the workers' movement.

• Impact Particular attention is given to the impact of unemployment on the working class:

"For the 2½ million officially on the dole, for the tens and hundreds of thousands of married women and other "invisible" unemployed, unemployment is an ever-present oppressive reality: one which fuels despair and demoralisation, isolates them from the organised strength of the unions and drives many to seek utopian or desperate individual "solutions".

Army recruitment is brisk among the masses of unemployed youth: other youth resort to crime on a less organised and officially.

sanctioned basis. For others the despair leads to clinical depression -even suicide.

For those still in work, unemployment hangs over their heads as a daily threat.

It hangs over every mass meeting vote; it stands as an The crisis of social democracy, the split within the Labour Party and the new situation opened up by the continuing leftward movement of rank and file party members was a major topic addressed in the WSL conference document.

It was also the subject of a lengthy amendment tabled by the ICL for discussion, the general line of which was accépted by the conference.

Forcibly planned

The document included an outline critique of the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' peddled by many sections of Labour's left wing-pointing out that:

"The AES is not put forward as part of a strategy to end capitalism, but rather tends to create. the illusion explicit or implicit penalty for challenging management on working conditions, wages or union rights.

Against those prepared to fight redundancies, "volantary» redundancies oI "natural wastage" , employers increasingly-like Ansells in Birmingham and BLraise the threat of total closure or wholesale sackings and the replacement of strikers by workers off the dole queues.

Unemployment looms the larger as a threat because it has appeared unchallengeable. Jobs have been massacred with virtually no substantial resistance by union leaders, and no cibly planned, thus acting to turn workers away from the crucial need to develop their organisation and mobilise to fight for their interests."

On the Labour Party itself, the document-drafted before the split of the SDP -draws attention to the weakened position of the right wing over the last 2 years, and the way in which the leftward shift of the party has spurred further recruitment of socialist The ICL amendment adds some background material on these changes, and underlines the reasons why the capitalist class as well as the right wing have channelled their resources into opposing democratic reforms in the Labour Party.

Main dangers

It points to the fact that the reforms that have been won have yet to be consolidated... - olicier pet forward to lead ..? doudinent goes on to look : both the fight to defend exiting jobs, and the fight to organise the unemployed through the building of Unemployed Workers' Unions:

«Firstly, and crucially, we must fight to develop Unemployed Workers Unions as democratic selforganisations of the unemployed which can provide an active focus for all sections of the unemployed whether they be youth, housewives or those driven out of industry and the public services by redundancies. warns of the threee main dangers: a) that the right wing will join with the "soft Tribunite Left" to gut the democratisation decisions; b) that the soft Lefts will bury the struggle against the right wing in a wave of anti-Tory demagogy la tendency counter acted to some extent by Benn's campaign against Healey); and c) "that Marxists will succumb to the pressure to adapt to and mimic the Left, abandoning their own ground."

To ward off these dangers the amendment calls for the building of a class struggle tendency in the Labour Party and labour movement; a fight for trade union democracy —using Benn's campaign as a focus-.

and the building of an adequate Marxist Party to offer leadership to the coming struggles.

i Suchority of the WL and of the fused organisation after the July 26 fusion - conference.

BARTON

BU DO WOT NEED YOALI Not only can unemployed workers' unions take example, made no call whatpr e immediate demands ever for strike action or even ut the unemployed, such as mass picketing to prevent for free travel on public the repeated AHA raids transport and the extension which put an end to the of useful public works by work-in at St. Benedicts. council direct labour organ- And at Longworth-isolated isations-thereby creating in rural Oxfordshire-the new jobs-but they can play COHSE leadership took over a vital role in linking the two months to produce so unemployed to the much as a poster, and has employed. done nothing to promote a Picket the outset that the TUC UWUs can organise their bureaucracy as a whole members to support picket lines, occupations, demon- closed by the dozen than strations and struggles by wage a fight against the Tory tenants--thereby placing their resources at the service of those sections of the manoeuvre must be analysed labour movement in struggle.

Similarly, in certain areas, branches of unemployed workers could play a crucial role in campaigns light." against racialism and racist violence and in the establishment of workers' defence squads to protect the labour movement and ethnic minorities against fascist attacks.

In this way UWUs can establish themselves as an important element in the violence, the fight to defend trade union rights against attacks by employers and the Tory government, and the fight for solidarity action in the British labour movement to support the struggle against British military rule in Ireland.

War drive For the first time the WSL document incorporated a section on the fight against the Thatcher/Reagan war drive and for unilateral nuclear disarmament. Recognising the size of the growing CND movement, the document points out that: •The leadership of CND however lies in the hands of the pacifist middle class. The anti-missiles movement still clings to the analysis that the problem is "two superpowers" which must be equally opposed and disarmed. Such arguments have found an echo from many of the diverse middle class forces that have noved towards the campaign-and from the state capitalist SWP.

But this should not deter us from intervening in• this movement, arguing for class The NHS unions for action to halt the war drive, and pressing the case for unilateral disarmament of the capitalist countries and defence of the USSR."

And it instructs the WSL National Committee to step up work on this issue: "We must find concise ways to carry home our basic message-that to stop the missiles it is necessary to stop Thatcher, through mass national campaign of action to bring down the Tories. We should raise the question of demanding that We must be clear from local councils block the development of missile sites would rather see hospitals in their areas, refuse to carry out the government preparations for "civil defence" and dictatorial rule from hardened bunkers in the Their every move and event of nuclear war, and publish the secret material in from this understanding, and their possession on the the rare militant statements preparations already made to made by individual bureaucrats must be seen in this repress any working class survivors of a nuclear strike.

Other sections look at Missile sites the fight against local authority cuts and rate/rent increases, the struggle against We should fight for other lead of the UCATI Regional Committee blacking work on n sites, and seking out means to cripple the Re Thatcher war drive."

Having adopted a lei perspectives fus amongst women at the conference, this year sa' cussion on women's oj sion focus on the questi positive discriminati resolution in favour of tive discrimination narrowly carried-and • place nurseries.

The relationship bel on the one hand the fig the WSL to mobilise, ‹ ise and recruit working women in the workplac the home and on the the need to elate tı more petty bourgeois 1 in the women's mov was also discussed. adopted document pc out that:

"A combination political work at a thec al and programmatic together with our abili lead working class w and carry through a po fight in the labour 1 ment offers us the means to attract the developed women froi feminist movement tr banner of Trotskyism."

Pointing to the pr ities and problems o next stage in the st against the Tories an fight for a workers' g ment, the doci concludes:

"Our task in the p period is to develop, te and strengthen programme in the pri struggles that take pla reach the broadest pr layers of working clas! women and youth now ing a way forward i the Tory offensive; a construct the cadre must spearhead the fig the mass revolutionary of tomorrow."

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