Defends Hired Butchers
Socialist Press1976 1976-06-30Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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MINERS Cont'd from front page lead a fight against it (though he had throughout the ballot offered no lead, and stressed that the NUM "should not fight alone").
Also at the Scottish NUM conference came a sharp attack on Gormley and Daly from one delegate who pointed out that while they claimed £100 a week was unattainable for face-workers they themselves were paid more than £150 per week!
This shows that these questions are being discussed within the working class, and that if the full facts had been revealed. to the miners, the 42% deal could have been thrown out.
Silent - Scargill The Communist Party preserves tactful silence on these issues for two reasons. One is obviously that their political coexistence with the reformist TUC and Labour leaders drives the Stalinists to protect them from attack.
But the other reason is that in the NUM as in many unions, Stalinists are a part of this privileged bureaucracy.
In the NUM all 70 officials, including the Stalinists are allowed a new car every two years in the 2,500 co class. The rising price of these cars means of course a hidden increase in their salaries.
The tax, insurance and repair bills on these cars are also paid by the union, on top of 6p per mile travel expenses! And at the end of his period of office an official can keep the car.
Gormley, of course, along with other officials enjoy further "perks". • When the Daily Mail sought a comment from him and Daly after the TUC Special Conference they were both already at a miners' conference in the south of France!
What is true of the NUM bureaucracy is also true of the bureaucracy of the other unions. Minimum rates for union officials are often several times the maximum wage of the workers they represent.
And free cars, meals and all kinds of other benefits are liberally provided. All this to officials who more often than not are completely out of the control of the rank and file, and who now see their principle job as one of assisting management to enforce speed-up and redundancies without confrontation.
Action must be taken to bring this state of affairs to an end. Gormley and Daly and those who support them must be removed from their positions in the NUM and the vote retaken on the 4%2% SLIDING SCALE The fight must be stepped up for the £100 a week demand, linked to a sliding scale of wages to defend the increase against further inflation.
Officials must be brought to heel by the membership. In the NUM and all unions there must be a policy of regular election of officials.
• And there must be moves launched to limit the salaries of officials to the average level of earnings of the members they represent. Only in this way can the careerists be driven out and a principled leadership be built within the unions. Daly speaking - supporting the 42% About 750 mainly immiLondon last Sunday against the dictatorship in India.
The three main groups in this country which claim to be organising on a progressive basis against the Gandhi dictatorship came together for the rally.
Of these, the Committee for Civil Liberties in India - a body of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which is seeking an alliance with some supposedly progressive elements of the bourgeosie - had agreed under pressure not to open the platform to speakers from the so-called Friends of India, the Maoists of the CPML of course refused to recognise any such question of principle and threw most of their weight behind the rally held by this right-wing religious revivalist group the day before.
Although it was agreed beforehand that there would only be labour movement speakers, the CPM brought a speaker from the Alkali Dal, a Sikh separatist party onto the platform.
When the speaker from the Oxford Action Group protested about this, he was told that the Campaign for the Release of Indian Political Prisoners (CR/PP) had agreed and that to prove this Tariqu Ali was lining up to be one of the speakers and he was wearing a CRIPP headband: It turned out later that CRIPP had not agreed to Ali speaking.
Virtually all the speakers spoke about "Soviet imperialism" and the "fascist" state in existence in India. These terms can only sow LEAGUE PUBLIC MEETINGS London Italy: Class Struggle Coalition?
Friday 9th July at 7.30pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Square London WCl Coventry Our Policy to Fight the Labour Government's Cuts Wednesday 7th July at 7.30pm Hertford Tavern, Junction St.
Revolutionary Work in Trade Unions Monday Sth July at 1.3 The Wellington Bristol St.
The disgraceful move by Labour Prime Minister Callaghan to call for the Angolan government to show "clemency" to the thugs now proved guilty of carrying out paid murders as imperialist mercenaries must be condemned by every socialist.
Callaghan speaks not for the workers' movement, but only for the extreme right wing within the Cabinet, who see their allegiance as to capitalism and its most confusion in the opposition movement. Only the speaker from the Oxford Action Group Against Dictatorship in India gave a class position of opposition to any landlord parties and that the opposition to the Gandhi dictatorship has to be on a socialist basis.
END AID
On the demonstration after the rally the Oxford Action Group slogans were "Indira Out! Sanjay Out! Workers and Peasants In! British and Imperialist Aid Out! Nationalisation of Factories and Land In! and Fight for the Right to Organise, Fight for the Right to Strike!
These were the only effective slogans as the CRIPP contingent (which comprised IMG, IS Asian Socialist Forum and others) didn't appear to have any siogans at all.
Further details are emerging on the loss of jobs resulting from the Labour government's imperialist adventure in confronting Iceland over the 200 mile fishing limit.
The latest information reveals a planned loss of jobs far in excess of previous estimates.
Half of the national deep sea trawler fleet is to be cut, throwing up 1,500 dea going jobs - and many times more this number will go in the processing and distribution industries.
capitalist economy, they turn first to attack the working class and drive down wages.
The events of the last few days will not end with Gierek's tactical retreat. • The crisis remains unresolved - and cannot be resolved by the bureaucracy.
It goes too alongside similar economic crises in other E.
European states - in particular Hungary.
And the upheavals, while questioning the rule of the parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy in Poland also throws right into question the stability of the Kremlin bureaucracy itself.
The Polish working class can break down the Stalinist distortions of the economy - ending shortages, queues, black markets and bureaucratic privilege.
But to do this they will have to sweep aside the rotten caste of functionaries and parasites who control the state party. reactionary defenders, not way to the working class.
Callaghan of course has a notorious record as an ally of every kind of barbaric and bloodstained regime.
In the last year he has been involved in collaboration and political support for the Shan of iran, the Spanish fascist dictatorship, and the Geisel dictatorsmip ın Brazil, among many other tacit arrangements.
The attempts by Callaghan and the Tory press to whip up tears of sympathy for the group of fasists and lumpen reactionaries who (with considerable cooperation and complicity on the part of the government itself) were recruited to the motley army of South African racists, CIA killers, and pro-American nationalists which attempted to prevent the overthrow of direct imperialist domination by MPLA forces.
NO SYMPATHY None of those accused deserves the slightest sympathy or leniency. The four executions and the other long jail sentences are correct - if anything, too generous - and are necessary to stand as a clear warning that such reactionaries will not go unpunished after the victory of the working class.
Nor must the betrayals of Callaghan and the Labour traitors be forgotten. They must be driven from the Labour movement, where they simply sully and spit Onl every principle of socialism and internationalism.
Workers in union 1 branches and Labour Party meetings should pass •resolutions disowning Callaghan's action, demanding his resignation as Labour Party leader and his replacement by a leader prepared to defend the working class.
Worst hit is to be Fleetwood, where fishing is almost the only industry in the town.
There Borton Deep Sea Fisheries are to reduce their 28 strong trawlej fleet to six.
The fight to defend jobs against these attacks is crucial. It must begin by demanding the books of the major employers be opened to elected union committees - to prove the case for nationalisation and planned development of the industry Only the political revolution against Stalinism will achieve this. In this the key political role must be played by Trotskyists in preparing conscious revolutionary The working Europe : clas of East and West common - face political tasks.
The struggle in the capitalist states agamst the employers, the Stalinists and reformists is inseparable from the struggle for workers' democracy and control in the Stalinist-ruled states.
Only with democratically elected workers' councils, with ar end to all forms of bureaucratic privi ege, an end to rule by secret police and army, and the opening up of political activity to all tendencies of the workers movement, will the Polish working class set itself once more - together with the workers of the rest of Europe - on the road to socialism.
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grant workers attended a rally and demonstration in