[Students on the November 1 7th anti-cuts demonstration…]

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Students on the November 1 7th anti-cuts demonstration STUDENTS' STEP press in Leeds, only six weeks after the founding meeting of the Workers Socialist League.

It headlined on the betrayals embodied in the Labour government's National Enterprise Board -at that time under the direction of Benn as Industry Secretary, showing that the strategy it embodied was simply the payment of subsidies to private enterprise and the furtherance of class collaboration.

Two years later the issues posed in that lead article are still central to the struggles of the working class against the betrayals of the Labour GOAL The economic goal of the Calliaghan government remains the regeneration of British capitalism - at the expense of mass unemployment, huge cuts in the social services and working class * living standards.

And at the same time the Ryder report, drawn up as the first practical test for NEB intervention, has begun to be implemented in British Leyland at the cost already of thousands of jobs.

The Ryder scheme itself leans heavily for its implementation upon the collaboration in management of whole, layers of convenors and stewards sucked into the apparatus of 'worker participation' which has been lauded from the start by 'left' MPs and union leaders as well as the Communist Party as a 'step towards workers' control':

Socialist Press has stood from its first issue absolutely and consistently opposed to these moves of the Labour government, backed by their allies in the TUC.

We have based our analysis and programme on these issues on lessons drawn directly from the practical struggles of WSL mem bers against cuts, sackings, speed-up and PRACTICAL WORK And it has been the practical work of our movement which enabled us to highlight from early on the growing gulf between the determination of the TUC leaders to impose a second stage of wage control in the form of the 42% imit, and the mood of the shop loor union membership.

We have been able consistently to show in lead articles and features, the link between wage control and the drive towards Murray bureaucratic dictatorship unions.

FORESEEN

And we alone on the left have been able to foresee the current explosion of militant struggles in the working class.

At the same time the devotion of at least two pages in every issue to analysis of the international struggles of the oppressed masses against imperialism has meant that movements in Britain have always been seen in an international context and not in isolation.

It is this approach combined with serious attention to theoretical and historical questions which has established a firm footing for Socialist Press, enabling us to modernise our method of production, expand from an eight page to a twelve page format, to expected to come down.

It will not be long before the 10% annual cut in real wages, which Socialist Press has predicted would be the effect of the social contract, becomes a reality.

But at the same time as these figures are released, TUC leaders are making it abundantly clear they are hell-bent on enforcing a Stage Three of wage control after July.

Now there is talk of a Special Congress of the TUC to be held in March in an attempt to pre-empt resistance at this summer's union conferences to a new round of wage cutting.

TUC General Secretary Len Murray is stating that a pledge to cut unemployment is a *precondition' for a Phase Three.

Yet at the same time workers in every industry - from nuclear power to shipbuilding; from_coalmining to the National. Health Service - have their readiness to fight every aspect of the Social Contract.

To struggle against these betrayals a programme and perspective must be agreed. This is why the Recall Conference on Wage Control and Union Democracy called by the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement is of central importance in preparing the fight back.

We urge all readers and supporters to fight in their union branches, shop stewards committees, trades councils and Labour Parties for delegations and individual militants to attend the Conference, which is to be held in Digbeth Hall, Birmingham on Sunday March 27th, beginning at 10 am.

Copies of the Draft Resolution and credentials (50p) are obtainable from the Conference Secretary, Kevin Lee. 44. Devonshire Road, Hammon Wood. Birmingham weekly paper. undertake the frequent publication of our theoretical supplement, Trotskyism Today, and provide the basis to sustain our considerable coverage of industrial news.

But we are obviously not content to let matters rest at the present level.

Many additional areas need to be given coverage.

And a fortnightly paper, however comprehensive, must lack the immediacy and close coverage of events possible in a weekly QUANTITATIVE Our next goal for the development of Socialist Press is therefore not to quantitatively increase further the number of pages, but to make the qualitative step to a To undertake such a step in this BEREN The fight against Shirley Williams' attack on the education service was stepped up at the weekend.

Last Friday about 100 students picketed the Department of Education and Science in Waterloo. On Saturday 150 students attended an overseas students conference in London.

Trevor Phillips of NUS Executive presented a totally strategy for increases.

This included a "day of action" on March 2nd, and a national demonstration on March 9th.

The conference rejected these proposals, calling instead for the