Socialist Press no. 54

TUOLROOM WORKERS

FIGHT SOCIAL

WAGEC ONDNCS MARCL97 GEDA

PRESS

END THE

SOCIAL

JACONTRACTI

TIM

SOCIALIST

If British Leyland's 3,000 striking toolroom win their wage demands they will deal the death blow to the hated social contract and its enforcers in the TUC and the Labour government. While the Chairman of their unofficial committee, Roy Fraser, might claim they are not against the social contract, the reality is that their claim cannot within the framework of the 5% deal.

STAGE THREE

And, what is more, it cannot be met under a wage controls either. Because, des- pite the continuous TUC leaders and the Communist Party about possible and restoration of "differentials" after Phase Iwo runs out ın July.

government and

GOTEN

completely committed extending wage control. That Cor only mean control everwise it enforced otherwise collapse matter This is WC The wave of occupations now taking place in colleges and universities throughout

WACE

the country is imony tostudent willingness to fight the proposed tuition fee increases. The proposals were announced last November by Shirley Williams will mean an average 313% and increase in fees. These increases represent nothing direct governmental attack education in Britain. Overseas students particularly hard hit; Williams has already declared her intention to reduce the number

FORTNIGHTLY PAPER OF THE

WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE

No. 54 * March 2nd 1977 * 10p

CONTRACT

importance of fighting for full support to the toolroom workers.

workers The stakes are high. The Callag- fall govermment das prenea tus entire imposing strategy on of rigid аношен working class, controls upon the as part of their effort to restore profits in private industry.

LOCK OUT

And the rumblings clasures or even a possible govern- be met lock-out in Leyland

HOCAE

tactfully referred to as a "cooling off period" indicate seriously they and the employers the toolmakers threat таке their plans. Stage Three of Meanwhile dozens of full-time union officials have been queueing talk from up to get in their attack section of which has workers "flexibility" dared to defy their bureaucratic control. The AUEW National Executive

TUC

"left" and right alike are - both to voted unanimously to instruct the strikers back to work. wage This instruction was rejected.

rigidly Birmingham

AUEW

would Official Ken Cure attempted to of days. attend the meting of the tool- makers' unofficial stewards' com-

SECSS

STUDENTS FIGHT CUTS

students from 80,000 to 70,000 by 1980. And as 47% of all postgrad- clear test- uates self-financing, increases will obviously mean a clearing out here also. The proposed increases thus clearly an education cut, and hand-in-hand with Williams' other proposals to shut down as many teacher training colleges as can. Needless to say these attacks more than on students will soon be followed on by attacks on all workers in the will be education sector: lecturers, main- tenance staff and catering workers students, of overseas Less therefore less mittee on Saturday - only to find aa ous vole to exemee mu from the meting. Budding TGWU General Secre- tary, Moss Evans went on radio on wage Sunday to add his call for the strikers to return to work - with- out any impact whatever. And Monday

AUEW

District Secretary Bert Benson failed in both his bid to meet the about 45 toolroom stewards the Longbridge plant and his aLLC HOU covenne meting of the 1,000 toolroom how - with stewards manning WeIKeT- the factory gates to turn back their members with not a single worker toolroom attending Benson's meeting. on this

VIOLENCE

Meanwhile at Cowley toolroom workers picketing Leyland's Body Plant had to confront an unholy alliance of Communist Party and TGWU stewards and right wing conveners threatening to whip up violence against them. This was echoed Castle District Bromwich, where TGWU Regional Secretary Brian Mathers was Cont'd Back Page, Col 3. work, therefore less jobs: this is the Williams' of Tcdl NaLTe Education "Debate". the In the face of these attacks the Left leaderhsip of the Bread National Union of Students have done absolutely nothing alIC Or more accurately, they have gone out of their way to defuse existing struggles and to prevent any new ones from getting off the

ZO UTU

Recent struggles at Essex, LSE and elsewhere (see p.5 for details) prove once again that the fight against the proposed increases fight against necessitates a the Broad Left within the NUS, and Cont'd Back Page, Col 5.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Page 2

PORTUGAL:

SOARES- BANKERS'

BEST FRIEND

Torturere worker When Portuguese Prime the common inarket of Portugal's Minister Mario Soares walked eligibility for the capitalist club of the tight-rope of EEC capitals Europe, he must not only hold his check, but working class fortnight tens of ago, UW1l destroy what is left of the gains of thousands of striking fisher- the Portuguese revolution - nation- men and textile workers called union rights. alisation and trade for him to jump. That is not easy. But Soares and his Socialist Party Soares's first European high- government, wire act (the second is scheduled aided by the bourgeois Centre for 6th March) was only a limited Democrats and social Democrats (and in a more roundabout way by In order to persuade the heads Cunhal's Communist Party), are

IN BRIEF

- Kim Il Sung's people have been killed by North Korea more "while resisting arrest" Stalinist has dropped the police its long standing demand for the the press reported 69 killed in this from between January and October withdrawal of US lorces South Korea and wants to negoti- 1976. ate an all-Korea federation with the Chile - In an interview publish- the reactionary without any pre-conditions ed in the French paper Le Monde a South spokesman of the Christian Demo- The elderly Kim has turned North the party Korea kind 'Stalinist cratic party, says that share with the power monarchy' by having his son desig- wants to nated his successor as head of state military which politics for "will not return to the good and and of the Communist Party. barracks" Bolivia - The announcement of If the military demand in the era of 'liberalisation' a by Com- new transition period that the military dictator Hugo Banzer was munist Party stays illegal then 'we followed within a few days by shall have to talk to the Commun- wave of new arrests of members of ists'. 'Between me', you left parties including the spokesman said, 'they think just as Communist Party, the Revolution- we do'. Left Movement (MIR) and the ary was right: CP leader He Luis Workers Revolutionary Party Corvalan has recently stressed two

(POR).

things: the need for an alliance with the Christian Democrats and the China The Chinese bureau- of searching out the is ready to negotia- стасу open "democratic" of the with the United States

SCENDID

officer corps of the army.

settle the US claims for property abour 200 worth million dollars Zimbabwe In announcing expropriated at time of the proposed relaxations of the Land 76 milion dollars here are also Apportionment other and Chinese million dollars aspects of racial discrimination, lan ssest 'frozen' in the US.

Smith's racist regime is attempting calls an what he *internal get settlement": some way of involving Amnesty International seminar on Iran held despite the part of the black leadership (possib- han's protest, shows ly Bishop Muzorewa) in a compro- m noland, hat there are between 25,000 ans mise with racism which might stem 100,000 political prisoners in Iran.

the growing support of the black of Zimbabwe for the Since 1972 there have been over

POPULI

300 judicial erecutions Hundreds iberation struggle game to try. Essential to preparing an all-out attack on the trade unions is the sellout to American imperialism. Early last month it was announ- ced that foreign currency reserves were about to run out. background of a the 'tighten-your-belts' New Year's speech by right-wing military Presi- dent Ramalho Eanes, 300 million offered loan lollars to prop them up 'hat won part of a 1,500 millior dollar rescue' programme organised by the American government and to be funnelled through the Inter- national Monetary Fund. the strings Although attached to this bit of capitalist 'generosity' have been made public, austerity budget passed with the the help by abstention) of the Party clearly a Communist precondition.

SUBSIDIES

So was the announcement on 9th January of subsidies for private industry. sion of closer European Alexander supervising Portuguese NATO brigade, by the Americans and supplied with equipment from the US and West Germany. The according Portugal's 'special situation' For workers, of the rate of inflation petrol Given 1000 Coas estimated need 1977, the 15% deltaluation or the escudo just declared is going great deal that inflation a worse. such circumstances the government's attempts wage at the lines along British "social contract, will surely be put to rout.

STRIKES

The February strike wave gives of what the working some class has in store for Soares and his capitalist friends. When Secretary of State Caello tried to remove from the seamen's union the right to control the

SPAIN: FAKE

DEMOCRACY

Spain's Francoist dictator- has even provoked the ship indignation of its two faithful the reformist and servants, Stalinist leaders. Under its Party (PSOE) of Felipe Gonzalez; but it has simultaneously the right wing "historic" PSOE, led by a group of exiled time servers, such as Rodolfo Llopis. This, says Gonzalez, is a plot to confuse the electorate and reduce vote in the elections "historic" PSOE should have been forced to change its name.

ition' negotiating team, which has just reached more of less complete agreement with Premier Suarez on the rules of the election.

The CP is equally piqued by the it at all. The case has been sent to decide within 30 days. The CP has in any case already dates who, even if it is not legalised will put up as independents.

Along with the CP's application the regime also threw out those of Maoist-centrist issuing of cards and the formation of crews, 20,000 fishermen with- drew their labour. By 16th when the strike ended with partial satisfac- tion of the demands, their ranks had swelled to 25,000. During the same period there were major disputes in the textile industry and railways. on A strike of civil servants in protest over a 15% pay limit was deciared illegal by the government and converted into a 'day of infor- mation, mobilisation and unity, of workplace Soares has responded to press criticism by announcing restrictive legislation for the media, ostensibly against the right, or later to Socialist Party to sow divisions among workers by draw- ing trade unions around a sort of alternative TUC called the 'Open Letter' Group, in opposition to the CP-controlled Intersyndical.

success, mostly among white collar workers in the North, even though the bureaucratised nature oi inter- synaical nas given enem a 8o00 national congress of trade inaugurated Intersyndical's succes- sor, the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers National Intersyndical (CGTP-IN).

MINOR CHANGES

The

CGTP-IN

firmly remains of the CP, under the thumb a left-centrist opposition athough the Congress able to within force through minor changes to its statutes. "programme of action' of The organising the committee of the CGTP-IN prociaims: "The trade union movement will mobilise all workers to provide the productive forces economic, resolve the serious financial and social problems of the country. The CGTP-IN leadership must be forced to break from this line, and to organise strike action against anti-union laws, the conttol. wale

EEC

negotiations US inter- and vention through NATO. Otherwise the spectre of fascism, aided by US imperialism, will walk again. the Revolutionary Workers' Organ- isation (ORT), the Labour Party

(PTE)

and the Communist Move- ment (MCE). Another failed applicant was the "Trotskyist' Com- hero HOTEY League

(LCR)

which munist supports the Majority Tendency of «United" Secretariat of the Fourth International. For an organisation claiming to be Trotskyist to apply for legal- these conditions is indefensible. Asking a government of fascists permission to for exist can nothing but give more legitimacy to that government. No addition proof is needed to "expose" the utter fraudulence of democratic reforms. tbe regime's The will take

PENNON

without the legalisation all workers' parties (which the regime has no intention to allow), with a the proportion proposed legislature being nomin- ated by the King, and without its being clear given powers. They are a mockery of demo- This, however, will not стасу. Commun- the Socialist and stop. ist Parties from forgetting their lukewarm call for a boycott of the two months ago and referendum treachersouly participating the regime's fake demo tatic plans. SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 2nd March, 1977.

GANDHI

ON THE

RUN

The possibility is growing that the Gandhi dictatorship survive the Indian will not general elections in which voting takes place on March 16th. outside Both inside and her Party the campaign has Congress been a disaster for dictator Indira Gandhi and her and heir apparent Sanjay. of other prominent A number Congress politicians have deserted the Congress and either the Janata Party (an unprin- cipled alliance of 'socialists', Hindu nationalists and others) or to the "Congress for Democracy' formed by former Agricuture Minister Ram. Gandhi Those remained in who have Congress have forced Indira Gandhi to drop her reliance on her Sanjay's hoping for 200-300 of the parlia- given they include Sanjay Gandhi be small enough, which Gandhi can the last two weeks I which, flirting for a few days with possibility of opposition, usual electoral. allance and the CPI will be facing a similar electoral alliance of the opposition - the Janata Party, Ram's Congress ominous sign of all since, because of the proliferation of opposition not one a volc Even in the 'landslide' of 1971 although many of its candidates are still in prison under the emergency regulations; could win. But this right wing alliance can nothing whatever for the provIde masses of workers and peasants in India. of Its programme consists single point: opposition to Gandhi.

elections, Whoever wins the therefore, the Indian masses cannot expect parliament to solve a single problems abject poverty and oppression which beset them. The situation poses with greater urgency than ever before the need construct a Trotskyist party which can lead struggle India around democratic and transitional demands which the real answer of needs Indian workers and peasants. MOut with the Gandhi dictator- ship! *No confidence in the "oppos ition! "Free all political prisoners and end the emergency! Liquidate the repressive apparatus. *Expropriate the landowners! Redistribute the land! *Cancel the debt of the small farmers! a sliding scale of wages "rOr and hours! *For programme of public works to abolish unemployment!

PAY STRUGGLES

SWEEP EUROPE

The of strikes in wave Holland, which over the last three weeks halted ports and several other industries, achieved partial victories: Employers nationally have been forced biy the action to agree to maintain the limited sliding scale of wanted wages they which abolish. The strikes have been mostly to secure the other demands which included a 2% rise in the basic real wage.

EMPLOYERS

Employers in different industries offered either nothing or 1%; and most of the settlements reached so far have given a rise of between one and two percent. as early demands such high pensions retirement with to be negotiated. And in firms the strikes are contin- some the face of uing in inadequate offers. campaign The has been militant one backed by large demonstrations in the malor cities.

especially in Rotterdam where the ports remained closed for almost What is the explanation of the suspiciously intimate pol- itical relationship between the of the Workers leadership Revolutionary Party and the of anti-communist regime Colonel Muammar al Gaddafi in Libya? The question emerged again last bestowed week as the WRP coy support on the launching in Britain of Gaddafi's "Green Book' which sets out his political 'philosophy.

followed glowing WRP's press from reports in the 'correspondents' anonymous Libya which might well have been taken verbatim from Gaddati's oil- rich propaganda services.

issue of the Last Saturday's WRP's paper Newsline carrie a vigorous plug for the 'public discus- sion meeting' complete with cine cameras and a full complement of Libyan diplomatic staff on "Green Book', run two Gaddafi's Libyan previously by the embassy in virtually Kensington Town Hall. The Newsline reporter (and WRP Central Committee member and full time official, Roy Battersby) complained that 'Gaddafi's writings and his drive towards people's democracy hardly received the attention they deserve.

listen 01 * 14. 1 And. it is contricution the meeting itseli, КАРТАВЬ bleated that the two main platform - right-wing Labour MPs speakers Andrew Faulds and Prenticite John Cartwright had paid too much attention to the defence of Parlia- 'democracy against Gaddafi's criticisms. What Mr. Battersby did not tell Newsline readers was that his fellow WRP Central Committee member.

Vanessa Redgrave, had also accepted an invitation to appear on the platform. Her name was widely publicised (in the Times, for example,) as a organisers explained speaker; the 'unfortunately prevented' she was from coming. examination of Gaddafi's philosophy reveals Tea! three weeks. In many instances the bureau- cracy had to struggle hard to force workers back to work after settle- ments which did not meet the full The gains however have demands. been limited but real. Most importantly they snow that Dutch capitalists have been completely unable to impose their undefeated working will on class. Workers have at least maintain- ed living standards at a time when capitalists are seeking every possible way to reduce them. the In neighbouring Belgium same struggle has now begun. There it is directed straight at the govern- policies of and its wage control and spending cuts.

linked to the unions Prime Minister Tindemans' own Party have Democratic supported the plan. for one day strikes in the bublic sector. begin- the first strike ing last week will for 17 Beigian rail- years on the ways.

POLITICAL

Tindemans has immediately ack- nowledged pontical nature of and in a campaign of the strikes

LIBYA: GADDAH'S LEFT FRIEND

WRP

leadership are why Ine making diplomatically their opportunist relations with the Libyan state over-public.

When Gaddafi launched his *popular revolution' 1973 he 1n his precisimed The These included: = E = politically i.:. Zurawa, 15th April, (Speech at 1973). fulfillment of his policies Gaddafi has used troops, for shoot down left-wing students Benghazi. a sympathetic by interviewer lined sis notorious poliss out- policy medieval islamic law. reinstating He was in favour, he explained, of cutting off the hands of thieves.

He thought, however, there was 'interpretation' and that room for the penalty should not automatic- ally be applied to those who stole in order to eat.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

FINTFORD ETAS KOMPOSS

Italian workers demonstrate right-wing called demagogy them threat democracy. In Belgium workers are fighting maintain their limited sliding are demanding scale reduced working week with no loss of pay.

HEADING OFF

These demands cannot be won the working class unless goes of beyond one day Tne method which are designed by the strikes, to head off a bureaucracy real political struggle. of In Denmark, too, notice strike action has been served by the the Social unions Democratic government, which was power with returned to significant last month's general gains elections. have refused to The unions accept the government's plans for a statutory wages policy which would restrict increases to 6% a year for Gadaffi explained, Any humanity, he required that these days ampu- tations should be carried out under anaesthetic. But the case of adultery, he went on, was unambiguous: "The punishment is flogging: more precisely ine adulterer hundred lashes. There, receive things are clear and unequivocal: a bundred lashes are a bundred lashes

FLE:

7I= :EE

ment. It was, indeed. diplomatic Di M s Redgrave to find an excuse not to appear. On the day of her public meet- Gaddafi's ing government all announced hencetorth atal forms of private capital will be allowed to invest in the country: a advocated by both policy warmly the Labour MPs. The question to which members of the

WRP

should demand answer is - Why does Gerry Healy's leadership lend its name and press support of this reactionary to the charade?

GARZANTI

SCIOF

the next two years. Sri Lanka It was these plans which precip- itated parliamentary crisis which forced the general election.

even if they have The results, made the Social Democrats' parlia- CP quits mentary position more comfortable have done nothing to resolve the crisis of Danish capitalism.

of negotiation in Week of Last week's exit Italy Andreotți's Communist-sup- Communist Party from ported Democrane government has still failed right-w to get Bandaranaike's agreement on range of anti- coalition government was through working class measures opportunistic as its entrat which it hopes to alleviate the seven years ago. economic crisis. mobilisation of the mass Having helped to implem working class could throw out the Freedom Party's consister the government of Italian Tories. But anti-working class policies, the so far such a mobilisation has been alarmed by their increasing unp prevented by the criminal collabor- shown wave ularity as in the the Communist Party, ation and Janu strikes in December Party has tried to save itself from obliv Socialist and by has toned with th leaders. has joined with the "Trots

APPEARANCE

ist' LSSP in an alliance of opi tunists called the Socialist Fr The LSSP is itself only out cannot force the nev still the coalition because it was thre Italian working class into accepting out by Bandaranaike (now Genailu Freedom Bandaranaike's Roy Jenkins' backing) and they are still has an absolute majority now opportunistically putting up the appearance of resistance to parliament. But, just so as the withdrawa details of the Andreotti the CP shouldn't create parlian while sup- has sir difficulties she porting its general line.

parliament for ti Throughout Europe the effects suspended of the capitalist crisis are throwing months. she simultaneo Although millions of workers into struggles control, inflation, lifted regulat against wage during imposed the uprising unemployment and attempts to cut 1971, this new move gives social services. virtual dictatorial power.

She The lesson of both the setbacks claims that she will allow and the partial victories in this elections general struggie is tnal ll can oc won - Dul constitution before the end of only through all out strike action to year. back up demands for a sliding scale the problems of of wages, for work sharing with no neighbouring dictator Gandhi : loss of pay, and for public works well change her mind. programmes to provide jobs.

WORKERS

SOCIALIST LEAGUE

The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation fightin to build a revolutionary leadership in. the working class to lead th opposition to the betrayals of both 'left' and right win mounting Labour and trade union leaders and the Communist Party, , as the attempt to enforce wage control, sackings, speed-up and public servic As workers take up the struggle against these policies they ar opposing them to confror the sheer weight of torces political questions. Only with an understanding of the role of th labour bureaucracy and a programme to unite the broadest sections o workers in struggle can a way forward be found.

The Workers Socialist League is the only movement that sets ou to do this, fighting consistently in the working class for transition demands, which go beyond simply trade union militancy to tal the political questions to workers and prepare the forms of organi ation and the knowledge necessary for the struggle for socialism.

As a result we hare been at the forefront of struggles against th sitins wape control, for unionisation, and against redundanc!

hie bare dose more than any orber tendency to fight the introductio of Forkers And we have strongly particapation orted the Campaien for Democracy in the Labour Movement, w has set out to show the link between the reactionary policies of th Social Contract and bureaucratic dictatorship in both the unions the Labour Party. But our practical struggle for the continuity of the principle method of Trotsky's Transitiona Programme is in no way a tast fined to Britain. It requires an attention and mroltement i struggles of the working class internationally, and the fight to reco struct the Trotskyist Fourth International.

So there has been a consistent drive within the WSL to deepe movement's understanding of the history zad and enrich the present crisis of the Fowth International as an essential part of initiative towards its reconstruction We urge all readers who agree on the need for rerolutionary la ership and the demands we put forward to find out more about th WSL and join our fight in the Labour morement.

LCDTU FRAUD

BACKS WAGE

CONTROL

Any militants who might The Conference eventually passed a resolution calling for have expected a lead in the return to free collective bargaining Fight against wage control "after August" - thus completely the Communist Party's from 5% accepting wage limit front organisation the Liaison should remain in force until then.

Committee for the Defence of At the same time the demand was carried for Trade Unions would a one dav protest have strike on April 19th coincide to received a rude shock at last with the similar from the Saturday's Conference of that Leyland combine stewards" com- sody in London. Not a single speaker other than a band-picked

ONE-DAY

list of stalinists and hangers-on, the "left' decor- with This call for a one-day Aton Socialist Workers Party action forming part of a series of similar spokesman John Deason dowed to speak; no resolutions or one- day actions, is consciously designed amendments were allowed from the door: and there was not so much as do no more Inan ease ine pres- sure on conveners such as Robinson whisper support the lections of workers - most notably from a rank and file increasingly hostile to the 5% limit. Ioolroom workers in British Leyland is not intended as the first who are now on strike campaign rainst the social contract.

in

STOD

Dul as a of Derek means down the Kobinson. executive ember of the Communist Party, militancy of the working class, and, like the Leyland call, will certainly convener at Leyland's Long- be received with considerable idge spoke from nos- tility atform without by workers looking tor car firm is at present serious lead against wage a standstill as a result of a wave Under conditions the there and staying prudently Recall Conference of the Campaign dent on his own attack on the for the Labour Democracy polroom workers. Movement March 27th sparse attendance at the SDA Rally

WOMEN'S RALLY:

ANOTHER IMG

JAMBOREE

The latest in a series of non- blitical jamborees organised lound the question of omen's rights took place at dexandra Palace last aturday. This was the much heralded Rally Women's Rights, lich followed closely on the heels "tribunal" January for 1n Dition rights. Bort could have been ortant initiatives in giving pro- me and perspective to struggles en the questions of pay, jobs tis in social services. 30th instead retreated from : this programme, under the IMG's Celia Pugh broad mass hoped they to attract paign's emphasis on solely parlia- put off by politics. mentary means has

DIULESE

Socialist

F7O0S

articles in allowed the Benyon anti-abortion have reported how the Plan- Bill to get its second reading with- Committee for the Rally out a single squeak from the TUC зате20 not to Party, both of which

ICE HOS

La DOLT contract or the leader- contain clauses calling for free se sorring diass abortion rights their pro- ibe National Abortion Cam- grammes. Birmingham offers a clear and a crucial alternative road. full support for the In declaring and toolroom workers other prepared to 'Fight Phase Now!', the conference draft "WO resolution goes on to show the vital of political leadership in the struggle against wage control and its enforcers in the TUC bureaucracy.

At the forefront of the demands in the draft resolution is the call for substantial increases now, linked to the rising cost of living (as assessed trade union committees) through a sliding scale of wages. Other demands take up the fight for against unemployment, the women's rights, against CUls and against racialism. Com- But unlike the Liaison

CDLM

mittee Conference the conference is open for labour move- ment bodies to submit amendments or resolutions and for all political tendencies to contribute.

We urge all our readers to attend and fight for support for this Credentials be obtained from Kevin Lee, 44, Devonshire Handsworth Wood, Birming- ham 20. Yet both events were heavily influenced by leading members of the International Marxist Group the NAC by Berry Beaumont, and the Rally by Celia Pugh. Rally brought out Saturday's very clearly the lessons to be learnt "lowest common denom- from such inator" politics. The attendance was abysmally low - a few hundreds - and pre- dominantly drawn from the petty bourgeois layers of the women's

LOVICHE.

NOT DISCUSSED

Major struggles for equal pay discussed the victory welc

HOL

gained only last week by workers in the bakeries as a result of the threat of national strike action did not apparently merit a mention.

Even more devastating, after all the efforts to exclude pollics statement was read out on behalf of the Trico strike committee stating they had decided to attend instead the LCDTU conference where they could "discuss the social contract"

DEPORTATIONS

DELIGHT CIA

Satisfied smirks from the Tory benches and impotent howls from "left' and not-so- left Labour MPs greeted Home Secretary Merlyn Rees's announcement in the House of Commons on February 17th that he would, after all, deport American-born journalists Philip Agee and Mark Hosen- ball. PHOTO: Andrew Wiard. Report Agee speakers from Grunwicks, " he

EGA

the occupation, nursery campaigns and Betty Tebbs from

SOGAT

made interesting butions which without the oppor- tunity for debate from the floor or political direction the organisers were left very much at "swapping experien- the level of ces". Individuals spoke from the plat- form of experiences of taking their own cases to industrial tribunals and again no speaker from the organising committee counteracted these or argued for boycotting the tribunals fighting instead and Throne A Trade 0 & The IMG with their slogan of "the fight has just begun" conse- quently succeeded in demoralising those layers of women coming for- and for ward looking direction from this Rally. At this time especially; in which wages struggles erupting throughout industry, the questions of wage control and the trade union and Labour leadership are coacial to all workers men and women are fighting to defend living standards. The WSL therefore urges anyone who attended Saturday's rally attend the conference 'Wage Union Control and Democracy called by the Campaign for Demo- cracy in the Labour Movement in Birmingham on March 27th where the political issues of programme and perspective for In eat struggle not only for women's also defend but and

HELLES

improve living standards for all workers will be discussed.

The expulsion of Agee, whose exposure of covert CIA activity has angered those who hold the purse strings of the Labour government, was a foregone conclusion.

the hand. was, on believed that Hosenball widely would be let off, and Rees's decision to deport him is an indica- tion of the government's deter- mination to both British and American secret services. It is also a reflection of the weak from the trade union movement these

TOLES

anti-democratic and anti- viciously working class moves. Flushed with easy success, Rees then gave the nod to arrest journal- Crispin Aubrey ists and Duncan Campbell, and former Royal • Signalman John Berry, all members of the Agee/Hosenball Defence Committee, on extremely tenuous charges under section of the Official Secrets Act that Rees him- had promised would not be used.

EXPOSE

Every blow against the

CIA

every exposure of British 'security is in the all British

HIRES OL

workers. "Intelligence", national international, is used daily to pene- trate, disrupt and damage the trade union movement. The Agee/Hosenball Defence Committee continuing the a reversal of the struggle to force decision. deportation Among the planned activities is a mass picket of Callaghan at St. Pancras Town Hall Saturday Sth March at on stration from a demon- lonowed by Embankment tube stration station to the headquarters of MI6 starting at 1.00pm, with a rally in Waterloo Bull Ring at 3.00pm.

NCC

LIVES ON!

it Believe not the or National Coordinating Com- mittee against Cuts in the NHS is rumoured to still be alive!

We have reason to believe they week for the first met last time since last November.

But it was not a full meeting: only a small, basically London- based "action" committee gathéred in NALGO headquarters. They have taken the dynamic decision to postpone their confer- ence from April to November and call full regular meetings between now and then to organise it. The first of these meetings is not expected till mid-April. This only them to gives organise the Conterence

WHICH

going on the recent practice of the NCC, may mean they've bitten off more than they can chew! This is the sorry fate of yet another IMG-inspired campaign. The committee began with great potential, has established Dul dismal record of inaction and impo- tence the face growing 1n1 0I struggles and strikes against the cuts, largely as a result of the IMG's refusal to wage a sharp fight against the "left' bureaucrats and MPs who were drawn into the NCC. By November next massive rounds of cuts will have been imple- mented with not a finger lifted in action by this "Coordinating" com- mittee, which is still yet to debate a motion, tabled last summer, call- national It lo coordinate support for any section of workers taking strike action to •stoo the cuts

* NO FEE INCREASES!

COMMITTEES!

STUDENTS

CYRAMTE

ИВІИ: Police used at LSE A Students Union meeting decided on February 9th to occupy the administration own ends". building of the London School of Economics in order to fight asking the fee increases. occupation. After a week of occupation, the four executive members who were established participating the occupation, Tories, Liberal and

ILWO

an "independent") 140 to • tried to the occupation by giving slanderous

ASTMS TEST STRIKE

one-day national strike last Friday of university tech- nicians organised

ASTMS

in marked the 25th week of a strike by 130 technicians at Birmingham University. The strike is over the Univer- sity's refusal to implement agreement with

ASTMS

for a fifth week's annual holiday.

Seventeen other universities are holding out against the agreement while have implemented The strike has become a test case picket lines. for the

ASTMS

organisation in Universities. indication The administration are clearly beginning break the union in this 0L 20 confrontation, a defeat and such The would be of national importance.

action from the

24-HOUR PICKET

A 24-hour picket has been main- came out tained Birmingham for many months. The of fuel supply has the picket become the most important issue.

strike had impact. By using a scad transport tim The with its own hired thugs for protec- tion, the university has been able to maintain heat to the staff block, but the of the

ASTMS

freezing cold. was not a stokers boiler now Liere wIll De considering solidarity action.

Up till now IGWL support has what but been excellent. and the picket line observed. strictly * DEMAND A SLIDING SCALE OF GRANTS - LINKED TO THE RISING COST * OPEN THE BOOKS OF THE EDUCATION AUTHORITIES AND SUPPLIERS TO

ELECTED COMMITTEES OF TRADE UNIONISTS AND STUDENTS!

* REVERSE ALL CUTS - FOR AN INCREASE IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING

RISING IN PACE WITH COSTS AS ASSESSED BY THESE TRADE UNION

IN STRUGGLE

end to the occupation The injunction by the dorf, led The Broad press statements that the "extreme meeting in voting Tories left was using the occupation for its They then went on to engage in private discussions with Dahrendorf end ilm to somenow 'friendly' for possession However, a union meeting soon sections of the college. who the real 'extremists' were. voted by over 500 votes to found the inrow out a motion

SUD

occupied mitted by these four calling for an padlocked and chained. Unable to gain entry, threatening to large contingent of police - which Saturday 50 or so occupants. marked contrast to the situation at Fircroft College up the road, where the treachery of the Broad Left and TGWU members have been crossing uncompromising the ASTMS picket line during an 18 determined monas dispare. The latest victim of the dispute students fight

AUEW

education.

(TASS)

annual conference due to be held at the are going university in mid-April. government's reactionary policies.

MOVED

The TASS executive has decided ta move the venue to Bournmouth to avoid any problems with cold or The one day strike might be an that at last ASTMS is mobilise full LU strength behind the dispute.

response to the call for University Tech- nicians was overwhelming.

In Norwich even the academics in and ICL support Computer Services have respected lines so the one day sex Poly went into occupation main problem for

ASTMS

on Thursday February 17th in now is the term ends on March 8th at fees protest and if the dispute is not won then it overseas students as well as for will be diffused over the vacation. home students and against the say the one-day strike off dispute once and discriminatory follow ups but for that is being implemented by tactical reasons they will not say the Labour government. we are to expect some- This week the occupation spread thing to happen in "early March" sites of the The campaign proposed student fee increases has suffered a temporary set- back Essex at On Thursday over 1500 students voted by about call off an ‹ to | to which had been scheduled to begin on 21st February This extraordinary decision can only be explained in the light of a number incidents preceding fortnight. At Union meeting February a motion was overwhelm- ingly passed instructing executive to prepare for an occu- pation from 21st February.

At that meeting decision was taken to protest at the presence of Sir Keith Joseph who to address Association meellig February. Needless to say, did arrive to speak, ously heckled by Essex students, plain they wno made it want him on campus at all.

CLOSE DOWN

Incensed at this protest against right wing policies, Times on 13th February carried an editorial calling tue down of Essex University, that such militancy among students should be smashed once and for all.

The Universily alliance with the Association, seized on this editorial, circulated thousands of duplicated and generally teeling on For four days, right hysteria reigned at 200 lecturers and tutors including many so-called "Marxists" threats of an calling petition a ne 'liberal' Dahren- Union to call off the occupation; classes and lectures were cancelled another section of the students' leadership to capitulate.

individual teachers instructed Left vote against the occu- at the next поела то 17th sided pation; the and off the entire departments were shut down to call (including the Engineering Depart- were likewise defeated this time by 314 votes to ment), to allow students to attend the Union General Meeting.

On Tuesday February 23rd, the

STAMPEDED

Judge granted an order At the meeting itself a motion of the occupied the occupation was stam- against But when peded through by about 1200 to the Sheriff of London came to the school with the police escort - he The most disgusting doors leading to this entire episode was the attitude sections of the building of the Stalinists of the Communist Party and their sattelites organised he left, come back with a subsequently took place at 3am on morning equipped with crowbars, driving out the remaining The LSE struggle indicates both sleepy University Even King's College, London, has been drawn into struggle of many the the storm over fees increases.

cuts On Thursday 17th It is clear from this that students sympathisers of the WSL to fight this Labour meeting in support of the LSE occupation. After the Broad Left members of the student executive had made a last ditch attempt to sabotage it by calling another meeting at the same time, a combined gathering of United Fight at Middlesex Poly The Enfield site of Middle- occupation the united action in the history of the Poly. The occupation increases for partial one (and did not lectures and seminars). This was because for total occupation was monon quota system defeated. A Broad Left amendment was passed which used the excuse of the coming examination to argue for a partial action. Polytechnic, Page 5

ESSEX SIT-IN

SET BACK

against the in the Broad Left. The night before the meeting the National Student Organiser o the CP Ken Spours - came dow University. to Essex to ensure that the campu 17th February Stalinists would cravenly capitulat to this right wing terror.

occupation He needn't have bothered. Th CP there had already decided t themselves with the istration and to vote against the in the Yet despite this combination of administrative hysteria, right wing 7th hunting and Stalinis betrayal, the fees issue is still alive the at Essex.

WEAKNESS

further The frenzied over reaction to a proposed occupation only revealed the weakness of the administration Conservative not its strength. 11th on At least 300 voted for occupa tion, a very considerable figure in when Joseph view of the pressure on students to he was vigor- vote down direct action Moreover, the University have did not got themselves in quite dilemma. For at a Senate meeting on 16th February, motion was passed supporting th NUS National Demonstration on March 9th.

This was obviously intended as a sundar sop to students, a bribe to ensure that the occupation was called off closing But arguing Students Union, alliance with campus trade unions are taking the motion seriously, and administration, have demanded complete Conservative shutdown the University on March 9th, and for the University to finance coaches to take all those whipped up who students and wall lo go campus. workers alike to the March 9th demonstration. walk Essex: almost The University say that now only 20 trade unionists can have a signed a day off to attend the march; but Students campus trade insisting that all their members be allowed attend The administration's efforts to bludgeon the students into February accepting - the fees increases may have succeeded in stopping one occupation; but they have not yet stopped student determination to fight. What has been lacking hitherto - at Essex and nationally - Is any effective leadership to fight these increases on clear political lines.

The struggle against the fees increases is of necessity a fight for aspect of leadership of the NUS which must now be taken up in time for the NUS conference at the end of March.

SABOTAGE AT KINGS

God-minded about one hundred heard speakers from the LSE and Middlesex Poly of argue the case for direct action against the government's attacks on education. The strong led the February, response President of the Union to call an called a Extraordinary General Meeting for the following Tuesday.

UNPRECEDENTED

Although the Broad Left little publicity, provided unprecedented five hundred students arrived to debate a motion which 'noted and deplored" the fees but did little to organise Increases, a fight against them An amendment calling for a one day "token occupation" lost br th surprisingly narrow majority of 230 to 207. Eventually an amendmert 57s first carried calling for a delegation to the Principal of the colleg demand that the college refuse to only implement the fees increases stop that no quota system of loze students be imposed. the original It also moved support for ibe LSE occupation. As we go to press a meeting bas been called to hear the deigation's report and. it it is got satisfatory discuss the occupation of the college

FRENCH REVOLUT

Page 6 Part One By Paul Stein We begin in this issue a series of four articles on the revol- utionary history of France. This article deals with the French bourgeois revolution from 1789 to the Thermidorian reaction of 1794. The second will describe its later development under Napoleon, and its international repercussions. The third and fourth will deal with the revolutions of 1848 and the Paris Commune of 1871. Just as the Russian Revol- 'republics' - in which official cele- brations of the storming of the ution of 1917 dominates our are protected by the riot Bastille age, the Great French Revol- police! ution of 1789-1794 echoed French and Thus both the down the nineteenth century.

Russian revolutions demonstrate - the first negatively and the second In the revolution enci CaSe uprising against the positively - the theory of perman. an began as - that distinct and the ent revolution remnants

CTKHH CONCLY .

opposite arrogance and social struggles absolute power, reality united in sharp conflict.

luxury of the monarchy; the denial parliaments and elections;

LESSONS

oppression and restrictions on trade serfdom, near OnU•OlY . Combining the lessons of the starvation and ruinous taxation on the land; the crushing material and two, r distinguish spiritual weight of the Church.

distinguish between the emerging bourgeois and the proletarian revol- both cases capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, ution is political ABC. But after the order to settle accounts with the

ABC

syllables, that come old order, had to bring into play History combinations o elleis. the peasantry and the revolutionary accomplished just such a combin- ation of the most important letters workers and poor of the cities.

point the resem- of the bourgeois alphabet with the at this But blance between the two revolutions first letters of the socialist alphabet . It is nonsense to say that stages H10S The Russian bourgeoisie of 1917 cannot in general be shipped. The unable to satisfy the most always living historica tere demands the isolated 'stages' elementary makes leaps over classes: bread, land and theoretical oppressed which derive from breakdown into its component •CaLC, the Their hands shook parts of the process of development revolution was torn from them by that is, taken in its in itst stiret. The same is demand- the working class. fullest scope. The Russian bourgeoisie became ed of revolutionary policy may be said a class without history. cricu momens that the first distinction between a

YOUTH

revolutionist and a vulgar evolution.

ist lies in the capacity to recognise of and exploit such moments" But the French bourgeoisie 1789 was a class in its youth, far Trotsky, Permanent Leon from having exhausted its historical Revolution, (Merit edition, Pp239- role. 240). with their common The task, therefore, 1o deal

C TO

enemy, the King and nobility, they decypher the confused syllables of brought onto the streets of Paris the French revolution from beneath the sans-culottes in their masses.

the mound of historical writing on But the sans-culottes (the poor, it (which serves, in large measure, literally: those without breeches, ie to smother them). in bourgeois dressed Correctly joined, they speli out fashion) were not a working class in important message but only the British and European working class the modern sulbc. more mixed social soil from which the working class was to grow.

At the close of 1788 the regime They included some wage- of Louis XVI is in acute crisis.

workers, apprentices, small master Faced with bankruptcy follow- craftsmen, shopkeepers and traders, American war of indepen- ing the and the unemployed. the royal government had dence, Not then united in great factor- attempted to raise its revenuc, ies and unions, expense of the great the sans-cutoties part at the were oniv the embrvo ol lne proie- aristocratic landowners. tariat, not yet full grown enough to

IMMUNITIES

rule. So the French bourgeoisie were The nobles resist able successfully Cantug to turn on

LECHI

(along with the clergy) traditiona.

temporary allies and crush them.

Bonaparte stepped to immunities from taxation.

Napoleon Their opposition to the King's power over the corpses of the Paris ministers fosters

MU YES

poor Like the English bourgeoisie had peasants rise against both aristocratic exactions and the 140 years before them, Tane done shortage of food; in Paris the poor off the French cut head of one riot against the increase in the price king, only to accept his descendant classes add The middle of bread back on the throne. their protests against royal privilege To this day France remains the most bourgeois and hypocritical of and luxury. 6,000 angry women armed with pikes and cannon marched to the palace at Versailles. "The French revolution is but the forerunner 1o another revolution far greater, far more solemn, and which will be the last.

The people marched over the corpses of the Kings and priests who ț e „0 The sans culottes surge into the royal palace Louis XVI's head held up from the platform of the Guillotine The government Telcals. promises to convene the ancient 'Estates-General' the Herlu When the Estates meet at the roya court at Versailles (May Sth, 1789) the Third Estate {reflecting the bourgeoisie and the middle class, the the other two TeOCoCILLIE clergy) solidify nobility and the behind demands for retorm betore for the will provide money they King. Given a political voice for the first time, they swiftly become the centre of events. procedural fencing with on the part of the King's ministers and the Court, they declare them- 'National Assembly' and Selvas vow (the 'tennis-court oath', June 20th) not to depart until a consti- tution is drawn up.

TRIGGERED

But it is Louis XVl who triggers the July revolution. On the 11th he dismisses Necker (his reforming finance minister) and Versailles with foreign garrisons mercenaries. provokes Paris the news mass search for

HIS-ALELIUII

Invalides the arins. the barracks and (on July fortress and Bastille prison, dlll Y The capital is in the hands of the politicians; Louis bourgeois

AVI

Assembly recognises Vatusdl visits Paris wearing the red: and and blue cockade of the white revolution. August 4th, in an all-night the National session, dues abolishes most litles. feudal and servitudes: on the ern iney adopt the declaration of the Rights Man lor alt inen which are esperiaili in ryglls" The revolution has now reached its first point of equilibrium which during 1790 and the is maintained early part of 1791. The bourgeoisie have asserted their inalienable rights, while the monarch remains on anso-lile throne (though not absolutely so September, when news Royalist food intrigues to ada shortages in Paris, hundreds of poor lead a march to versatlies

WOMET

which forcibly removes the King and his family back to the capital).

EQUILIBRIUM

equilibrium is far from The stable, but unaided neither the old regimé nor the new, bourgeois one can break the deadlock. ceaselessly King and royalists negotiations for secret COnUULI foreign intervention to restore their power. And at each moment of crisis section of the more revoltionary the bourgeoisie is forced to lean on the sans-culotles tor support.

they fall. is lacking wy nen (nis is the King who Again He provokes the next DRase (the "flight to Varennes' attempts June 25th 1797) to escape across frontier and lead foreign war the against the revolution. The plan misfires. Louis XVI is brought hack under heavy guard; officially he has been kidnapped by 'enemies of the revolution !

But in Paris mass demonstrations back the demands from the Left of Assembly for his 1 he National a republic. abdication and suppressed by the They But the old Third National Guard. distatr biXoIs now dicliniivciy SOCIALIST. PRESS, Wednesday 2nd March 1977.

'Jacobins' in the Assembly, backed clubs and the democratic Dy Ene districts in the of sans-culottes Paris, Robbespierre opposes the declar- ation of war against Austria (April 1792; defeat in Belgium and spread- ing reports of royal treachery the Jacobins' position.

KETCHALHC

The crisis of August-September 1792 'revolutionary" sees of Paris take the royal commune palace. The King is deposed, the repub- lic is proclaimed; the new 'National - elected well to the Convention' by much wider left, government. electorate its From. now on the battle ground is dead (in shifts. The old order 1793 himself January guillotined).

ARMED

The bourgeoisie now face the task of establishing their rule over the sans-culottes which they have . The workers have no party armed. of their own, but it is nonetheless who define the divisions and they within the Convention. struggles Girondins The are

TIOSI

in tesises aspokesmoen aipovi the interests above (-fast growing rich DOLIgeOIsIe from the war, and from property from the and land contiscated Church, and abandoned by royalist aristocrats who have fled.

The Jacobins (also known as the 'Mountain' since they occupy the the left of high chamber) have their power based not on the number of deputies but in the enthusiasm of the workers and poor of the capital for their more radical policies As the struggle between burgers and sans-culottes moves to a climax in the first Republic, the Jacobins become its barometer are 10 It is on their initiative that the King is sentenced, that Christianity is abolished (autumn of 1793) and that the revolutionary new, calender, starting Year t.ls declared (October 1793).

'MAXIMUM' LAWS

In february-March of 1793 food riots bring a fixing of the price of bread; in May they enact the first "Maximum laws, whereby of the local authorities can control a wide of prices (and in theory. range wages). Pressure grows for the (.irondins to he purged. At the heginning of Tune this is done. The Constitution of 1793 gives universal male sutfrago; in practice power shifts more and more inte the hands of the centralised com mittees of the Convention (original ly up by the Girondins an 12-mat Robespierre's especiaily "C'ommitter of Public Salety" clubs and to ihe leaders of the assemblies and militias of the sans the Paris sections cifotir: Tha priie de the boris rovolutiot

SOKIAL/ST PRESS.

ON rebellions in the provinces and by a young foreign war; August political officer no gunnery significance, Napoleon Bonaparte, freeing himself by distinguishes Toulon from English siege.

elected as Ko•eNoenc. end of 'liberal', becomes by the Robespierre 1793 the chief organiser of revol- ution into the 'stages' it would have utionary dictatorship. liked. His Committee of Public Safety To this day it stands in fear of directs accelerating: repression (the the forces it once relied on, then 'red terror') against 'enemies of the leading people first

LANC

Girondins, then the then centre, into a monster by bourgeois public sections of the Jacobins themselves.

But his dictatorship remains one of the bourgeoisie; as it centralises power in its hands, it begins to lose his 'red terror' of 1794.

active support among masses.

TOTUEY

The guillotine decimates into action as much by the price of Dy the price of bread. narrow political space. The bourgeoisie and the middle profits and (since the has temporarily receded) an end to they rose again against months of inflation and assaults by bourgeois workers are deeply hostile wnen tne Maximum laws are used insurrections of March (Germinal) Robespierre and his young lieu- women of the streets wore Thermidor (27th July, following day they too mount the found their own political voice only guillotine in the Place de la Revol- The 'white terror' which follows, 'Conspiracy of Equals' zewe cmienst myycuicıł ı Where the Russian proletariat their maximum weight only behind Robespierre, the greatest and purest •French revolution comes from the fact that it joined the revolutionary spirit of two classes. But the fire they had lit dazzled 1789; Classical dress became popular.

draped their actions in styles and against the left and the sans- CYCuLs culottes, far outstrips Robespierre's duLIU UIL Napoleon, their new Caesar, was repression in its ferocity and scope.

From that day the "republic of spread their revolution across 10 Europe. Proprietors could stand on its own in the wake of his armies But there marched a silent ghost the The French bourgeoisie found spectre of Communism. itself unable to separate the revol- The Beliso bolerscwsc shortor al mao srnch relon o sownrr i ris solagr ra/rora "It is notorious that all their measures are decided before they are debated, It is beyond doubt, that under the terror of the bayonet, and' the lamp-post, and the torch to their houses, they are obliged to adopt all the crude and desperate measures suggested by clubs composed of a The! monstrous medley acts before them the farce with as little decency !

assembly, their organ. act like the comedians at a last.

as liberty. They before a rotows tumultuous cries of a mixed mob of audience, ther aer amis! the ferocious men, and of momen lost to shame. who. according lo their appland, explode them. insolent fancies. direet. controt.

Honorand Romam! Barke MP.

Tle RI Employers' "Justice" Industrial tribunais set up in 1971 hailed were as courts stripped the judges of which century language; lawyers had little most important of all trade union- Any startling impact was spoiled a little by the complete refusal of the trade union movement to have This was not because they raised doubts in the minds of trade union leaders, but because they were part When that battle was won and the Labour government ushered in Relations Act of leaders fell upon the tribunals with These courts were perhaps one most pernicious devices of Where the no-strike clauses and the bans on closed shops attacked the trade union movement from the front, the tribunals were the equiv- alent of an opiate slipped into the eagerly took over dealing in these The aim of the tribunals was, and is, to reduce areas of conflict, cut down the numbers of strikes and compromise the trade union movement by embracing it in the alternative to mass action.

For a Trotskyist the question of improvement but Tribunals do more than provide a spurious respectability for the employers' right to sack and exploit. Their role as an adjunct of the state is inbuilt. tribunal for An industrial is chaired by example legally qualified person stulig of them drawn lav orticials. one from the ranks of the employers, the other a trade unionist.

The legally qualified chairman can on occasion turn out io be d who has done a little Brigadier extra swotting. "trade unionist" almost invariably turns out to be a super- annuated hack who To ow ne some difficulty with proceeding and occasionally struggles to ask a question which will show his heart is with the workors.

MAJORITY

The employers representative will accasionally ol a member of the professions. in case tne trade unionist shows an unexpected klentify with the the involred trihunal WOrKIr given powers to reach a majority Thr tribunal is empowered to of unfair dismiss.l. Tribunals - illusions that tribunals were created to spread. An employer has to be a fool or a not nead to sack someone so that their dismissal will deemed be unfair.

EXCLUDED

Totally excluded from the Act is the biggest single cause of sacking - redundancy. The layman's guide to the 1974 Act - A Guide to Unfair Dismissals - puts the point clearly: itself is a fair Redundancy reason for dismissal... The test is whether the employer needs fewer employees to do work of a partic- ular kind. employer does Even where the not intend to cut the total work- force but merely transfers work from one factory to another, that does not constitute unfair dismissal.

consider- Also excluded from where a worker is ation are cases sacked for not being good enough, not having the right qualifications, or misconduct.

DUS

TRIBUNAL

popularly believed that It is employer tribunals an calstop sacking workers on This is not so. All an employer is required to do sack everybody on 1s to

SETKE

Only where such cases sackings selective unfair are can dismissal be claimed! These exclusions lead to the unedifying sight of a worker who has been made redundant trying to that should

SARAT

poura else who was chopped. someone someone appealing 1s as had against a prison sentence nominate else take to sulleullc his or her place in the cell, should the appeal succeed.

RECORD

of equal the case pay tribunals the record of the first year appalling.. The crudest has been tricks by employers grading in women differently from men have all been accepted. This reached such a pitch that foliowing the Trico ruling (reversed anpeals but by a 20-week strike) the bourgeois press started walling that uness more decisions went the way of women workers.

the tribunals would become "dis- credited". This illustrates what outery the bourgeoisle require from tribunals - just enough favourable keep workers from accors ZnowelRem OL In practice the tribunals now act Peze : striking in defene oi jots or trai= union principles "If you have a case. wty dom! you go to an industaal toci the favourie partet of every barrack :00m ¡=÷:= сту crossing the picker line

ORGAN OF STATE

It is not just that tribunals are flagrantly blatantly it is not just that employer. nO tribunal can order take back a sacked worker but can merely recommend. possible that a Labour government under pressure could redress the balance slightly on these matters The real point is that a tribunal is an organ of the state in the same is a criminal court, or the way ds nolice force Its role theretore is tc uphold the dominance of the capit- alist class Prosciaral That is the central requirement never changed by wnich can reforms. The State and Revolution Lenin wrote: "The forms of bourgeois states are extremely varied, CETEl essence is the same: all these states whatever their form, in the final analysis are inevitably the dictator ship of the bourgeoisie. The tran- sition from capitalism certainly cannot but Communism yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat (original emphasis). What goes for the state as whole goes for those organs which the state sets up to protect itself.

MORE DANGEROUS

that the In fact the mOIe tribunals are reformed, the dangerous they become. Thei essence is to remove the clear call for united struggle in opposition to run by the employer. AL The trade unionist on the tribunai does not have to be a hack He or she does have to be a clas collaborator. In one of the minor clauses o the Act industria governing tribunals the role of the state i expressed clearly. Dismissal A l Guide to Unfair "An industrial tribunal is obliger to dismiss any complaint which i shown to have been necessary safeguard national security. certificate signed by or on behalf o Minister the Crown conclusive evidence that th dismissal was to safeguard nationa security". th other words when of the state is directl authority invoked the tribunal must

CLEO

complaint even listen to Strikes are the weapon of clas war. The history of reformism ha been to enchain that weapon withi limits, to fetter it with institutions

CHAINS :

Tribunals represent chains tha th be broken allow

TELN

working class to fight effectivels Stat wrote The AS LenIn and Revolution: democratic republic is th "A possible shell for capitalism best and therefore once capital ha gained control of the very best she establishes its power s securely, so firmiy, that no chang either of persons, of institutions, o of parties in the bourgeois-demo

Page 8 Over fifty Soviet artists who are not united either schemat- have ically artistically, joined forces in their common determination that art must from have greater autonomy than it the official dictates presently enjoys. This exhibition shows the fruits of their labours. understand their art some is useful. background knowledge The increased development capitalism in Russia at the turn of the century was made possible by from capital Western Europe, and especially rance. A by-product of this financial chain was the patronage of the class of Russian industrialists for the turopean radica developments d made around the turn of the al l 20th century. Thus by 1914, one industrialist, Sergei Shchukin had a collection which included works by Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Matisse, Rousseau and Picasso, and was open to public viewing.

In such a way the revolutionary art forms of Cubism and Futurism were infused into the revolutionary political events i produce brilliant explosion of unique and experimental art between 1917 and 1923. Avant-garde works and projects Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Leonidov. Mayakov- Eisenstein, sky, Kandinsky, Pevsner, Malevich, Chagall and the Vesnin brothers, Those who have joined the socialist movement since the early 1960s may have been surprised at the extravagant praise heaped Labour on Cabinet Minister Charles Anthony Raven Crosland after his death on 19th February.

from The praise came the press, the Tory leaders capitalist and various other dedicated oppon- ents of the working class move- ment, its organisations and its aims.

It would be wrong, however, to underestimate the importance Crosland, his large contribution to social democratic betrayal and the of loss felt by the SCrE bourgeoisie at the demise of such a to name but a few, took a vanguard position in that heroic struggie for socialism. Their common purpose was the synthesis of all productive activity;

UNOFFICIAL

thus industry, architecture, painting, graphics, propaganda, industrial design, poetry, films and the theatre became Iorged into an instrument of the revolution.

The creative scope of this period had profound but has largely

ART

unacknowledged influence in every country of the world, as refracted and extended through the Bauhaus Germany of between walk by the The seizure of power bureaucracy, led by Stalin, was the final nail coffin this * The Exhibition on Unofficial Art at the ICA Gallery movement which had suffered from which ended on February 27th, reviewed by Tim from the the general taus loll revolutionary period, from the Summers. previous famines and disruptions of early Soviet life, and the defeat of European revolutions. Stalin's policy of Socialism in depicted contented bronzed workers and granite deifications of Lenin and Stalin. In sharp distinction to the inven- and lyrical dynamism of the tive earlier period, Stalinist Academia is essentially static and dull, glorifying obedience to the monolithic state.

Tretyakov Gallery best reflects in terms of art, the 'liberal- isation' and continuance of Stalin- ism since Kruschev's reforms in the 1950's. A greater affluence has led to the demand that art should reach international alongside stream, gathering pace consumer demands for greater choice in such things as clothing and popular music. Such for demands gicaler flexibility led this group of artists to attempt to display their works without state sponsorship for the first time in 44 years. Perhaps the artist best known to West in Ernst the this group Neizvestny, whose and the etchings sculpture use human body as the point departure He uses elongated and tortured forms which are somehow neither Neizvestny. Machine Man. Bronze, 1961-2.

organic nor inorganic more a one country' had immediate impli- kind of 'mechanised biology'.

cations in the field of art. The concept of the 'artist-engineer' was

SURVIVAL

by academic oil replaced the Their savage angularity, recalling painter, whose job it was, and is, to idealise and propagandise the state.

Picasso's sketches for 'Guernica' not of In 1932, all painting and sculp- are loaded with sexuality ture were placed under the central- the kind associated with the idealised aesthetics of 'soft porn' ised control of the Union of Artists and Isaac Brodsky, an artist trained but more indicative of sex as a part the pre-revolutionary Academy of tough survival. His forms the enduring unite and a notorious opponent of all Moore and the post-Impressionist art, became the qualities of Henry. humanism of Rodin, express a director the new Academy to Its chief function, as is that of of humanity born to vision Academies, was to aggrandise struggle. Historically work and perpetuate the status quo. With speaking, the the excuse of "popular art' of Neizvestny is a progressive break , works

KOLI

SPOTLIGHT

ON

REFORMISM

CROSLAND THE TORIES'

FAVOURITE "SOCIALIST"

Labour Club, at that time domin- a dedicated supporter of capitalist ated by the Stalinists, and set up a exploitation, of imperialism, and of 'Democratic Socialist the bourgeois legal and political so-called Club'. system. This much can of course be said Jenkins continued to take close and personal interest in such What of any Labour leader. different about Crosland was that student affairs, helping to build a group in the early he tried to give theoretical gloss - big Gaitskellite 60s, and thus training future gen- of a sort - to his role. erations in the kind of back-stairs Crosland was born in 1918 into essential for of civil the family prosperous manoeuvrine so He attended public of a reformist politician. servants. University. Events in recent months school and Newham North East (reported else-

JENKINS

where in this issue) show that this particular breed still being University. There, just before the wat. he chumed out at Oxiord developed with Roy Jenkins that Crosland's role in all this was somewhat different. special brand agressive right- the wing reformism that comes out in Not for him rough and tumble of behind the scenes wheel- different generations of Oxford was a 'Prince students. ing and dealing. from the Stalinist stranglehold of the plastic arts. Neizvestny's dominance of this exhibition is shared with the power- ful, heavily executed oil paintings Bold and high-contrast mono- chrome shapes built with a palette knife are combined with fine brush- work of muted colour within a firm and accomplished composition.

His works show mature solution to the problems of inte three-dimensional grating spacial relationships to the two dimen- sions of the canvas surface.

SYMBOL

of art will be familiar Students with the fish as a historic symbol of Christianity. Is it in continuity of this tradition that dead fish figure three of the prominently in paintings on exhibition? depicting the Another work bleak Crucifixion in front industrial landscape suggests Such reaction- affirmation of this. dissidence find their ary forms of literary parallel Solzhenitsyn. two works distinguish HOWEVEr this artist from such a position.

painting America called hows photo-montaged cat eating a fish on the rooftop of a black and inhuman Another shows cityscape. woman's torso in the form of an article cloting Hangs on washing-line. symbol has become banal to the Western public familiar the book of Germaine Greet, with the inclusion or inis symool 1s a the attestation that wricult struggle for women's equality is not confined to the West But overall impression Rabin suggests that where lays on his paint with a palette knife, . he lays on his crude symbolism with a trowel. his own defeat. He thus became the intellectual giving a much needed of the gang, theoretical gloss the sordid to calculated dealing and caretully betrayal. This is why all the obituaries to Crosland in the capitalist press have made so much of his book The Socialism, which came future out in 1956. publishers described it as "monumental' and it was certainly a bible of the extreme right within the Labour movement for at least a decade after it came out.

notice that book is never however,

LIC

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 2nd March, 1977 Such crude and regressive allegory pervades the work of other lack Oscar Rabin's artists A painting by talents. pictoria. Alexander Rabin contrasts a fore- and ruined ground of a smashed wooden edifice holding a fallen horseshoe, a crucifix and a ripped against a background playing card of endless blue-grey architectural modernity. Above this desert of a hangs a portrait of Lenin.

city

AMBIGUOUS

works are more subtle, ambiguous and interesting, like Ilya Kabakov's gently holds an egg. does not mean that the majority of exhibitors are directly ideological.

a somewhat pale one) of the major currents in European and American art from, say 1900 to 1960.

described as Impressionists; Kalinin.

Kropivnitskaya and Yankilevsky are Surrealists in the most individualis- tic and dealistic sense; more measured work of Kulbak is diversity of artistic approach, based

WUL"

received such great impetus from the dvdilt- considered as an exclusively capital- necessity of a break from Stalinism diverted trom ward, confused or reactionary ele- In the 1930s Andre Breton and Marxist position on art which offers The independence of art - for the The revolution - for the complete liberation of art!" Crosland The reasons for this are obvious to anyone who takes the trouble to at it now look its theoretical threadbare, its structure utterly political diagnosis is irrelevant, and its entire set of predictions about society completely discredited. alc In fact The Future of Socialism is a crude and now utterly falsified anti-Marxist tract, a product of a capitalist boom that was expected to last forever, where all the ideol- goes side an over weening faith in the future of Crosland's book talks of 'the declining importance of economic problems Then *the capitalist buri

SOCIALISM

Di Parkin concludes her two part series on the first period of Wilson government, and assesses some of the movements that originated in that period.

The first of these articles described how the 1964-70 Labour government confront- ed a deepening capitalist crisis as the post-war boom came to an end. Faced with inflation, financial and instability falling profits in private industry, the Wilson govern- ment saw their task not in imole- socialist policies managing capitalism will gloves off.

DEVALUATION

The devaluation of the pound, stoking up further inflation, added to the pressure from the banks for thee, to entorce wage west the • enforce wage upon the working class. The Trotskyist weekly paper of the time. the Newsietter, bubsnea by the Socialist Labour League, summed up the political situation in this way: "The Tories were relying on a do some- Labour government to thing Selwyn Lloyd and Reginald Maudling were unable to do - tie the trade unions closer to the state under some form of agreement in order to prepare to crus workmg class militancy". 'This is not the Labour govern- ment that millions workers OI thought would act in their interests.

it Is a caretaker government that is kept in power by the bankers until it puts down legislation against the unions." While the boom had enabled capitalism to expand and develop forces of production, the the same time it had strengthened the of capitalism grave diegers power . A neutal state was he claimed controlling more and more private enterprise, and those sections still in private hands were apparently run by managers no longer devoted to "crude profit maximisation. was thus, according to Crosland, a 'growing irrelevance of the ownership of the means of production', class struggle had all but disappeared, and it had become "manifestly maccurale call Britain a capitalist society"!

Now it is of some interest to consider these statements twenty years later. When the capitalist describe him as a 'brilliant theoret- ician' this incredible rubbish the best he could produce.

social who Those democrats of the inaccurate sneer al some predichions maae by Marxists were so deceived by utterly surface impresssions that thev fared to see the basic remaming contradictions or capitalisin Little Crosland wonder that for called only comprehensive schools, some slight redistribution of wealth, 'participation' industry merventon m me economy unai now seems normal. In those halcyon days, Crosland consid policy to beamnatical centralised wages policy" to be and unwise" This great 'socialist' intellectual also proposed better street lighting, late-night opening of pubs, and a whole series of other similar central demands of the wellare lor Ine working class which only a great intellectual of his calibre The fact is that for the Labour Governments ever • since 1904 of which Crosland was a member the reautv was what lav beneath the

IN PLACE OF

organised working class. Socialist Labour League, beginning Whole new sections of women with the Oxford Liaison Committee and immigrant workers had been for the Defence of Trade Unions, and leading the All Trades drawn into the labour market. But at the same time full employment Unions Alliance each with considerable base of rank and file enabled workers. demand and force wage increases. support. The Donovan the

STEWARDS

report on trade unions draw the _10 Shop floor power grew with the conclusions the government control of wage bargaining in the wanted. Concretely they were hands of the shop stewards move- searching for a pretext to outlaw which consistently extended unofficial strikes, institute compul- its influence. sory strike ballots, and "cooling off Each victory on wages strength- further the move towards The replacement of Ray Gunter ened organisation and the determination Barbara Castle as Minister of of the working class as a whole. abour (now retitled "Employmen It was for this reason that the Wilson government set its sights soft-soap first of entorcing wage union movement into acceptance of all on controls using the support of the a legal noose around their

TUC.

But as it became more apparent mark in tea-time chats with striking to Wilson that, despite the collab- Ford sewing machinists demanding of the bureaucracy, equal pay. But her key role was in oration the movement was not a drawing up one of the biggest legal Trade creature to be led by the nose, the VIl resolve strengthened within the attempted by a Labour government government to attempt to impose - 'In Place of Strife'. anti-union laws.

INTERVENTION

This spurred on by the Was that and drastic awareness new Čentral to measures had to be taken to drive this document was up productivity and exploitation if the concept of the intervention of British capitalism the law into industrial relations. No was to remain profitable. longer were workers to be free to The Devlin report on the docks, negotiate and fight for wages direct- the huge rationalisation of mines ly with the employer railways, "Unconstitutional" strikes were attempts and the to impose Measured Day Work within to be attacked by the implementa the mentor industry, all called floor 28-day "cooling off" weakening shop-floor period. of the working certain cases unions were required to hold ballots. while the class remained And the And strong, a fight to prepare a politic- whole process of bargaining was to hedged legal around ally conscious leadersmo lo resist procedures and structures.

these attacks was being led by the surface. Capitalism was still a system that drove for profits and involved crisis in its very development. Class war still stares the Labourites in the face and those who once denied its existence its

THOSI

proponents - on the side of the capitalists! Though a Minister in all the Labour governments and 'shadow" cabinets since 1960 Crosland did not play a central role in planning economic policy. However he did plan the strategy the Housing Finance Act, any way

ICINE LU

defiance against it. Here once again, he found common ground with the Tories. the same time he began, when Minister concerned will Local Government, to embody in party's over notorIous first step on the statement, ine slippery slope of cuts in the welfare The most obvious response of services. the TUC leaders to this attack was He introduced a Rent Act which not to launch an all-out opposition by bringing down rents disaffiliate Lambeth refusing to to it. but to make any state take Trades Council for organising private sector simply lobby of Parliament allowed private rented accomoda- anti-union laws! tion to disappear altogether It was not the TUC but notably perfect example of the results of All Trades Unions the Alliance reformist compromise. which spearheaded demonstrations As Foreign Secretary he was a. and strikes against the government's willing tool of US imperialism in plans culminating the Zimbabwe and elsewhere. hundreds of thousands who struck Unlike the capitalist press, we on May Day 1969. will not mourn the passing of a man such as this.

PRESSURE

The 'overwork' that struck him down was not in the interests of the working class or socialism.

Under these conditions the TUC Neither of these causes will be despite its eagerness to shackle and served unless Crosland and his sort control the shop floor and the rank are thrown out of the leadership of file, recognised that the and the labour movement. bese was such alsore rou of opposition to the government's By John Docherty plans had to be made. Occupied factory, France, May-June 1968 - student movements reflected shifts in the working class.

Scanlon and Jones went so far as to that legislation unofficial strikes "would lead to greater and irresistable pressure to turn unofficial action into officially recognised disputes" Finally Wilson and Castle had to hand over the task of disciplining the rank and file to the trade union bureaucrats themselves.

'UNCONSTITUTIONAL'

"For ill, had good accepted the views of the TUC but only because they had accepted responsibility for dealing with unconstitutional strikes situation where the shon toor was becoming increasingly militant and determined. The

TUC

leaders signed binding agreement that they would police the rank and file.

Then as now, they were the key agents attempting to restore capital- ist profitability. We have focussed on the key issue facing the Labour government in this period: its relationship with the working class at home and its attempt to break the independence However, industrial relations are but one aspect of the relationship between to the social democracy workers movement. The Wilson government also had its role to play in preserving British capitalism's waning imperialist Many of the themes of the 64-70 government Teveren once again in the current period. It Wilson government which Ulster and intro- sent troops into duced the racist Immigration Act. And Rhodesia Wilson capit- The 1967 Conference of the Oxford Liaison Committee ulated and acquiesced to the UDI move by Smith in November 1965.

Committed above the all lo of British imperialist Wilson could interests, HUIt contemplate than Callaghan can now, unleashing and supporting the • African forces which Ievolutonały alone could overthrow Smith's racist rule Social Democracy may pay lip- service to opposition to racist or right-wing rule; but for reformist evil than threat any to private property. For similar reasons the Wilson government supported the policies of American imperialism its vicious assault on Vietnam and the rest ot south Hast Asia. Wilson's policies led in Britain to development OI protest movement of students and голя

UPS

This movement allowed various groups on the left (notably those who eventually were to group today's themselves into Inter- Marxist Group) to set national themselves on the diversionary track of seeing students and others as. the main focus of revolutionary action and to turn their back on the working class. In doing so they assumed, as they do today, that the working class was somehow not prepared to The lessons they should have learned Leamany aerinst in Placo si Stride seem still unlearned. The SLL alone turned the orien- of the anti-war into the labour movement and were to move beyond empty "peace" Bring the Troops Home to calls for the victory of the NLF. It has been suggested that the SLL played no role in the struggles in Britain against the Vietnam war.

PREVENTED

Far from The Newsletter published the complete text of the letter from Bertrand Russell which Solidarity Vietnam

TONTECO

Campaign but when that movement physically prevented the SLL from of Stalinist far as removing policies (going so the microphone from SLL General Gerry Healy) they with- Secretary drew from the VSC. However, the weakness of the SLL was in then adopting a rigid blinkered viewpoint, failing realise that the Vietnam issue had sections ol lne population and that a mass move- ment existed. They did not participate in its under their own demonstrations — slogans. Instead they stood aside and missed many opportunities for direction and giving that movement working class This left the VSC arena free as a hot house for all the diversionary "flower- ideas of that era power" meditation, ideas student "red bases" and the cult of Che Guevara. In the latter period of the Wilson students occupied colleges; the events in France in May 1968 and Czechoslovakia in August 1968 had a great impact and protests continued against the Vietnam war.

WORKING CLASS

But at the base of all these movements, however, was the movement of the working class and the government's battle with the working class - a battle which pre- pared the ground for the Tories democracy set against all these movements and left the door wide open for a Tory victory in the 1970 election on the basis of mass abstentions; But the followed government that Wilson was also unable to defeat the working class and was itself swept aside by the miners in 1974.

As Today the Callaghan govern- ment engages in a wretched re-run of all Wilson's most treacherous policies, the lessons or inat last Labour be government must brought to the fore the unbroken strength of the working class reasserts itself

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

HEALTH STEWARDS

JOIn AGAINST CUTS In the first attempt to bring Later, the conference adopted a together

NHS

stewards resolution demanding that the throughout London, to coord- NECs of

NUPE, COHSE, NALGO

inate the sporadic fight against and ASTMS call all-London strike the cuts, some seventy shop action on April 18th, the day when stewards representing the

AHA

have announced they nine NHS unions and twenty-eight intend to close the hospital.

hospitals in London attended

STRIKE

the inaugural meeting of CLASH - the Conference of Renton Denis

IGMWU,

St. London Area Stewards in the Bartholomew's] the described Health Service on February recent strike in defence of night porters when they were victimised 23rd. for refusing to do work normally Opening the meeting on behalf done by clerical staff. of the Joint Stewards Committee of The strike had won the reinstate- South Camden which had called the ment of the victimised porters after Eustelle Lindsay CoUPence, University the joint unions banned all emer-

[NUPE,

College including oxygen gency servIces, Hospital] spoke of the fight put up deliveries. by her committee to defend the As a result the strike was short, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospit- patients were less harmed and the outcome was that management had Their experience had convinced lo creale a new post — lor a night them that hospital closures could records clerk. not be fought one by one and they Consequently the management called the confer- had theretore ways of were looking for other ence to build united action.

making cuts and a further dispute was brewing over overtime and rota

DEFEND

changes. Platform Arthur NUPE ater, supplementing these remarks, John Clarke [NUPE, Churchly steward the Cueen eliza- occupied Elizabeth Garrett Ander- beth's Hackneyl explained that the Hospital, emphasised the • 1! teed earnings from overtime. Staff responsibility of the well organised hospitals to defend the to be recruited since the agreement, small, poorly organised ones.

however, were not entitled to guar- He to those few paid tribute anteed overtime. individuals who had fought against

DIVISIONS

the defeatism to be tound among beinone on their A state gathe This led to divisions amongst their fight beginning doing workers the same job. closure, and whose leadership had

AHA

wurther. promised persuaded that the on v when that closed hospitals they way of defending their hospital was would he redundancies. to occupy it. Instead, staff were transferred This, he stressed, was the only other Whilst Barts. way to fight the cuts. the mcluding Two chefs, transferred to Barts to save Campaign the EGA had from the now-closed Metropolitan, concentrated their activities O1 were not included in the guaranteed lobbies of MPs, organising petitions agreement and conse- and other protests, they had lost quently lost £17 a week in wages. half their hospital. Since wage was DasIC they

PREVENTED

inadequate were forced to therefore lost even the Itave and Since the occupation started, chance of redundancy pav. In this the "no redundancy" •o*erer, tney nad on two occas- way, the

AHA

I0nS prevented from AHAs could ot the be closing the remainder the seen to be a fraud. hospital. The main resolution to the con- One of the immediate successes ference was moved by Colin Kenny o. ine conference was to draw in a

[ASTMS,

St. Mary's] on behalf of number of from the the organising committee.

Whittington hospital - which until has been the weak point in

NECESSARY

Ite fight to save the EGA.

Whittington GMWU steward Bill He emphasised that the resol- Wcodall i speaking ution posed what was necessary if response Araur Churchly the a teal fight in defence of living State # Ettingion unions would cooper- standards was to take place.

se with EGA workers in refusing The theme of the resolution was EGA to be

ELOD

moved the emphasis to place the NHS and The CLASH Conference its major supply industries under workers control. Furthermore, defend living to standards, pay rises should be based on the rate of inflation, as deter- mined by "labour movement assess- ment of the effects of inflation", The resolution called for oppos- ition to all redundancies, including "natural wastage" and proposed opposition "by linked strike action and occupations to the closure of any wards, departments hospitals, except where replaced by immed.

iately improved facilities."

These policies could only be carried out through the building of joint stewards committees in oppos- ition to the participation schemes of joint consulsative committees.

This motion was carried 41-6. A second resolution, implicitly opposing the organising committees resolution was tabled by supporters of the SWP (IS) paper Hospital Worker.

STEWARDS

Pointing out that CLASH was a conference of stewards and that

SWP

members had failed to get their resolution adopted by any the Chairman nowards nevertheless allowed the resolution to be taken. John Clarke its support In argued that demands like national- "irrelevant" the IsatIon were present problems facing hospital workers. Instead, the Hospital Worker resolútion called simply for support for the Hospital Worker conference; for £60 a week minimum wage; Leyland stewards support for the "initiatives" and support for the Hospital Worker paper. Several delegates pointed out unlike the organising com- mittee's resolution, it contained no policies for continuing fight against cuts or wage controls and the resolution was heavily defeated.

In addition to the main resol- ution, the conference called on all its delegates fight for Midss lobby of the conference of public March

DELLO HOICELLIYES ON

22nd in Central Hall, Westminster, that these demand exeCutes organise a "nationally coordinated day strike"

SECON

against the cuts, on May 11th, and demand union branches that the NECs of each call official strikes on that day. CLASH will now meet at three- monthly intervals. Details of future be obtained from meetings Kenny, Virology, St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, Praed St., London W2. Labour Council The Direct Works depart- ment of Sandwell Council are on strike following a demand that they accept a wage-cut.

The Labour councillors want the reduced from 92p to bonus rate 87½p per hour and a reduction in ioh target times which would aso reduce the bonus. This has brought to a head the grievances of the maintenance and modernisation workers in Sandwell which have been building up over a number of years. Sandwell Council employs lump labour, and to end this practice even when declaring there is not enough work for the Direct Works Department.

FLYING PICKET

The strikers say they will not re- turn until the lump workers are off the sites, and a strike committee of pay strike The 17 day strike of hourly paid workers Winsford's giant International Computers factory ended with a partial victory. The 900 members of strike by Electrical the and Engineering became unions necessary after months of abortive discussions with a claim tor back pay averaging £120 per employee.

DETERMINATION

The determination to win was reflected in some of the strongest and most organised picket lines the Industrial Estate has seen in its ten year history, with mass pickets out 24 hours a day "poverty" by the cry muted by employers was quickly the recent announcement that ICL had made profits of £47 million in the last financial period, and this news made the strikers even more determined to win. The calibre of their leadership however can be assessed from the Friends in high places long-standing campaign Coventry Trades Council by and Equity to black the Barras Green Working Men's Club, which operates a colour bar, met with success recently when T&GWU convenors at & Cour- Ancells, Davenports age all refused to deliver to the club. Within four days, however, the The black deliveries started again.

had been called off by someone in the T&GWU hierarchy. Now, eight prominent T&GWU convenors in Coventry have signed a letter calling on the brewery con- venors to reintroduce the blacking.

The T&GWU has produced fine-sounding pamphlet words on the need to fight racial- Why was the blacking Lael called off? demands wage cuts 60 is acting as a flying picket to en- that the sites remain fully closed during the dispute: Sandwell also has the unusual pracuce or ceducing up to ‹o7o o1 bonus for earnings 'administra- tion" and to the employer's contribution More of the bonus is deducted from the skilled workers to pay any them! apprentices working under This, practice obviously leads to hostility between apprentices and adults, to apprentices being unwan- ted. and untrained because of pres sure on bonuses. The hvpocrisy of some counci- lors themselves demanding wage in- creases at work while asking council workers to accept a wage

CUT IS

astonishing But councilor on east one the Public Works Committee has at last been removed from the Labour Group. He is stan Harris a seit-em- ployed sub-contractor! Mass pickets win statement by Mr Terry McMahon, Senior Steward of the EETPU, to the local press: «We were prepared to meet them [the management] half way" His them half desire to meet way was fulfilled when, along with full time the officials, a meeting without the know- arranged ledge of the work force. A solution of £70 tax free to be paid immediately upon a return to work was agreed and this was even- tually accepted by the strikers. "return Some workers see the formula' as a sell out. Ritchie Dunleavy, One worker, told Socialist Press: full-time officials with "These senior stewards in tow have caved in at a time when we had manage- The shop floor ment on the run workers were solid." have democracy need trade union in the is movement vital when you have these officials deals making behind our backs. They should be. elected and selected." Pickets at ICL, Winsford.

Sliding scale demanded Winsford Workers at Textiles Ltd, members of the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, have with- out a single dissenter signed the following resolution in a mass petition from the factory the union's District Com- to mittee. "This Branch of

N.U.T.&G.W.

declares its the opposition policy of present wage controi. Already after less than 2 years of the the incomes policy average wage has been cut by £10 a week We therefore call for a substan tial wage increase and also a policy of wages lied to a cost of living sliding scale of mages. index:

WARWICK WORKERS

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 2nd March, 1977 The national executive of General the Transport and Workers Union is faced once again this week with a demand for national blacking of all Trust House Forte hotels and subsidiaries. The union leaders who have stalled off action in support of Sheffield strikes

HOLEI

Oxford fast running of are out Daces to hide atter the breakdown of the latest talks with Trust House Forte.

UNREST

will decision be taken against a background of growing unrest throughout Forte hotels and an extremely sharo call lot action from Oxford strikes at the Randolph Hotel and the privately Linton Lodge have lasted owned mote than 13 weeks. A strike has started in Birming- ham at the Nicht Out night club - owned by THF - after the shop steward there was sacked. More 40 workers are demanding that she be reinstated.

BOUGHT

In London the Strand Hotels have been bought by

THF

and workers belonging to General Ine Municipal Workers and Union "recognition' have discovered that means little to their new

DOSSES

A worker there has been sacked; the management to discuss the matter with the union and members are actively consider-

EPS

BANRI

Tory dominated Warwick- shire County Council has vot- ed cuts of £3.7 million. The vast bulk of the cuts, £2.2 mil- fall on lion's worth, are to education and in practical the axe for it terms 1,500 part-time and 250 full- time posts and a lowering of standards round. Most heavily hit will be the part- time school meals supervisors, over 1,000 of whom face the sack. Attempts to implement the cuts will not go unchalienged. The meet- ing which voted the cuts was pick- eted by several hundred teachers, school staff, and students. But the most militant action had come the week before the meeting wien nundreds oi scoot chudren took to the streets in Nuneaton and Bedworth spontaneous demon- strations against the education cuts.

Teenage pupils walked out of George Eliot School and marched over a mile to protest outside the counci chambers. At Bedworth, police were called to disperse hundreds of were blocking the road demanding the retention dining room

• INDUSTRIAL NEWS

TGWU MUST BLACK

HOTEL CHAIN

ing strike action. Bro. Lally called on the full time Many workers are now District Official, Geoff Hulett to contacting the strikers in Sheffield explain why national blacking had and Oxford to for uscuss moves been not put into effect recognition. demand that received acclaim by Against this background the the meeting. national executive has so far argued Earlier the whole demonstration that national blacking would "national fatuous "illegal". This argument blacking now" expains why blacking has been In his reply Bro. Hulett, visibly confined to certaini regions.

discomforted by reception notable effect is on said union policy was not of his motorway the M6 where one choosing. service station has run out of petrol don't necessarily support it and the AA are warning that motor- but I have to back it. I am instruct- way travel could become a chancy ed by the National Executive that dash from one to institute national blacking another. The TGWU , of course, has would result in the union being the strength to bring

THF

to sued in the High Court for damages virtual standstill. for breach of contract." A 300-strong demonstration in Hulett attacked national officers Oxford in support of hotel workers for inaction - sensing the mood of showed the pressure that union the meeting - and thereby divert- officials are under. ing criticism away from his own

CONDEMNATION

the abandonment of the workers involved. Speakers from Linton promise discuss the But his Lodge, the Randolph and the with sympathy strike action Grosvenor House in Sheffield were Gardner Merchant Canteen workers unanimous in condemnation of the at BLMC Cowley was foiled by the

TGWU

for inaction, partantane Rev. Tony Williamson OBE, the blacking. chairman of the giant 5/60 wing question Pat Lally, speaking on behalf of TGWU Branch, who said that strike the Oxford Student Trade Union action was out of the question Liaison while talks were arranged Committee,

TELECT

first demonstration called by the Those talks, like the earlier ones, Oxford and District Trades Union broke up with no progress.

Council in December. The national executive meeting against the background of its "war' 'The issues now are the same as We will against the hotel industry must now in December be content another Trades give a lead. with Council May and demonstrators demonstration The strikers Day" clearly demand National Blackıng Now.

VORKERS SOMET

OV The Oxford demonstration

FIGHT CUTS

supervisors. be arguing for other unions affected The local NUT leadership should be involved in the committee. take a lead from their militant pup- Socialist Press believes that all NUT action has so far been lim- investigation of local authority fin- ited to refusal to cover for absent will show clearly the need colleagues and not supervising pup- for nationalisation of the supply ils at dinner time. companies as part of a trade union And the lobby of Warwickshire plan for the defence of public ser- county counci was called on the vices. ridiculous demand for an mell superties aid teachers tol an attempt to split school increase in the rates to prevent cuts.

Instead of pointing out that the council has stated that if supervis- council's cuts are the sign of things ors sackings are successfully resis- come nationally, the NUT lead- more teachers will have to go.

ted ership prefers to attack the local In the G&MWU (the union rep- authority for its "meanness".

resenting most of the school meals Furthur more, the demand for a supervisors) the local bureaucracy, rise in rates does nothing to in an attempt to head off calls for local Labour councillors an all out strike by the full educa- the spot in the cuts fight. tion section, put forward a call for by supervisors. A meeting of about 70 supervis.

The Labour War- members on

OTS

unanimously decided to con- wickshire County Council voted tinue the action for two weeks be- meeting against the cuts and argued for fore again to decide on rate increase. escalating the action. G&MWU shop steward told meeting of NALGO office representatives in Rugby has shown Socialist Press. an alternative way forward by vot- "We're going to win this one in ing to set up a committee to inves- spite of the officials. We've been local regional tigate authority finances. contact tryig to This committee will be able to officer now for a fortnight but he establish unobtainable, while are being appears to The his members are threatened made by the supply companies at a with time when serices are being slash- sackings. ed. In opinion we need all out action The NALGO representatives will strike to stop the cuts."

*FIGHT PHASE 2

- THORNETT

'The breaking of Stage Two is now the central question" said Alan Thorett, candidate to replace Jack Jones in the election for the General Secre- taryship of the TGWU. Thornett was speaking at a press conference last Saturday called by the Campaign for Democracy in the Despite the Movement. powerful movements the the social contract, said Thornett, "we simply can't say it's all over bar the shouting" He warned that the determit- ation right both the government and the TUC, to impose a third year of wage cuts on members meant that tnere was a long if bitter struggle ahead.

SLIDING SCALE

He recalled that the resolution from his branch calling for sliding scale of wages to match inflation - spearheaded the oppos ition to Jack Jones' launching of the TUC-policed control at wage the TGWU Biennial Delegate Con- ference in July 1975 A vote for his platform today, valuable Thornett blow against. the ruling bureau- cracy in the TGWU and for carry- ing forward a principled record of struggle within the union.

put abur by the lefts" Thornett warned policies Stalinists and and mainly ented by the candidature of Alex Kitson

TGWU,

the were dangerousiy deceptive. Their series of Conferences day's LCDTU Conference like that "bureaucratically

COLLI

the canca oy Stalinist-led BLMC Combine Com- mittee. "Their position", he said, 'is of being opposed to actual Two nOW", agamsl olage "a return postponing everything to to free collective bargaining after July".

LABOUR MOVEMENT

Commentine present on

TGWU

election stage Thornett said campaign, he was glad to accept the CDLM's invita- tion to a préss conference since it was only open to the press of the labour movement and the left, and was called by body that had waged "an essential fight for demo- and on the cracy in the

UNLES

wages question". The four candidates main presented by the capitalist press, including Jones' appointed heir, Moss and Evans. Alex Kitson, Saturday 26 February saw the ridiculous sight of two demonstrations separate op- posing National Front activity in the Stechford by-election.

Proposals were originally put the Trades Council through and District Labour Party for a demon- stration to be held. This was opposed by the Com- unist Party who argued that there was a danger of confrontation with the NF. After losing the vote the CP then used theit influence with the "moderates" on the Trades Council Executive to have the march routed away from the immigrant area of Page had already debated their electio tele positions in interviews on vision. Thornett pointed out that whe he himself tine beseiged he was invitations to appear on the media

SILENCE

But when, now wa standing for union office, there wa a blanket of silence. In his view, h added, it was an essential principl of democracy in the labour mov ment not to cooperate with th capitalist press and media.

'On the ballot itself he warne that: ., C10 again, protection agains and corruption, with ballo procedures wide open corrubtion." He know contrary it: branches. that branch should vote ior members to discuss meetings, procedures and elect to demand a report from scrutin questions on Answering left the elec Calendares Thornett commented that To: Riley, backed by the Right to l lacked Campaign, any programme and stood mainly more "rank and fileism". election "Except for the "all he said, RI: officials demands could be supported most union officials. What election address leaves out is account of actual struggles he been involved in".

BELATED

Remarking the belate from Newsline, paper support Workers the Revolutionars Part for his candidature, Thornett wri observed that he was describer "an incurable syndicalist oppot seems seems strange to me." remarked, "that Newsline shoal now be advocating votes for oppor tunists!" Thornett is completely righi insist that the issues in the TG VI election are vital to all workers, no only TGWU members. Voting end on March 19th. Socialist Press on all TGWU members to ask tha their branches invite candidates t address them before voting take place - and to fight for support Alan Thornett. The major demonstration at Stechfor

CP SPLITS MARCH

Stechford to Birmingham City centre. was unacceptable to th immigrant organisations. They demanded a change of plan, bu could make Even headway. tually they and the left groups wert forced to call a separate demonstra tion. The Trades Council Executi Committee did nothing to mobain for their demonstration. Eventually a motley conte of 50 CP and 'Militant' supporter set off, leaving a rather larger == er to form the nucleus of the ond demonstration, which git so something like :.500 peopie.

Page 12

ABORTION

RIGHTS

IN DANGER

Forty-six Labour MPs Callaghan administration. moved from office and a General Tory hands joined with Election forced them on and backwoodsmen bigots will be that it has not week to give a second last particularly discriminated against Scottish or Welsh workers - but reading to the reactionary (Amend- that it has used the full armoury Benyon Abortion of Tory policies against the entire ment) Bill, and set it on its British working class. way through Parliament.

PRIVATE PRACTICE

Indicating the complete inab- One example of this has been ility of the Labour and trade the savaging of the Health Service union leadership to carry forward even the most limited defence of and the refusal to stamp private practice in medicine.

women's rights, the Labour Party Tory Private declared the The result has been that Member's Bill the subject already under the NHS abortions 0I a "free vote" - on which the Party are increasingly hard for women apparently had no interest.

DEVOLUTION

now only 13% of abortions are Yet during the same week on a topic far more peripheral to the forced into private clinics by the Lives and wéll-being of the work- combination the diversionary Devol- ing class, money-grabbing Bill, Callaghan ution and his distinguishes the medical lieutenant, Foot, had been strain- profession in that area. ing every muscle and cracking a three line whip in an unsuccessful

AMEND

effort to force through a guillo- The Benyon Bill, which seeks tine measure as part of a man- oeuvre for an electoral toehold in to amend the existing 1967 Act, Scotland. plays up completely to this sector Of if this right-wing of the medical protession.

NEWHAM BUST

meeting ten minutes the East Newham North began so that right wingers could Labour Party was given the see first whether they had of right wing real flavour majority. "democratic" last Had there been genuine politics could and grievance the matter week when the forces of the should have been dealt with inside state were called in to break Party. But these the General their Annual "democrats" chose the Meeting. to use machinery of the state to interfere with democratically directly As the meeting ended in chaos called meeting. some of the staunchest Prentice

DESTROY

supporters were openly calling for the removal of the right wingers By doing so they have shown all Labour Party from their themselves willing destroy offices. the Labour inside The move had been engineered Party rather than accept that Oxford don Paul McCormick, the man 'moderates' they represent the who helped have been rejected. found the Democratic Labour who declared The officers, Club in Oxford as a right wing themselves, like Prentice, to be from the Uni- breakaway gruop events, did nothing shocked by versity Labour Club. They abandoned fight them. This organisation has become the meeting at the instruction of notorious for championing.

Tory the court officials. Labour Party. miltrators into the The meeting should be recon- President Roy Jenkins. Its take place vened and waiting for a group of McCormick, who has absolute- without no connection whatever with Tory judges to rule. Newham, obtained the injunction who signed the The four men for a supposed breach of rule, for the injunction application hours before the meeting to elect must be expelled. attracted officers. Prentice, who Keg But the court official, flanked these people to his aid, and whose views they aim to propagate, must by two strong arm waN instructed to make no move until be replaced.

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NAME.

ADDRESS

FIGHT THE

CUTS

SAVE

JOBS

asuns nancy in which abortion carried out from 28 to 20 weeks except in certain circumstances; it specifies that two least five year's experience (thus excluding young doctors) should take place; and it calls for licens- the whole idea of forced to go outside the National work of operation is inadequate.

at ine CP-run the Defence of Trade Unions Conference, Derek Robinson, Longbridge convener and Exec- member of the Com- utive munist Party. Only a week earlier he had "The worst thing that can happen to British Leyland and is for groups of workers to think they have got God-given right sectional action in defence of conditions. their own next to him is Bob Seated only shortly before had joined in a unanimous decision of the

AUEW

leadership instruct to the toolmakers to return TOOLROOM WORKERS... from Front Page.

these room On a unity But the 'left' MPs who claim to this legislation have at oppose every key point refused to take a clear stand against NHS spending cuts oI mobilise any struggle within the Labour Party for the removal of Healey and the Callaghan leadership.

WHIP

And they have even failed to come out and demand the farti whip be used to force Labour MPs to support abortion or be excluded from the

PLP.

"Consciens not a great pocritical This is hypocritical but a vital question of morality, rights for all women. Motions must be put down in union branches and CLPs demand- ing Labour MPs toe the line in defence of these most elementary democratic rights for women and the preservation and extension of PHOTO: John Sturrock. Report closure as a weapon to isolate them. Toolroom workers must give a clear answer to this. There can be no question of accepting , the figures handed out by me company and its suppress.

the press. management creditors must be and answered by the demand that they open their books to elected committees of trade unionists. And if indeed the company is on the verge of ruin as a result of crippling interest burdens and the exorbitant profits of component confirms the for firms; this case the nationalisation of Leyland, its suppliers and the banks as a major step towards integrated and an planned motor industry under the management of these trade union committees. In this way management closure threats can be challenged and the common struggles of all Leyland workers brought to the fore. In the context of this crucial struggle and the massive chailenge control throughout the wage working class, political clarity vital. This is why we urge all readers Conference on wage Control and build attend Union Democracy called by the Movement a Digbehe Lamar More mento in the Labour Civic Hall, Birmingham on March 27th. (Details p.4) This conference will be in clea opposition to the LCDTU Confer ence which the Communist Party leadership made sure did not ever discuss the 5/293 TGWU Branch resolution for support for those sections going into action against SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 2nd March, 1977 the NHS or make way for those who will. In particular ASTMS members must demand that all union is withdrawn from support the MP, Labour union-sponsored Minister Dr. Dickson Mabon, who flouted ASTMS policy in voting for the Tory Bill

STUDENTS FIGHT CUTS

...from Front Page. for their replacement by a prin- successful if it is based on a clear political programme. Such a programme obviously takes as its starting point in the present situation the demand that colleges refuse to implement the proposed fees increases, and that CHeV permitted access to education ini demand that all their books be opened to elected committees of of all fees, and the granting of full education facilities regardless of whether they possess is meaningless if students cannot sliding sale or public expen diture rising in pace with inflation the ravages of inflation.

not be won overnight: but only a pation and fighting for organised working class support, becomes reality and not the myth it now WE

WERE UNABLE

TO report the final figure for the January fund in our last issue due to the technical difficulties we faced in producing the paper but we are pleased say that the final total was £579 - our highest to date. Unfortunately, the picture this month is more gloomy with only £405.90 in and only one more post to come. There is a lot of promised Can we money still outstanding. all readers and supporters urge to take this situation seriously and send contributions immed iately to: Socialist Press Monthly Fund 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NWS 1HR

CAMPAIGN FOR

DEMOCRACY IN THE

LABOUR MOVEMENT

PUBLIC MEETING

"Wage Control and Union Democracy" NUFTO Hall, Jockey's Fields Holborn Thursday 17th March at 7.00pm Speakers Alan Thornett, Shop Steward,

BLMC

Chris Condon, L° North Islington Pat Ollie, Newham N.W. CLP Gerry Bennett, GMWU, Central London Hotels (All sneakino in a personal