Hoin Firemen's Fight: Break Lib-lab Healtion

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Ireland (Part 3)

The biggest danger leaders.

These officials have consistently refused to spell out the implications of the claim which brings firemen into conflict not with their employers in local authorities but wịth the Lib-Lab coalition government, determined to enforce its 10% limit on Blessing And they have given their blessing to the use of 12,000 roops in a massive scabbing operation matched in scale only by the 1926 General Strike.

Despite this kind of leadership, firemen have responded with virtually 100% solidarity to the official strike call. Driven into struggle by rigid pay restraint, the firemen now reflect the militancy on wages that runs throughout the working class.

Their strike is the first major test of the 10% policy in the public sector. Already thousands of workers in private industry have won settlements in excess of the 10%Now the government is determined to use the public sector as a last bulwark against a huge surge of wage claims.

Under these conditions the role of the NUM leadership in delaying action on their 95% claim is criminal. Left-talking Yorkshire president Scargill may prattle about burying the 10% but he pulled back at a crucial point-when the miners could have been brought into action alongside the firemen.

And NUPE leaders, who today rejected a 10% offer for 1 million manual workers in local authorities, are also TO consciously holding back on action-leaving the firemen to fight the pay code alone.

By torcing the tremen into strike action, the government has shown it is prepared to see people maimed or killed in fires and accidents rather than workers regain their living standards.

In this they are eagerly applauded by the CBI and by leading Tory spokesmen.

Sunday Telegraph columnist Peregrine Worsthorne, a supporter of the Chilean coup, this week praised Callaghan as the best Prime Minister since Churchill because of his stand on pay.

Deaths

And throughout the press and the media every report is loaded with hysterical lying propaganda to suggest that it is firemen, not the coalition government's policy of wage control that are responsible for the deaths.

The untrained army scabs with their antiquated vehicles are a vital part of this propaganda war. The government knows that troops cannot do the firemen's job. They offer no protection to anyone.

Opposition

The main object is not to fight fires but to pile pressure on the firemen's leaders.

Home Secretary Rees and other Ministers have carefully noted FBU General Secretary Terry Parry's opposition to the strike decision, and his attempts to head off action.

They are cynically confident that Parry will do nothing to strengthen and extend the scope of the strike.

They expect that a few rapid deaths will assist him in pressing his members to drop the claim and return to work, with the 10% limit intact, The firemen's claim, despite its lack of any call for SPAIN - Statements and BOSSES' ANSWER PAY LAWS NUM LEADERS ACCEPT 12-MONTH PRESS GANG A TREMAN Parry protection of wages against future inflation, represents a vital challenge to the pay limit and to the very existence of the Lib-Lab coalition.

If the 10% limit is broken, so will the confidence of the Liberal Party and the Tories in Callaghan's ability to attack the working class.

And workers could grasp the opportunity to break the coalition once and for all.

Millions The firemen's 30% claim could create the bridgehead in the 10% limit through which millions more public sector and other workers must pass if they are to achieve their own pay demands.

Firemen must therefore see their struggle as a part of the battle of the whole working class against wage control.

They are not a 'special Manoeuvres • pp3 & 7 TO HEALEY'S case' • Like thousands mon workers they have a legiti mate claim that must be wor in full.

Councils of Action

In every area the FBI must call on support fron the local labour movement.

There must be a fight ti build councils of action bringing together delegate from local union branches tenants committees and working class political organ isations, with a perspective o mobilising full support to th firemen and urging othe sections of workers to pres ahead with their own wag claims in defiance of the 109 limit and the 12-month rule.

In particular local NUPI and NUM branches mus support such moves an demand their own leaders cal them to immediate actio alongside the firemen.

Amid the hysteria of th Tory press, 15 Labour lefts are claiming to support th firemen's claim. The Tribun group have typically claime that the firemen are a specia case.

But if they seriously wan to see the victory of the fire men, these MPs should begi by voting against the wag cutting Lib-Lab coalition government and its use o troops to break a vital pa strike.

Exposed

They should be fightil throughout the labour mov ment for the removal of ti Callaghan-Healey leadership.

But their past record ind cates that these "lefts' take up no such fight.

By their deeds in th dispute the establishe leaders of the working clas both 'left' and 'right' can t exposed as inadequate workers' needs.

The need is for a revo utionary leadership based a the fight for the complet political independence of ti working class and a sociali programme to regain defend living standards.

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facing the firemen's 30% pay claim is their union

EALINS LESS JAKE PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report

PREPARE T TO RULE p10 GHT DAY