'left's" Bid to Head Off Pay Offensive

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Firemen's wives demonstrate in Romford Instead of declaring that ally silent.

The Parliamentary debate on the Firemen's pay strike brought the now familia ur spectacle of Labour ler aders joining hands with Liberals and Tories in support of Healey's wage-cutting 10% limit.

Home Secretary Merlyn Rens spelled out that despite the huge cost of the FBU action the pay policy would be upheld. • Yet on the picket lines sections of firemen are beginning to get a guage of the importance of their action.

"The miners brought down Health and we'll bring down this bastard" announced • an Oxford fireman last week.

Pressure

And throughout the working class continued pressure on union officials for an all-out fight on wages indicates scant respect for the Lib-Lab government or its pay policy.

But if workers and the capitalist parties are each in their own way becoming clear on the issues involved in the FBU strike, the same is not true of Labour's 'left' MPs.

40 of them staged a token Tevolt' during the debate by refusing the government whip. They knew in advance of course that their votes would be more than made good by Tories and Liberals supporting policy.

Obscure

Not only did none of these MPs would draw the political conclusion from support to the firemen, they actually did all they could PHOTO: Mark Rusbar, IFL to obscure it.

the firemen are simply among the first sections of workers in struggle against the 10% Limit, and opposing that restriction on wages, the 'lefts' tried to pass off the firemen as a "special case"

And instead of pointing out that wage control is fundamental to the Lib-Lab coalition, and declaring their intention to withdraw all support for that coalition, the "lefts' remained diplomaticTragedy Scottish Labour Party 'left' Jim Sillars said it was a "tragedy" that firemen of all people should be forced onto the street.

He urged the government to be "flexible" on wage control.

Welsh Labourite Neil Kinnock also warned the government not to use the 10% policy as a "straightjacket". But he did not call for an end to the limit.

Eric Heffer and Audrey Wise joined in this call for the firemen to be regarded as a "special case".

No initiative Dennis Skinner appeared to go one better, agreeing that the firemen should be a special case-provided that the rest of the working class could also be a special case.

Yet Skinner has launched no initiative anywhere in the labour movement for a break in the Lib-Lab coalition. He has not even himself declared he will refuse to vote for it on motions of confidence.

To talk of breaking the pay limits wide open without making : such a stand is patently ridiculous. It gives the impression of opposition while bringing none of the action necessary.

Electoral chances

A hint as to why the 'lefts' have been pressed into these sudden declarations on the firemen after their long silence on the power workers, on Fords and on the 10% policy itself came from 'left' NEC Chairman Joan Lestor.

Speaking on Friday she warned that the Labour Party's electoral chances could be damaged if the firemen were not made a special case.

As Labour's right wing wheels out the troops in direct strike breaking, the 'lefts' now begin to play their key role as a smokescreen to conceal the class issues involved in the firemen's action.

Withdraw To expose the gulf between their words and