Parry Plans 10% Sell-out

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Parry Firefighters from all over the country will gather outside Congress House in London today to confront the TUC traitors who stand between them and their 30% claim.

But it is becoming clearer by the day that among the enemies of the strike must be counted Terry Parry himself and the rest of the right wing leadership of the Fire Brigades Union, Government police Even as the TUC play out their role of government police force inside the trade union movement by preventing any section coming out alongside the firemen, Parry is trying his hardest to accept the government offer towards fixed league tables for all public sector workersa plan already put forward secretary of the GMWU.

Break off talks

Firemen must demand that Parry breaks off all talks until the employers agree to break the 10% limit and offer more money now.

Pressure on the TUC must be increased. Motions should be passed through union branches calling on executives to support the firemen.

Collections should also be made-particularly as social security is being withheld from the firemen.

Not enough But solidarity of this kind is not nearly enough for those who really want ot beat the coalition and the TUC.

The decision of NUPE to reject the first vote of the membership and now to accept the employers offer of 10% for one million local authority workers is a vicious blow against firemen, public employees and the whole working class.

So long as the TUC can hold workers back through the 12-month rule or allow them into battle only one at a time the Liberals are happy to sustain the government in their concealed coalition which is designed simply and solely to bolster wage control.

Chief guardians

The TUC are conscious of the fact that if the firemen should win, the Lib-Lab government will alm ost certainly fall.

So, as chief allies of the Lib-Lab coalition, the TUC have been enlisted as chief guardians of the 10% limit.

For this reason the FBU strike has always been far more • than simply a pay battle. It involves government.

Vital step

Only the Workers Socialist League has from the outset focussed on the need to develop beyond simple calls TOT "solidarity" and "support" , to tackle the question of mobilising pay strikes alongside the firemen.

This remains the next vital step if the 10% policy is to be broken once and for all.

HH "He who pays the piper calls the tune" says the old proverb.

So it was last week when Zionist piper Begin was in Washington to discuss his latest refrain with his chief backer and main organiser of world imperialism, President Carter.

The "peace" proposals put forward by Begin and later partly leaked to the press involved no retreat whatsoever in the sovereignty of the settler regime beyond handing back a few worthless pieces of barren desert in the Sinai peninsula to Egypt.

"Concessions"

Such are the so-called concessions being granted by the Zionists.

The capitalist press of the entire world is engaged on an extraordinary public relations exercise on behalf of these plans, trying to make the weak and fearful Sadat look like a heroic peace maker and to make his many Arab opponents appear unreasonable.

At the same time the Zionist colonists are being cast in the role of reluctant but definite conciliators.

Beneath this fantasy lies the reality of a hard faced Zionist regime unprepared to make any concession to Palestinian national rights and imperialist backers who, while more ready to compromise with bourgeois and feudal Arab interests in the area for the sake of international exploitation, will not in any way weaken the Zionist enclave which provides an invaluable spearhead for them in their efforts to divide and rule in the area.

Lip service

Carter, as is well known, has begun to pay some lip service to Palestinian national rights by using such phrases as "homeland" in some of his speeches earlier this year.

The purpose of this was to