[Similarly we would like to see our readers…]

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Similarly we would like to see our readers taking our fighting policies into the Labour Party and supporting our call for the removal of the right wing leadership of Callaghan and Healey and their replacement by a leadership prepared to fight to improve the Woman Worker will stand in the long traditions of the international Bolshevik movement's work among women. We will be publishing theoretical articles, not to promote an abstract debate but to broaden and deepen our understanding of the politics of Marxism, Leninism and Trotskyism and the sharp programmatic tasks we will need to undertake to build the Fourth International the world revolutionary party-to bring about the overthrow of capitalism on an international scale and the establishment of These tasks will inevitably bring us into conflict with the feminists of the "women's movement" who are so blinkered by their conviction that "autonomy" for women will bring about their liberation-by building autonomous women's groupings in the unions-that they refuse to confront the key questions of leadership and programme, arguing even at times that leadership equals It is these false positions which allow the feminists to co-exist with the Stalinists of the Communist Party who play a leading bureaucratic role in every country in the world in keeping down the This bureaucratic role is of course most obvious in the Soviet states themselves. Woman Worker supports Trotsky's call for the political revolution in these states to overthrow the bureaucracy and bring about true proletarian democracy, while arguing for the defence of the economic gains of the Bolshevik revolution against vred out discussions and votes on ring standards, wages and jobs. On women the record was even more women delegates trying to raise that it is vital that women do join Party. ome and their interests confined to care of children and husbands, are orces which seek to destroy the d working class. women to recognise the real tasks de unionists-male and female-are heir conditions and wages and to res. their way must be removed-the rade union and the Labour Party. is readers to organise in their workommit the membership to fighting ding scale of wages' on top of flat will automatically increase with n will necessitate the union branch mittee which will monitor price ne commitment to occupations and ies, hospitals, schools etc., from to see its readers giving a lead to heir places of work by becoming d conference delegates and thereby hme throughout their unions and. lot of the working class. socialism.

dictatorship and oppression.

working class.

imperialist attack. Send to mouth London,

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woman worker Up and down the country, from Cheshire to East London, from Hull to Milton Keynes, women are coming forward in the forefront of mass struggles But willingness to struggle is not enough. It is vital that these mass movements do not restrict themselves to futile and demoralising protests, but take up policies that can stop the cuts and defeat the Tories.

RAIS

We could fill the pages of this paper with an account of the number of assaults by the Tories and their Labour henchmen in London alone-attacks on public spending in general and in particular on the hospitals.

The list of hospitals threatened with full or partial closure is massive, stretching in the south from St. George's, Hyde Park, St. Benedicts, Putney and Guy's Hospital to St. Mary's W9, the Prince, Tottenham and St. Leonards, Hackney, to name but a few.

These cuts of course are a major assault on women workers (the majority of hospital workers. are women and, alongside the plans of Prior to reduce women's right to work by the plans to end the protection of employment for mothers in small factories, are part of the determined drive to force women back into the home.

The response by the labour movement in London has been massive, with demonstrations, meetings, petitions and campaigns against the hydra-headed cuts.

Most significant have been two factors:

1) The ability of the labour movement to take independent actions which do not allow the cuts to against the Tory attacks.

The National Éxecutive of Britain's biggest health service union, COHSE, has declared a policy of occupying hospitals to prevent closure.

Though General Secretary Albert Spanswick hedged about this call by a string of ifs' and 'buts' the adoption of the work-in policy is a step forward, offering a perspective to all health workers and public sector workers fighting the Tory cuts.

They must demand that COHSE and other union officials implement this policy, and call reduction of the home help service, increasing the number of jobs held vacant, and the closure of three playgroups.

The playgroup, workers refused to accept the closure (announced only two weeks before they were due to reopen) and continued to run the playgroups outside the locked premises-a "work-in"

outside! The action of these women workers and parents led to the decision of the social services committee to reverse the cuts and reopen the play -groups.

Other workers refused to cover the work of jobs held vacant, so that social services offices were shut and locked when there were insufficient staff to cover them.

This and similar action by teachers, together with a 500-strong demonstration, struck terror into the hearts of the Labour council. Unable to face confronting working class action, they finally took the principled position of reversing the previous decision and deciding not to implement the cuts.

The councillors are, however, going to raise the extra money by increasing rates instead of confronting the Tory government by overspending their budget.

Lambeth council, faced with similar opposition from the labour movement have also refused to cut COUSE worki official occupations as a focus for mass supporting strikes to stop the cuts in the public services.

One area where such a policy could be effective is Oxford, where the Area Health Authority has announced plans to close two geriatric hospitalsLongworth and Cowley Road.

COHSE members, at Longworth, with the backing of a COSE official, voted last September to set up a support committee and prepare to occupy Spanswick-ifs and buts 1A i MISHAM ERDER INA CONSE TO THE CUTS!/ DESICOUNCIIL SAYS NO the hospital.

The campaign has won widespread support from trade union bodies, Labour Party wards and community organisations.

SECRET DECISIONS

This put massive pressure on the AHA, lobbying their meetings and forcing them to drop any attempt to decide the future of the Hospital in secret and not to close it 'for the time being" -a temporary reprieve.

The noticeable absence on all the lobbies of the AHA meetings over the past year has been however that of the workers of the Cowley Road Hospital.

Not one was ever present. Did they think opposition to the AHA plans were hopeless or did they not know how to organise?

A year ago in September 1978 400 met to oppose the Cowley Road closure, and yet the months have since ticked away closer to the closure date without any further organised protest.

Meanwhile several union branches asked that a support committee be set up, but there was no response from the NUPE leaders "representing" the workers at Cowley Road.

OPPOSITION

Finally, a year after the proposed closure was announced the local NHS Joint Trade Union Committee set up a working party to discover the views of the staff on the closure.

The result was overwhelming opposition from nearly a hundred staff. They said they were ready to fight but hadn't been given a lead, like at Longworth. They have now set up a support committee. They realise that petitions and other forms of protest are of limited value and can be ignored by those carrying out cuts, but the organised strength of the labour movement supporting an occupation of threatened hospitals cannot be so easily dismissed. The Cowley Road Hospital Support Committee has therefore declared that they, like Longworth, will work-in in opposition to closure if adequate medical cover is given. GPs have now been circulated, requesting their help and from the response it looks like it will be obtained.

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¡NHS cuts will make :you sick

COHSE! CUTS OST AVE HOTO *Trade un Ian McIntosh, IFL