[women's struggles for democratic ngnts national imperialism or…]

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women's struggles for democratic ngnts national imperialism or by the Stalinist and against economic oppression; with the bureaucracies in the deformed workers The bankrupt policies of the labour and trade union bureaucrats has serious implications for women's fight against oppression. Forced' to stifle the struggle for policies which will actually win disputes and begin to challenge capitalism, the bureaucracy has pushed womens'! rights questions into the background.

In some cases the forcing of women out of employment and back into the home has been fostered by trade union leaders i Is a solution to their male members ‹ Iwn problems.

Woman Worker is published by the Workers Socialist League as part of the tight to mobilise women together with the working class in the international fight against capitalism. As Trotskyists we are fighting to reconstruct the Fourth International-the world party of socialst revolution-to lead the struggles of the working class.

Our programme, based on the Transitional Programme, al Praoramme is directed towards linkino Sumatiny camuna need to overthrow capitalism. states.

*Women io take on positions of leadership within the unions in order to fight fort these policies.

*Joint price committees of trade unionists and housewives to organise the fight against inflation.

#For a sliding scale of wages on top of flat rate increases: for wages to be linked to price increases as assessed by elected price committees.

*For strike action and occupations to defend the health, education and social services and threatened factories.

*For open-the-books committees to discover the real financial state of the social services, and private companies threatening closure.

*For nationalisation ' under workers' management without compensation of firms that declare themselves bankrupt.

*Against all anti-abortion legislation-for free abortion and contraception on demand and workers and consumers control of the health service.

*Solidarity with struggles of women internationally against oppression by inter- intornatinnall anainot nonraccinn hu inta+for schoolchildren, pensioners etc. Then there is a résources element, which assists councils who have low incomes and therefore could not afford to provide sufficient facilities like libraries, swimming baths etc. on their own. And finally there is a 'domestic" element, designed to protect (?) ratepayers from having to foot the bill for rising costs..

These three grants are then tacked on to the direct grants made for police and the fire service to make up the total 'Rate Support Grant' to a council.

Much of what councils provide with this money is determined by law; for example schools for all children between the ages of 5 and 16, which takes up over 5% of most county councils budgets.

But the way they do this is often not spelt out. That is why governments can improve or deteriorate many basic services without ever needing to pass new laws.

Council money goes to cover a wide range of expenses, normally called revenue expenditure, which include staff wages, maintenance, materials, equipment, administration and interest on any loans, A rarely published fact, however, is that these 'debt' charges on loans often amount to as much as 40% of total expenditure in District Councils, and up to a quarter of expenditure in County Councils.

BANKS This massive back-hander to th banks aused by the fact that councils : e forc o borrow most of heir maj • capii

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