Duces a far greater political impact and clarity among the working class than any number of revolutionary candidates. It is this lesson that the IMG needs to absorb from its 1974 election campaign.
begins to recover from this period of deteat point we have not yet reached - the first recipients of a new upsurge of support will the left reformists. The task De. as always, or the dav will be to insert a revolutionar programme into the fight for maximum class unity. The pre-condition for such an intervention will be patient work in the trade unions and Labour Party. It will be a Hially revolutionaries remain outside or tnis work, organise imagined groups of workers who have allegedly broken from reformism where, comrades, were for programme does involve the necessity of always being able to ficht directly on your own programme What should determine our tactics is the best means of putting our politics across to the working class while maintaining the right to independent political positions Clearly work in the Labour Party does not namper unis latter perspective.
Moralism and the desire to abstain from anv taint of collaboration with the retorm ists should be - but unfortunately is not entirely foreign to revolutionary ists. It was for this reason that Red Weekly makino a cubiou elvision betwee!
Senn and Foot - refused to support the in the leadership fight earlier this year. The criterion tor support was not the class collaborationist policies of Benn and but the opportunity which a victory tor eitner against tne right wing would Have provided for increasing our programmatic intervention and demands on the Labour leadership and thus of fighting for our class as a whole.
See In Focus', page 3. Just over two months ago a group of active trade unionists arrived and started working for the Thomas Lowe bunding Tirm on central Their first discovery was that many of the working rules inat apply to ine bunaig industry were being ignored, particularly in -ПО the fields of safety and welfare.
When the site had been fully unionised and a shop steward had been elected, the management were approached about safe. ty conditions and bonus rates. the workers were promised an immediate improvement in safety conditions and a vast increase in bonus rates, the firm later informed the shop steward that they would attempt to improve safety but they could not possibly incidentally Marx- per cent of the average bonus payments in Birmingham To combat this the workers neid a meeting and decided to operate a go slow" A factory inspector was summoned to the site ano une Meanwhile, the local regional office of the building workers tempting to establish a Joint Conciliation Pane to create some sor or rusol bonus rates.
For three days the workers held the upper hand, picking at every feature of the Working Rules that had been ignored by the firm. The management's next step was mortar Spring Road seven men Although afford an increase in pay.
Road site.
Lowe's were paying only Clive Wilkinson, scaffolding was condemned seat union UCATT was atBirmingham, their own lorres this struggle, employers' unions on the sites to produce a letter from the City Architect doubt and all work on this particular site must be immediately suspended •WOrKTOICE which consisted of one bricklaying gang WCIC dispersed. The shop steward was sent to stoke-on-trent ol miles from his home) and the others t sites in the Birmingham area. Meanwhil the Spring Road site lay idle.
Two weeks later, four of these workers were sacked on anomner site in bummendr on the grounds that the company could not provide them with any work. later a company of sub-contractors D&s Joinery Ltd.) started building on the Spring The reason why all this possible was that in January the Leader o the then Labour Council passed a resolution allowing the use registered subcontractors on council projects. His name nimselt a member o UCATT, a right-wing Labour councillor and believed to have ambitions to succeed Ro Jenkins in the Stechford parliamentary Now, at the end of weeks of picketing support around and attempting to rally tnese workers • nave beer partly because of the strength of the opposition in delivering materials Decaust Regional Executive Committee of UCATI has failed to give any positive support in but most importantly be cause there has been tremendous erosior in the organisational ability of the shor stewards movement within the building and construction industry as a result of the "black list' and the increasing use of sub-contract workers to smash the organisation of militant trade It is urgent for all trade unionists to fight to smash the lumo svsem or empoymen in the building industry and establish a system of direct employment for all trades _PETE McGEER UCATT. Birmingham