Lawrence Daly talks to building workers lobbying Wednesday's TUC General Council meeting over the Shrewsbury The Tories' The General Council of the TUC has refused to recall Congress and instead decided to organise a matonal demonstration and campaign against Tory policies. But what sort of alternative can the TUC chiels put forward when their main efforts in recent weeks have been to ask ASLEF to call off its industrial action, and to discuss collaborating with the Tories to end the current industrial disputes in exchange for a lifting of the lockout? Not even the TUC General Council can really believe that a government which is prepared to lockout the entire country for 2 days every week will be frightened by a one-day strike.
What the situation calls for & not TURES wishy-washy campaign" • determined working diass counter offensive. The call of the AUEW and TGWU executives and the London Trades Council for an immediate , recall of the TUC must echo from every quarter of the trade union movement. The demand must be raised for such a TUC to unite and organise the working class to fight the Tory attacks in the most effecfive way: through a genteral strike to bring down the Tory government.
But trade union militants should not sit on their hands until the TUC acte The fight against Phase 3 and for the present wage claims must be pressed forward. Those unions which are nha on the firing line-especially the miners and the engineers-must meet the Tory challenge by stepping up their industrial actions and providing a LOBLICIC struggle of the whole working class. (there are 14 million tons of coal stockpiled at power stations and another 13 million at the pit heads-enough to weather the NUM the trade union bureaucrats into panic. This, they hope, will split the labour movement and break all resistance to government policy.
A national strike by either the miners or the engineers coula turn the tide against the Tories, but a uniled fight by them both would shake the government to its very foundations. Combined with active efforts to unite all the struggles against Phase 3, such an alliance would be a massive step lowards a general strike.
Practical measures must be taken to unite the working class at the rank-and-file level. Such unity demands resistance ruling class to hoist the burdens of the present crisis on to the backs of the working class and break thei willingiess to fight. A determined struggle against all redundancies and for full pay during lay-offs must be organised throughout the trade union movement, with factory occupations but as a key weapon.
The local labour movement most use such struggles to forge the unity which will coable it to go on the offensive. Councils of Action must be set up in every area to organise and unite all the local struggles of the working class, and draw in other sympathetic proups such as students tenants and housewives. If the TUC i prepared to organise a national fight agatnst the government, then these Councils of Action will be an invaluable local arm of the struggle. If the TUC refuses to go heyand token protests, then the Councila could coordinute their actions and give a national lead themselves. Measures such as these can block a united movement which could rapidly dispose of the Tory government and take up the task of preparing and implementing a working class solution to the crisis. to all attempts by the campaign. verdicts. He told them This is our fight too". Absolutely right! We trust that Mr Daly will call on the TUC to take up the fight to reverse the verdict and stop the trials, and will work to place the might of the NUM behind this
----- pull-quotes -----
The 2-day lockout which the Tory government is imposing on the whole working class is a cool and calculated manoeuvre. actions are not determined by a real coal shortage
overtime ban for several months without power cuts), but are an attempt to put immense pressure on the working class and throw
NO RED WEEKLY NEXT WEEK Red Weekly 33 will appear 4 JAN