Socialist Action No. 74, 26 October 1984
The scan: 074-oct-26-1984-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
ONLY TREACHERY
No. 74 26 October 1984 30p IN SEVEN weeks since the TUC Congress the NUM has fought its way to the edge of total victory.
First the TUC decisions on the power stations have begun to be effective in key Then NACODS decision strike threatened to wreck the government's entire strategy of keeping the Notts coal field open.
The result, by the middle of last week was an attack of panic within the British ruling class. When £6,800 change in two days, the largest fall in share prices in history, that speaks far more eloquently than any words.
The appointment of Michael Eaton as new chief spokesperson of the Coal Board, in the middle of the strike, was an admission of just how far the credibility of the government's position was collapsing.
Peter Walker's appeal to Neil Kinnock to step in and use his 'influence' with t he NUM showed how conscious me government was that it can He longer win the dispute with its own forces. By the end of last week it was OuCC TUC and NACODS leadership that more quite obviously only the
could deprive the NUM of victory.
And that is exactly what they set out to do throughout this week. It started on Thursday with Ninnock spelling out his terms for a settlement over the heads of the NUM. Then by Tuesday this week NACODS was excluding the NUM from its negotiations with the Coal Board at ACAS. The TUC has still uttered not one
NUM.
The aim of the TUCs operation was quite clear. To try to impose a 'compromise' on the NUM. The aim of the government's policy was equally clear.
oovernmen 1º found it cannot get the Scargill leadership of the NUM to back down. Therefore it intends to go over its head and try to stitch up a deal with those who are more reasonable' the leadership of NACODS, the TUC, and Neil Kinnock. The aim is to impose that deal on the NUM.
The role of the labour movement, and particularly its left wing, has to be clear. The only people with the right to negotiate on the miners strike are the leadership of the NUM. The role of the labour movement is to support the miners - not work out how to sell them out.
The subject the TUC should be discussing is how to defend the NUM against the attacks of the courts -
SOCiALiSt
ACTiON
BETT
aiscussing witn Thatcher and MacGregor how many pits it is acceptable to close.
The left wing of the whole movein particular the left wing unions in the C. have to block the treachery which is being cooked up against the NUM.
This means: • An all-out strike of NACODS
• No TUC talks on the miners strike
Neil, I'll do the
talking.'
only the NUM can negotiate for the miners • Full implementation of TUC Congress decisions on stopping the movement of coal • A national Labour Party TUC demonstration in support of the miners GAN emergency TUC General Council meeting to decide on inaustrial acmon to meet any sequestering of the NUM's funds by the courts.
--
CAN STOP THE NUM
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2 Socialist Action
ACTiON SociAlist
Why Kinnock
scabs
RIGHT FROM the beginning of the miners' strike two of its key figures have been absolutely sure of what they wanted.
Arthur Scargill, resting on the member ship of the NUM, has oriented to a total vic tory over Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher has aimed for total victory over the NUM. Any compromise which emerged between these two would simply be because one side was unable to crush the other. Thatcher would only compromise when she is convinced the only alternative for her government is total defeat.
On the side of the NUM it is the determintaion of its membership, and the nature of its leadership, eight months. Each escalation by Thatcher has
met with an equal escalation by the NUM -until by last Tuesday total victory lay within the hands of the miners union.
From last Tuesday until the beginning of this week, with the leadership to hold steady could have written any settlement he wanted on a piece of paper and Thatcher and MacGregor would have been forced to sign it
But also dispute another less has known exactly what it dispute. That force is Basnett, and the leadership of the TUC
Basnett was not actually lying at the TUC when he said that he did not want crush oright its ay NUM.
TUC to back to table' that is another matter). openly crush the NUM would not serve that purpose. Hence the efforts of GMBATU, and other unions, to gain support for the TUC guidelines in the
But if Basnet not want the NUM simply to be crushed it does not want a victory for
lothing would terrify han a triumphant NUM which had crushed Thatcher's policies. Because members of other unions would simply ask 'if he And that would mean years of trouble for people like David Basnett and Normal Willis
So the TUC, Reat this year's Congress, finds it is riding a tiger The resolution of support for the miners at the TUC Congress, from delegates together with the atmosphere which surrounded
NACODS ballot which made total victory for the miners possible. Therefore, TUC, that victory must be stopped and a compromise' delivered.
This process became public last Thursday with the quite incredible Peter Walker/Neil Kinnock all talking, all action TV show.
First Walker made his dramatic
innock to intervene to persuade the NUM to a cept the ACAS settlement.
eared and started negotiating
inding the strike over heads of the NUM
The basis of the whole operation is simple. To break up the united front the NUM has created around itself, to isolate Scargill and the NUM
leadership prevent
course of the struggle heads of the NUM, why the NCB-NACODS talks on Tuesday excluded the NUM, why the TUC is
naking no campaign against the legal attacks or
he NUM
The bourgeoisie in effect says 'we can't do
business with Scargill's leadership, or the rank
and file of the NUM, so therefore we propose to
go round it, over it, underneath it,
ny route possible to negotiate without it.' Anc
this is just what the TUC and Kinnock propose to
deliver. It should be given its proper name.
Scabbing.
Editor: ALAN FREEMAN
Published weekly except two weeks in August and the
last week of December.
Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily repre-
sent Socialist Action's views. These are expressed in
editorials.
26 October 1984
Photo: JOHN HARRIS
which has kept the strike going for
NACODS strike going ahead, all needed was for the labour and union
and Arthur Scargill
right from the beginning of the
openly spectacular force wanted out of the Neil Kinnock, David
Thatcher to Basnett's strategy is for the the negotiatin where of course it will surrender (bu
Allowing Thatcher to
and the TUC leadership, does
scargill and the miners the TUC leadership more led by Arthur Scargill,
can do it, why can't our leaders?'
been of the miners to give support for the
the overwhelming support
at the Labour Party conference,
created a dynamic for the labour bureaucracy and the
Appeal t Then Kinnock ap terms Tol
them dictating the
Kinnock negotiates over the
REPLACING IAN MacGregor by Michael Eaton is a desperate gamble by the NCB, at a critical stage of the dispute. It is clear that the NACODS' strike call is likely to be widely supported. moderate Leicestershire area executive committee voted unanimously to instruct their members to strike.
strike by NACODS 700,000 tonnes of coal a week which the CEGB is currently getting from the Coal Board. Eaton's appointment is a major retreat by the government and the NCB, in an attempt to avoid this development.
NACODS WalLs the appeals •OOV have wider terms of reference than simply pit closures. If the reference to closures were removed the body could consider the ques tion of investment in a pit belore l was run dowil
If the board can get talks before Thursday NACODS will almost certainly call off the strike.
This now looks a strong possibility.
Such an would be a considerable compensation TO Y replacement of lan MacGregor. It would give the government a chance to recoup SUIC of the ground it has lost since the breakaown the last ACAS talks.
Eaton's arrival, however, does not mean that the NCB is about to give in. Ine central Issue remains, and the main enemy will still be the NUM.
Eaton is likely to drop the attempt to get agreement on what constitutes "uneconomic', and instead trv tor agreement on wnal constitutes exhaustion.
He is suggesting that an exhausted pit is one where coal could not be brought to te surlace al all accep.
table price. In short, they have changed the singer
A PIECE
What is the matter with this man Scargill?!?
No mediation-
step up the action!
Even the very
would eliminate the
not the song.
The change however is in the context of an effort
the advance of the NUM. MacGregor told a meeting of directors Derbyshire last June that he wanted see the leadership the NUM defeated, rather than a quick return to work.
By Pat Hickey
The situation is much more favourable to the NUM NOW The government is still pursuing the twin-track strategy. On the one hand they have the courts waiting to sequester the NUM funds. On the
Eaton allows the NCB to
La more conciliatory face. The reason for this is that the Tories now want the labour leadership come to their rescue.
Strike las cost
them £3,300 million so far, and they are not yet ready to write off what Nigel Lawson called thwhile investment for the nation' This sum is the equivalent of nine years subsidy to the NCB
while strike by NACODS would bring the end of the dispute a great deal closer, it is clear
OF THE ACTION
don't know..
Perhaps he just doesn't want a seat in the House of Lords..
any case that the NUM will fight on, and that it is winning. The government preparing the ground for The st ec a cockr ted by Neil Kinnock, to intervene
The labour leadership should give no credibility whatsoever unest moves. They do not represent a withdrawal of the pit closure plans.
The NUM must be left completely free
with the Coal Board. The task for the Board. labour leaders is stepping up the solidarity.
The silence of the general council and of Neil Kinnock the High Court action is unaccep table. So too is their lack of response treacherous role of Eric Hammond in the phones ballot of EETPL members. This action was an open undermining of congress decisions.
Now that they have conciliatory approach in the coal talks, the Tories will step up the pressure via the
They hope to frighten the TUC with the consequences of the strike, while giving Kinnock
Basnett et al an opportuni-
the role of mediators.
Of course; if the 'fair
and reasonable' advice of
the mediators is not ac cepted, this will "prove that the NUM unreasonable. The
answer to this strategy is to
step up the efforts to sup
port the NUM.
Victory is within our grasp It must be made
plain to the leadership that
their job is not to get in
volved in mediation. It is
to deliver action.
e Supporte
MINERS
Better late...
strike. the sub-head 'Yorkshire puddings'.
co even in private.
way lett to go.
THE COMIC STRIP KEQUIKE
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
What nonsense!
What other reason could there be for being the leader of a trade union? I To defend the inter. ests of one's members?
News
Socialist
Worker
Let's build united
BETTER LATE than never. But Socialist Worker is seven months late. Up to now they carefully avoided united action in the belief that only SW could win the dispute — which is why they were not very optimistic about the
In March, SW was assuring its readers that the 'left controlled area leaderships are preventing the large-scale picketing that is essential to victory.' In April they were claiming that the Yorkshire Area officials were not 'giving the leadership required'. This particular piece of wisdom appeared under
By July, no doubt in the interests of unity, they were advising Arthur Scargill that he 'should not be bending over backwards before Mac Gregor and
Now they propose that the rest of the left do what it has been doing for the past seven months. Good. A small step forward. But there is a long
I know it's hard to believe but not everyone is overwhelmed by a desire to sit in the same room as Lord
HERE INSK THE NAME OF YOUR FAVOURITE SOCIALIST PEER
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Workers of the world unite
NUM club, St Helen's
Delegations of miners
and women against
closures from Scotland.
North and South
Yorkshire, Lancashire,
Nottinghamshire,
Leicestershire, South
Wales and South Stafford-
shire took the
meeting.
Coln of-
Lancashire
come out first
included:
10TL
Lorraine from
Lancashire,
from Wales,
alongside from
Party Action
colnuiltee and Kipp
Dawson a
up the message which
Walle o1 the discus-
sion: 'We've learned how
to walk and we're not go-
ing to crawl again.'
The second session
dealt with the lessons of
the strike. It was introduc-
ed by
come back
to rail
THERE ARE only thir-
striking in
Leicesterhire - and a
magnificent thirty they
are too. I've got 100 members in the NUR, and 60 of them are involved in the action.
We've forged alliance with the striking miners. So you've got just
90 men holding back the production of 2500 work-
ing miners.
Roy Butlin, Coalville
NUR
Our depot in birated We move 135,000 tons a week to three power stations, including Didcot which has been switched off the national grid since June.
They're getting frustrated with us, because we're surrounded by working churning out all this coal and won't shift it.
You're all longing for power cuts. vou can't wait for them to start. If they break Coa vile they can shift coal by rail, it will put back the power cuts until after Christmas.
But I must say a word about the lorries. There's not much can about them, but it's got to be a condition of the settlement of the mutters dispute that all the coal that was on the railway, comes back to the railway.
And if it doesn't come back on the railway at the nd of this disput if my
the tonnage that we car-
NINETY MINERS and thirty women from the mining communities participated in a meeting of 300 trade unionists and socialists in Socialist Action's 'Miners' International Solidarity Meeting' at Bold
Kent NUM,
Ross Socialist ALON
internarally.
explaining how
his CICH tionalism.
brought Peoples'
being sell
Nigel Beyan of
NUM explained tour Holland. from Denmark, Italy the solidarity
final there on behalf of Revolutionary Communist League of The meeting singing of the Iniernanonete.
Bold NUM was by 600
unionists Jule.
It raised
ILL ried, then the NUM needn't ask us for support again.
And I'll finish with this. There's 330
decl miners dismissed in this dispute. and it's the NUM's position that their reinstatement is part of the settlement. Well, you can add 3 railwaymen to that. I want their jobs back too.
Brian Pehan ON ACTION A ON
Ann Jones, Johnson on the left of
WOMEN DIDN'T start organising at the beginning of the strike at Bold, it was the tenth week before we got going. And at first there was just a handful of us, but now we've got forty or fifty women involved.
We mainly organise the food. And I want to say that some of our women work for 11 hours a day in the canteen and they are not paid for it. Most of us
THERE ARE 2500 miners in Leicester, and there are 2470 scabs. I'm speaking for the other 30, the 'dirty thirty' as we're known.
I want to start by giving. Illy thanks to the Coalville NUK The job they have done this
They haven't moved any Cuzur evelynus.
Coalville what
name for a town. That's where the strike should have started, but instead its a town of scabs. And if it was left to the scabs it would become 'Doleville'.
I'VE NOW got more bail conditions on than most of you have had hot dinners. They've even had the audacity to try and restrict me from talking
my own Lodge members.
The place l'm allowed to go is 'my own place ot work tual what they but on me 48
• Lodge women's support group, speaking at the rally; Lorraine
the platform
I'm not going back
to the kitchen sink
wouldn't do that even if we were paid for it.
Lorraine Johnson, Bold women's support group I admire those women and the work they dong and I think everyone else should too.
But we also have been speaking at meetings and have been on the picke lines. Before this strike it wasn't just that had never spoken at a meeting — I had never even been to meeting. That's changed now.
The 'dirty thirty'
Leicester area secret-
scab of this spine Fe
of this dispute. He has done everything he can to break this strike. He won't back the dirty thirty. working. know that's the case, because I number
We're the ones with intelligence
ago. So them, what is my place of WUlK emploved the NCB, so as far as I'm concerned place work is any place in the country where they've got a pit working.
Huw Edwards, Tower lodge, South Wales The main danger Wales 1S boredom. The strike is solid and we've not got one scab. Or there
TWOR
AcTion E
When our few scabs started going into work at Bold some of the women went down to the picket LICS And we joined in. We had to, because we saw at first hand the terrible way the police were treating the miners on the picket fine. abuse and the insults.
about politics through this strike and l m not gorg back to the kitchen sink after it finishes. I'm going to join the Labour Party - just as SOUl as 1 get enough time to go to a meeting!
even though I can't drive.
I was told to pick up the lorry at 10pm then 'you're on your own'. I was fizzing by this time, and then he said. 'It won't take all night because I know you've get some sleep before you go aown the pit.
Our trouble in Leicester that we're spread out, some of us live 20 miles apart, so they try to pick us off one by one. But we are not going to be broken by them
No surrender! Victory to the miners.
was literally one and he did a moonlight.
We proved we're the ones with intelligence. We've shown this left, right and centre. But they won't respond to anything except brute force.
We don't want to get arrested, but if we do know what to say. We've conlo wink amonwe ve co to spend another term in DISOR. few hours days or months, then so be
husband'
Phil Sutcliffe, Kent NUM work movement. we're nearly into the winter.
MIKE WONGSAN
know there have women, but I'm not missing it out
without the women backing their men, tor Jobs and for leir communities are fighting for the whole working class. Sutcliffe, Kay Sutcliffe's husband!
world. build our own organisations, from the support
was all planned back in 1975.
Socialist Action 26 October 1984 3
'Kay Sutcliffe's
WE'VE GOT very few scabs in Kent despite the big fuss they whipped up around the 'back to work' movement, and there were mass pickets waiting for them at every pit.
There were six went in at Betteshanger, there were 26 went through at Tilmanstone and that number is now down to 18, and there were none at Snowdown. That's the truth about the back to
But they haven't got them working, because from when the scabs started going through the picket lines, the NACODS men have come out on strike. Not just because we picketted them out, but in protest against the police harassment, not just on the picket lines but in the communities.
They picked on us in the spring, believing that the strike would only last a few weeks. But they miscalculated badly, because we've lasted the spring, and the summer and the autumn. And now
But we couldn't have lasted this long - and I
already been tributes to the — we couldn't have kept up our morale or stayed so united
But I'm not paying them tribute just as women
but as women who are fighting women who
It's been said that the women's activity in this strike is changing lives. It's certainly changing mine. My wife, Kay, is very active in the strike. If you go in our local strike headquarters you'll find all the phone numbers on the wall, but you won't find mine. It'd down as Kay Sutclitfe, not as me.
When Kay started doing meetings in London she was introduced as Kay Sutcliffe, Kent miner's wife. Now when I speak, I'm introduced as Philip
I'm not a philosopher or a prophet. I don't read Marx or Lenin. I'm a miner and I'm proud to be a miner, I'm proud of my class and I want to fight for it. I just want to fight for peace and true socialism for the working people of the whole
The scabs have
nothing to offer
Brian Todd, Nottingham striking miners
I'M FROM Nottingham, the home of working miners, of Silver Birch, and scabs.
In Nottingham we were faced with having to
because the scabs who took over the union sacked all the union otficials that went on strike, including myself. They saw the future being led by working miners.
The lesson of this is that we may be a minority now, but when we win - and we will win - they will think again and have us back as their leaders because the scabs have nothing to offer them.
We have a struggle on our hands. We can't even touch our area funds. All our support come
groups here and abroad.
Without that we'd be starved into the ground.
I want to say something about Margaret Thatcher, because she's not the only one to blame. This
Who brought MacGregor into the country? It wasn't Thatcher, varlev did. Thev out him in BL. then moved him to steel, and now he's with the NCB. But it didn't work. It won't work. We are going to win
I think we all saw Margaret Thatcher with a tear in her eye when that big daft fool of a son of hers got lost in the desert. Well, we should all be determined to see her cry again when we march past 10 Downing Street on that victory parade
Page 4 scan of this page
RAIDS OFF
RAIL
WORKSHOPS
THREE RAILWORKERS from Leicester were sacked last week. criminal charges brought by British Rail management.
case to the value of f4! But the court action has more to do with the fact that no coal has moved from Coalville depot for the last seven months.
ROY BUTLIN, leader of the Coalville railworkers about what is happening.
Why do you think that the sackings are part management's harassment campaign?
First of all in Coalville — a town filled with scabs my members nave stood by the handful of striking
April. As He Suite winter gets nearer everything is being done to get coal trains back on the rUdu To my mind, it is not coincidental that rail workers WelC visited by transport police
the same dav that management threatened
with closure unless we shifted coal.
was devastating to ¿ur families. niokes went
tome and broke the news that a closure plan had seen announced.
As that wasn't
enough, a few hours later
THE FIGHT to carry
out the TUC resolution
supporting the miners is
the centre of the
NUM'S struggle for
solidarity action.
In the North-west the THE Mineworkers
fringe meeting
tional solidarity conference.
01-633 6153.
HANDS OFF
HANDS C RAIL RA
WORKSHOPS
WORKSI
Solidarity attacked
in Coalville
They row face
The charges are of theft of BR property, in one
Doreen Weppler, member of the NUR, spoke to
members had sevell transport police searching
their homes for BR properito date, three of the seven have been summarily dismissed Never before has this kind of offence ended up In fact I was sent home this morning for refusing to take a coal train by a supervisor who was found guilty of stealing from wage packets from the sate several years ago.
This is what convinces me that the sackings are nothing but punsumen. for my members who have backed union policy.
What has been the effect or une sackings members?
At the most critical stage in the dispute the morale
initiative has come from rank and file engineers and some local officials such as John Tocker, AUEW divisional organiser.
Jon Silberman AUEW
Solidarity
conference with
NUM called
Defence Committee, established at a 700-strong Labour Briefing
party conference and chaired by Ken Livingstone, has called a na-
The date of the conference is yet to be confirmed. The Mineworkers' Defence Committee can be b. contacted via Ken Livingstone, at County Hall, London SE1, or by ringing Paul Franklin on
N•U-R
-Notts
my members is at its lowest point. They've put
with financial problems, police raids and sackings.
We need a tremendous morale booster while we're preparing the appeals. The decision by the local NACODS to back their national strike call will be a big help.
Over the next few weeks railworkers and miners from our area will be in London drumming up support. So response has been tremenCOIS. We are also plann ing an open meeting at our depot on 4 November.
We've invited Frank Dobson, Sponsored MP, as well as local NUR-
Dennis Skinner and Peter Heathtield. All Ot our suD porters in the rail industry will be invited to attend
Many London depots will send have said they
When my members see the support inal i nave seen since arriving in London, we'll be more united than ever.
You seem to be winning a lot of support, but what has the union done?
I must be frank. My
Electricians must support the NUM
convenor Colman
Fasteners explains: 'As a
result of a resolution from
our branch, the local
AUEW district commit-
tees have called a meeting
Salford October
with local NUM
committees being
organise, talk
about, solidarity action.'
for the
TUC resolution In the
made
harder by the scabbing of
EETPU leaderst
Ray Sinfield, an EETPU
distribution shop
steward, told us: Ballot
'No one shold be sur-
prised if the EETPU ballot
comes out against suppor-
ting the miners. The union
Contact, edited by
an SDP member, has been
attacking the NUM for
months. I received a union
circular headed "Why we
COTGRAV
ING MINERS
members feel let down by national union, especially at district level. A lot more come be done o! respect of fund-raising.
Our closure threat should have been banner headlines 1n the union Pr sero Transport Review.
should have been 'A depot faces closure for backing the union'
depot the number one depotas far as this dispute is concerned. Yet no one in the country knows what's going on.
Can this change?
I'm sure it can. The support
is there in the membership But our trade union needs
be shaken from the roots. We need to get rid of the old Weighell-typ mentality in the union and at head office.
We need an Arthur
Scargill to emerge from our ranks and we need to
learn from how the miners
conduct their attairs and
how they struggle.
Contributions and
message support lU.
Roy Butlin, 23 Capson St
Leicestershire,
KOSLOCI LES ILD.
can't Walk the NUM
leadership".
"To crown it the ques-
tion
was "Do you support your
union?' Imagine the con-
fusion. Who is going to
voTe against their own
union?
'But many EETPU
members do support the
miners. Members from my
workplace in Oldham
regular attenders at the
local support committee.
the out-
power
industry
locally out the
will be
TGWU and
GMBATU,
EETPU
members from
to the
Salford.'
at Didcot
WEDNESDAY 24 October marked the first mass picket of Didcot power station near Oxford. The picket was called by South Wales NUM and backed by the support committees in Oxford and the Thames Valley area.
After some pressure the sourn TUC miners' committee has backed the picket, and has considered plans picket Tilbury power station.
Since the NUM the
dispute, picketed Didcot, one of the largest coal-fired power stations in southern England, and quickly stopped all rail deliveries of coal.
However, recent weeks deliveries of oil have been going into the power
годс :30-40 tankers a day. The station has been converted to burn oil and is now running 50-50.
for most of the summer, and was estimated to have only two weeks of coal supply working full capacity. The oil
'Now I'm an
Internationalist'
wider trade union movement in Britain.
My visit to Germany lasted two weeks together with another colleague OI ine travelled the length and breadth the COMELY They tour was organised through the Socialist Action and the GIM, (Gruppe Internationale Marxisten)
German section of the Fourth International.
The West German 35-hour week struggle was underway and we attended pickets at the Opei factory
Rüsselheim Frankfurt and
Knecht car component
factory at the LOWI
Lorsch near Stuttgart. At
hoth pickets we received
an enthusiastic weicome
and collections were made
for us after
dressed the pickets.
Public meetings were
held throughout West
Germany West
Berlin) where we described
workers
our reasons for striking
our living conditions and
the hardships that miners'
families are now suffering.
After every meeting the trom the floor
always concerned the na-
tional ballot; how did we
Mass picket
tankers which are unmarked and non-union essential to keep the station running.
By Mike Picken, Oxford East Labour Party
The NUM picket, miners from Merthyr Vale, has so far been only token due to the distance from mining areas. But the South Wales Nur area executive decided to step up the pressure by calling mass picket and ap
local labour movement.
A further aim of the picket is to put pressure on power station workers not to handle scab fuei in line with TUC policy.
There is an enthusiastic DURING THE present dispute in the coal industry I have had the great privilege of visiting West Germany and Belgium to ask workers in these two coun tries for aid. Also to describe to them the nature of our dispute and the reaction of the Thatcher government and its attempts to defeat the NUM and the
survive without strike pay; and the role women's support groups.
By Dennis Pennington, Bold NUM, St Helens, Lancs
Unfortunately we did not have much contact with German trade union officials, with the notable exception of the printers union. we soon realised the bureaucratic nature of German trade unionism.
In Belgium myself and a miner's wife received a warmhearted and enthusiastic reception from members of the SAS/POS, the Belgian section of the Fourth International.
We visisted steel workers in Liège and the Renault works Brussels. The format of the tour was much thi same as that in Germany. susan, my companion on the tour, was also interviewed by several women's magazines, the interviewers showing deep concern for the hardship sutfered by miners' wives and families.
aais
Rood sprak met Dennis Pennington
Thatcher buiten
News
response the picket from the Oxford labour
coor dinated through the Ox. ford Trade Council miners' support
Thousands of leaflets icce were ACHES Ted transport organised.
Students starting col lege have been mobilised
• last week over 300 at tended a miners' meeting
University Labour Club and support groups are now established
the Poly and other university colleges.
College Student Union has not only organised transport for it own students, but has paid for an extra coach to bring South Wales miners to the picket.
Belgium we had more contact with trade union officials than in
but of Germanv, course the development and histories of the unions in both countries is entirely different.
The politico-socia history of Belgium and Britain are closely linked and Belgium has a long history of militancy an workers' struggle.
The trade union movement in Germany, on the other hand was destroyed in loss ano te top-neavy
bureaucratic trade union system of today was formulated by the allies in
1945 with the assistance of such TUC notables as Vic Feather!
As regards financial support, both visits were a tremendous success and I am SUll with newly formed friends from
DO COlLECS
For me personally both visits Were an unforgettable experience. Before going abroad I considered
myself to be conveniently
pigeon-holed thus: miner
British, Lancashire. Now I feel I can be categorised
simply as 'worker.
If every working man and woman could have the
opportunity to visit other
workers lie would sooT
realise that what unites us
greater than what
seperates us. What
separates us. What separ
ates ion on the really only
globe's sur-
Thanks to the efforts
of supporters of Socialis!
Action in Manchester, and
similar groups in Germany
and Belgium, I feel! can
now truly call myself an in-
ternationalist.
Page 5 scan of this page
News
WHEN LABOUR PARTY conference deplored the role of the police during the miners' strike, the bourgeois media howled that Labour had become a party of violence and disorder. The truth is the opposite.
At the beginning of the strike SUSAN MILLER and MARTIN WALKER went to the heart of the Yorkshire coal field to find out for themselves what was going Their report makes fascinating
Ulk. reading.
Susan, who works for Islington police committee support unit, and Martin, who works for Greenwich, have teased out what is really going on: the development of a national, riot-control police force modelled on European lines. They told CAROL TURNER where their conclusions lead and how the labour movement should respond.
What's your involvement finally the trial
Sysicill in the miners' strike, and worked In conjunction why did wrile youl with a set of rules which book? were legally binding.
But if the police are not Sue: We thought there arresting beoole under was something significant those rules, all that about the way the ponce changes The whole struc were handling this dispute, ture of the law has changand that reflected changes ed It is being usea as a taking place in the police political weapon against
years.
we wanted TING OuL Tor
going that can after-
centres to miners' houses slaitments what had strike.
several Our DOOKS Martin:
La striksuch as
process ed, and political It's And role dings?
of And the Il'S not the police Association force, the law itself is Police working changing.
Sue: The Police and (NRC)
LIne welc
example.
But crime. it's about this is
public policing: police search like the
activity, police.
SLUD them and
custody: the NRC to the poinHome and Tories presumably receives in- The SUCHORS Ridiev 1978
prepared the coming
So what Martin: has you draw? learned Northern
strike central duties sci valllo.
OI state. The but use of police are acting
force, ton the use note edi dansed forces lne use
of horses dogs police LI all-i ing. of people under law the labour
public order movement do!
Martin: The build up of a surrections. military police
orable, because it's part of Sue: It's order policing. capitalist state. At LN C
but many salic unlie. unc labour movement has got others did. they are to realise what is going on,
and take quite a different attitude their conflicts being TOE strike- will castal They've got to undersbreaking.
Martin: throws into dustrial tand them not lust as disputes for JIlquestion the whole economistic demands, but
as an almost military conthought police flict with the state - and ficers acling they've got to be prenared
and organised for that.
the police station, the The leadership of the TUC magistrates and Party have
done a great disservice to the labour this respect. They have openly deplored violence in an abstract sense, without pointing out that the state is to blame. Neil Kinnock has, in effect, sided with the Tory Party and the capitalist class by saying pickets cause violence.
Martin: The Labour Party is in a ditticult nosition It's part of the parliamenlal y sysicill, reason has always taken a bipartisan view of the police. NOT just over the miners strike, but on questions like the
Kinnock has said the Labour Party has fundamentally the same view as the Tories; both want to reorganise the coal fields so that capital survives and profits are kept up. Sue: In the first weeks of
very little. speak,
stance.
You violence
violence.
agitators different.
Labour
the Neil
said of the But about that?
BRITAIN'S
PARAMILITARY
POLICE
'yes I con-
But Kin-
look The
use
that's quite
the conference
doesn't
leaders. be done
Martin: Anyone on the left has known for years that the dead hand the bureaucracy at the top of the party and the TUC has to be overthrown by the rank and file. They are the people who experience the struggle in the coal fields, the NGA, the women at Barking Hospital, and Hammersmith Hospital
People are beginning to take a class stand and
the bureaucracy.
educating, agitating and organising. Sue: Nothing educates much as being involved in
struggle Take the women of the mining community. They say they
used to get involved in politics, now they are keeping the strike going. Martin: One of the things to be said is that the increased consciousness the rank and file has a lot
Socialist Action 26 October 1984
ANN JONES is
miner's wife from
South Wales, and SUE
BENCE comes from
Kent. They talked to us
We've had two and I
Once was for carrying oTtensive weapon. you know
In Talbot the Greenham came
have ever in
life.
MA V down gates
thought I
LOUC
was terrible.
The NUM to women's organisation in South
beginning,
At beginning do has through the NUM.
pickets
the time umm'c
We've hac support from the
they'd wortal
for on picket line
tanishi of the NUM, LO GO WItn Arthur Scargill and Peter Heathfield. There's question that Scargill's never stood down from his basic class position - and he's not going to.
Sue: • Stands doth from never . stands down anything he's mandated to do by the NUM. That always gets missed out
The union is the rank and file. They're the one was elected by su Scargill ballot because they Knew he could be relied on to carry out their policies
Some people have said our depressing because describes in detail the level of violence and brutality to the miners. But want to make it clear that we're not depressed.
5
Mining women
face cops
only weapon you've got if you reus against as roo policeman
And until we've won this strike, they'll hear it. Every day if need be.
cent from the
sake
We first on the
My in aw
arrested. she asked
highway
But time I was
lobby of
day.
He asked
miners when I said
my .way
by police 'It's
she's not in there, because down
It was my son pleading stopped
But WC haven't had
Aylesham
from
miner.
But the person
picket,
for work.
The been
gate 'You
get at
When you go into the mining communities. see the strength of feeling the way they're fighting back - and you have no reason to be depressed
It's important to say: the miners are not going under, they're very strong in their struggle. a state now as a 6 • State
book, £3.50 from Green wich NALGO, Staff Side Office, Borough Treas urer's Department, Wellington St, SE18; and from Housmans and other left bookshops. It combines all three volumes of research, two of which (State of Sece and he iron hist have previously been published as seperate pam phlets. Cheques and posta orders should be payable to Susan Miller or Martin Walker
Page 6 scan of this page
Maurice Bishop's death
Socialist Action IN MARCH 1979 the New Jewel Movement, led by Maurice Bishop, overthrew the dictatorship of Eric Gairy in Grenada. On 19 October 1983, Maurice Bishop_ murdered on the orders of Bernard Coard, the Grenadan minister of finance and deputy prime minister. On 23 October 1983, marines and army rangers invaded Grenada, installing a new puppet government.
The four and a half years that lay between these events saw a fundamental reshaping of polities in the Caribbean, and had a tremendous impact throughout the world.
That impact was not simply or primarily the bloodiness or cynicism of the final American intervention, or the catastrophe for the Grenadan revolution represented by the Bishop murder Vot even the fevered Ronald Reagan could credibly claim that an island of 110,000 people - the majority agricultural workers threat to the military power of the U'nited States. The impact lay in the superb policies pursued by the Bishop government, and the results they achieved.
speech reprinted Maurice Bishop called Grenada 'a new socio-economic development model'. More plainly put, it was a vast exercise in democratic socialism most important that has taken place in the world.
For Bishop, socialist development had two inextricably linked features: economic and social development, ana the democratisation of politics and of society.
In the economic and social field, the achievements of the Bishop ment were enormous. Few history have more directly applied the truth that, for a revolution to count for anything, evervaay lives of ordinary U'nemployment was reduced. universal literacy gramme was begun.
Education expanded. was introuuccu•
Agriculture diversified.
These Weic side issues,
'purely economic' yucsuuus.
were the core of the social policies pur-
sued by the Bishop government, which
brought SunlilcIse benefits
Grenadan people.
The effect of the American invasion was immediate, open and brutal. Since then unemployment has more
26 October 1984
Alica
economy has urerduall
specialised was the needs of the Grenadan people.
government's American ceonunuic and social,
Maurice Bishop
socialism that Europe
Revolution in 1917.
The Grenadan
Is propic — self-organisation
use to organise temselves. organisation imagination of unionists, of women,
wasune state. • Was d the support, Maurice Bishop said -
tremendous people. The
There, take that same 'risk' with ease.
the people of Grenada.
• one or le
Bernard Coard Bishop, was to disarm the people.
crucial question for socialism
govern-
states in
class holds state power.
deeply touch the
people. the proletariat in its true sense signiticantly
pro- mous expansion Free health care
and socialist
not They
the reasons why
Bishop's.
List with a dictatorial regime, than
One year since
tripled. The cooperative sector of the
been broken agriculture being United reconverted to exports of individua!
products for the United States and its allies, instead of serving
But the fondation of the Bishop
policies weren't just but political. conceived of, and practiced, a totally different concept of
one of seen in Eastern - or developea by labourısıl Coard in Britain, for that matter. It was a type not seen since the height of the Russian
state did not substitute for the self-organisation of
it was the basis for that The state was resource for Grenadans to draw on and
The selfof trade or produceis, or young pespic core of Bishop's Grenadan
Because it had mass democratic Grenadan state • was one ol une LALT N few in the world that dared to arm its that
Cuban ana Nicalaguai states are the others that are able to
The government had nothing to fear from
It was no acident that the first action of the new government, after the
grouping murdered
There is, of course, a marxist name for the type of state that existed in Bishop's Grenada and which exists today in Nicaragua: the dictatorship of the proletariat. It reminds us that the
how much of an economy is nationalis-
ed (in Grenada little was), but which
in Grenada that democracy of the
workers and peasants over the rest of
society constituted the dictatorship of
— not a
restriction of democracy but its enor-
It was this integration of democracy economic and socal know,
measures that made Grenada such an
example of democratic socialism. That,
together with the internationalism of death,
the New Jewel Movement, was one of
Reagan could no1
tolerate a government such as Maurice
Questiond .of geography apart, the
United States can far more easily coex-
that of Jaruselski in Poland, than it can
NU01y with a democratic and internationalist one such as Bishop's. After all, the
States wants portay socialism as repression and tanks, not as health care, literacy and a vast extension of democracy.
More to the point, it is far easier to overthrow an East buropean regime, of the type Bernard Coard was seeking to install, than a democratic
the Bishop type. America was able to intervene to overthrow
after it murdered Bishop and started to attack the gains of the Grenadan people. The United States boycotted, but never dared attack, a democratic Grenada under Bishop.
Bishop was inspired and educated by the Cuban revolution. That was his government's strength. Understanding that socialism is about uniting in practice great historic goals and people's everyday lives is one of the greatest strengths of the Cuban leadership.
One of the lessons Castro has hammered home to his audience
America and the Caribbean is democracy, not to socialism, ooes not exist as long as capitalism holds state power.
But the Cuban party itself - partClarV after the 1970s, when Cuban state became more tied Moscow economically — placed limitations on that democracy. Political differences in the Cuban Communist Party are never made known to the party ranks, much less argued out publicly.
In that sense, Loe CilDa munist Party models itself on the Communist Party of Stalin, not the Communist Party of Lenin. And that too was the one weakness which proved fatal to the Maurice Bishop govern-
The open democracy Maurice Bishop had begun to build so magnificiently in Grenadan society was not extended into the party itself. Hac the differences within the New Jewel Movement been known, 99 per cent of Grenadans would have supported Bishop against Coard. But they didn't
and this was a tragic and fatal weakness.
One year after Maurice Bishop's
that is not what we remember. In commemorating Bishop, above all we remember that he was the first black person ever to lead the working class to power, and one of the finest revolutionaries ever produced by the working class. One year on, the world has urgent need of two, three, many Maurice Bishops.
THE FOLLOWING speech by Maurice Bishop was given to an international conference of solidarity held in the Grenadan capital of St George's in November 1981. The editing is by Socialist Action. style
Comrades, bright new dawn for the people of Grenada and the working people of had
the Caribbean. That dawn marked the end of a long dark night of terror and the beginning of a new day. Our heroic people -masses — rose to the challenge of history and, in the words of the Caribbean poet, waite, 'shattered the entered that morning, fully aware of the future to come, there's no turning back.'
As it has been said so often before, when a conscious, determined people rises lnlet 'enough', injustice, tyranny, mention ploitation are
begins a new and glorious chapter in the history of man (sic), the construction of a just and equal society by the poor, for the
the poor, and with the poor. to The people's struggle through time
for the realisation of that dream is the long march of history. From the very inception of our party, the New Jewel Movement, we have been guided by the clear understanding Com. against the dictatorship was not an end
in itself, but a necessary precondition for the intinitel bulding that new and just society. Bulding the new society involves a long and difficult process of national reconstruction. which Gairyism had devastated the social and
economic fabric of our society.... Fifty per cent of the labour force of our country was unemployed. Our infrastructure was totally Our tourist industry brought little Despite fertile Gairy's political interterence development of agriculture, chiefly duction of our main export crops had
stagnated. Food crop production had declined, and our food import bill was approximately 40 per cent of total imJU....
Financial many years had reached staggering proportions, and left the national treasury in debt to local commercial banks and considerable
regional,
faced
tisation of society.
Our always been, frastructure, above all,
disasters.
13 March 1979 was a
and 19 per cent
damage to - the anti-Gairy
Edward Brathdoor and
Sped...
This
and exdoomed....and thus origin
on that the struggle
larger struggle of
Twenty-five years of
dilapidated.
Was Ule which duction benefit to the country.
soil, and with in the the pro-
one buyer;
mismanagement Ove]
arrears to local, national
Grer
not
and international agencies. Our people's revolution was therefore
with the difficult twin task of economic reconstruction and democra-
fundamental objective has as detailed in the 1973 manifesto of our party, the construction of a new life and new society ... These principles and objectives were as valid at the dawn of our revolution as they were five years before when they were formulated, and as they are today - almost three years after that first morning of our revolution. Already we have begun to implement these aims, although in addition there were certain initial priorities that we set ourselves upon taking power jobs for the thousands of unemployed, health care, the improvement of the agricultural in
ILaNd education, and the process which would facilitate all other developments, the democratisation of the society....
Like our sister Caribbean islands we continue to be plagued by natural
Each year since the revolution, hurricanes, high winds, or torrential rains have caused considerable
aliculiure and infrastructure. In 1979 we suffered USS6 million worth of damage. In 1980, the total destruction of 27 per cent of our nutmeg crop, 40 per cent of the banana
of the cocoa, amoun ting to some US$20 million. In 1981,
crops, roads, and bridges totalled US$5 million.
With an open, dependent economy tied to the economies of the capitalist world, we have suffered and are suffering from the ongoing economic crisis in the capitalist world. Demand for our principal commodity exports has drop.
year, our tourist industry, poised for recovery with full-house bookings at all the main hotels, was dealt a major blow with the sudden destruction by fire of undetermined
of a substantial part of our largest hotel — the Holiday Inn.... Strangulation
Another economic difficulty facing us at this moment is the US economic squeeze. US imperialism has embarked
coordinater campaign economic strangulation of our country desienea to deprive us or access le financial resources from the bilateral regional, and international sources....
Confronted with the belligerence of US imperialism, and having the vicious legacy of 25 years of 'Hurricaine Gairy' to recover from, how has our revolution responded to the urgent task of national reconstruction?
In agriculture — the pillar of our economy — our main policy and tactic has been one of diversification. Diversification of agricultural export pro.
range agricultural commodities which can earn foreign exchange; diversification of agricultural export markets with the objective of penetrating new SuanAc. and lessening our dependence on any
diversification and expansion of domestic agricultural production for import substitution, as a basis for agro-industrial development, and the linking of the domestic agricultural sector with the tourist sector.
Since the revolution, fifty times
more money has been allocated in the
budget for agricultura
Page 7 scan of this page
levelopment. In the building of the hew tourism, we have also been diversiying our tourist markets through increased promotion in Western Europe, The Caribbean, and Latin American narkets. while nonetheless attempting versification in our traditional Norte maintain and indeed to american market.
Activity
With a 50 per cent increase in our nergy costs, energy ¡easures nave been pul into errect, esulting in a decrease in consumption y private motorists but a 20 per cent crease in state consumption (mainly • the operation of equipment) on acpunt or mercascu developmental acvity. Several major infrastructural imrovements have been undertaken: a
international airport. evelopment of the east coast, the conruction and opening up of 67 miles of gricultural feeder roads, improvement {electricity services, vastly increased clephone . eI supply, service, major forestry real, ano conservation.
The revolution, with the active parcipation of our people, has brought
lada is
alone
JONE per
achieve removed the burden
lowest-paid workers.
$4 million has been
conservation
stracuon or community centres,
in their community work brigades.
In education
highway education
free cent increase in
develop-
concrete benefits to our working people. Unemployment has been reduced
cent working population to less than 30 per cent by the expansion of the cooperative and state sectors. The people's budget has
of income tax from the backs of the 30 per cent of the
Financial assistance to the tune of provided to the poorest sectors of the population for house repair, and a Ministry of Housing with responsibility for a national housing programme has been created. Conditions of life in the villages are being progressively improved by the con-
and laundry facilities, and post offices by the voluntary labour of our people
initiatives
revolution made important gains: the establishment of a national literacy and adult
the Centre for Popular Education, the institution of
secondary eaucation, a suv pel the number of university-level scholarships, the crea- more ton or a national in-service teacher programme for the professionalisation of all our primary school teachers....
As in the vital areas of housing,
worker
Act, cannot our
jobs, and education, the revolution has brought concrete benefits to the masses in the field of health. A national milk distribution programme has distributed 1100 tons of milk to the elderly, to our youth, and to expectant mowners since 1979. Free health care made possible by increases in medical personnel and the expansion of services, particularly in the rural areas, has transformed the pattern of health.
The transformation of the national
begun since the people's guided by Icvolutull. las beel same basic conception of an economy al tne service or working people and freed from external domination control which we proposed since 1973.
It is worthy of note that the vast majority of the new programmes and bold
embarked UDUI by revolution are not bright ideas spontaneously conceived in some moment of inspiration, but the product of collective discussion and analysis within our partv and among the broad section of our people of needs, problems, and long-term goals....
But more important, comrades, significant than all the other achievements of the Grenada revolution, because it is the means whereby
move to achieve even more social and economic benefits as this process unfolds, is the outstanding success of the Grenada revolution in the task of the democratisation of our society.
One of earliest acts of the revolution was the repeal of all anti-
laws and the enactment of democratic, progressive labour such as the Trade Union Recognition
which guarantees the right of participale I trade unions of their choice. As a result, there are nearly 10,000 workers organised in trade unions today and most of these unions are developing
Not democranc participa tion and education for their members.
revolution has also several steps to stimulate and make possible the participation of women in the development of our nation. There can be no talk of real democracy if half of a nation's population is either disqualified from participation or can only participate in a very limited sense. Alu tere can ve no talk or women s participation if the conditions for this participation do not exist. Our sisters
participate fully unless society encourages their participation And in Grenada, in barely two and a half years of revolution, we have a proud record of measures taken to bring the women of our country fully into the development process.
Idle Lands'
Consistent with our slogan, Lands and Idle Hands An End to Unemployment', in year two of the revolution we moved to set up a National Land Reform Commission, with terms of reference to identify existing idle lands and make recommendations for their productive use.
In like manner the preparation of budget since revolution involved the participation of trade union representatives; and this year the process of deciding how our resources will be used for our national development will involve an ever wider participation.
This year the budget discussion is
the
and
the
being taken to the people tional budget will shaped not by a handful of men sitting in an exclusive 'parliament' but by our organised people in their thousands, in
councils, their parish councils.
Spectacular growth
And the mention of these struc tures, comrades, brings us to the fact of the spectacular organisalons in our country In tae two laws and a half years of the revolution. Our
National Youth tional Women's founded by the New Jewel Movement, and NJM Young mobilising increasing numbers of our youth, our women, and our children. The youth target for this year of organising one-third of the country's young people. Our sisters in the NWO have passed the taken
6000 mark and are fast approaching their target of 7000 organised for action, participation, and development.
The revolution has fostered the for. mation of student councils in every secondary school, linked into the National Students Counci. In the village you will find brigades, which, the priority needs and spearhead work on
community building, maintenance proiects. Three weeks ago the Productive Farmers Union, one of the most unique organisations that the revolution has produced, held its first annual general meeting with its full membership of just over 1000 small and medium farmers dance.
'Idle
In addition to the many organisations and action community, parish, and national level, VUI people met leadership of the country in parish and zonal councils and in workers' parish councils, where the twin principles of the accountability and responsibility of the the leadership to the people become a
reality for the first time in the English-speaking Caribbean. leadership because in its face-to-face meetings with the people it must report on the achevereis and the particular ministries and state bodies, it
Socialist Action 26 October 1984 our na-
be debated and
people groups, their zonal
required.
listen
then regularly,
growth of mass
Organisation, NaOrganisation, both
Pioneers are strongest
organisation is close to a
community work In lack, determine education,
cleaning, and
sister
in militant
Therefore, groups operating at
small and poor. regularly with the
own way,
is accountable
difficulties of
7 Maurice Bishop speaking in London just before his death
must answer the questions of the people on those issues which affect their lives. The leadership is responsibile to the
because it must take action where the people indicate that action is
In Grenada the people do not only
passively to their leaders, they They do not only glimpse their so-called representatives now and
in the press, they meet them they rub shoulders with In Grenada, structures have grown up and are developing daily to ensure the real participation of people — a continuous, day-by-day process, not a seasonal exercise which changes nothing. Our democratic process is our
weapon for change, for development, for the improvement of life in our country.... Dire problems
Our revolution is an attempt to build a new socio-economic development model. It is an attempt to solve our problems by new methods. It is the boldest attempt, in the history of thi English-speaking Caribbean, to tackle the dire problems of underdevelopmen which so drastically affect the lives of the mass of people in our region, problem of poverty, illiteracy and poor
substandard nutrition, unemployment, and all the other evils.
It is an approach which rejects some of the manifestly inadequate strategies which the ruling class in most of our
islands are still clinging to because these strategies are guaranteed to safeguard their own position and to yield nothing but the barest minimum of political power and material benefits to the majority of the people.
comrades, when you show your support for our revolution, you are asserting with us the right of a
but couraceous and determined, people to build their own process, to solve their problems in their
without threatening the sovereignty of any other people, compromising their own proud and unshakable principles..
For 400 years the exploited masses of the region have struggled with dignity for bread, jobs, justice, and peace Today in Grenada, today in free and revolutionary Grenada, this struggle at last is beginning to bear fruit....
Page 8 scan of this page
Prospects for the Spanish peace movement
8 THE CAMPAIGN FOR a referendum to take Spain out of NATO and remove US bases has involved greater numbers of people than any struggle in Spain. Last autumn the anti NATO committees which have formed in many towns, together with other pro-disarmament organisations, began a series of huge mobilisations demonstration of more than half a million people in Madrid on 3 June this year.
The very next day, Felipe Gonzalez, Spanish prime minister and leader of the governing Socialist Party (PSOE), made statement. He had i been forced to recall - publicly
something. he would rather have forgotten: the promise made during the elections to have a referenuum which would finally decide the question NATO.
Gonzalez has since continued to disguise his firm adherence to NATO by an intentional and
ambiguity, Nevertheless, the government will almost certainly have to call a referendum. tic ponucal cost or doing otherwise would be too gIcal.
As the pollabor 60
per favour
Socialist Action 26 October 1984
Talks about
talks about...
other recent
culminating in
Spanish withdrawal, there are serious setback for the nuclear allance. But the peace movement will have to exert all its strength to prevent Gonzalez turning a referendum clear issue NATO and US bases: yes or no? • into propagandistic support for the government.
By Andrew Kennedy
Only last month, the PSOE's own previouslydormant anti-NATO wing registered a significant increase in strength. regional eSeptember, gresses of the party were held al over the countrv in preparation for the PSOE COLICS
December. The anti-NATO current gained majority in elf out of 45
congresses, and gained overal delegates than the 20 per cent expected.
Gonzalez saw this as a suf September tonatoe
September that the government, the PSOE has the 'last word' on NATO.
This wing could prove an ally to the peace movement as struggles combat the fudge on the referendum and the power
the pro-NATO bourgeois media. And keeping the pressure up could
• divisions still Cause uccuci at the PSOE congress.
However. an outright anti-NATO majority unlikely, and
Rally way would be ignored by Gonzalez. Only an increase in the level of the mass campaign will ensure victory.
Preserve on omy of the mass campaign is all the more important as there is little hope, cast in ine short term, or a left wing surging up from the base of the PSOE
development in the Salvadorean revolution.
claim their own particular victory.
that they should arrange to talk again.
As Socialist Action pointed out in its last issue, the real power centre in the rotten Salvadorean éstablishment, the army — not to mention Uncle Sam
would not have Duarte negotiate any real concessions to the rebels.
He merely repeated his totally unacceptable offer
rillas would lay down their arms and take part in 'free elections'. Equally FAL RED tably, the showed not the least sign of agreeing ' to any such thing until DASO demands were met.
As if to demonstrate that it was usual, immediately after Ine talks ended the Salvadorean army launched a big push Hild north eastern guerrilla stronghold of Morazan, in an attempt 'to get the guerrilla commanders in one bo'as they mend sal the outcome of the talks As usual, nothing.
CIA
Just to drive the point home, on the Friday the CIA managed to fly one of its spy-planes into hillside San Salvador. This exposed
'Casey's boys' are down there, sorting out the civilian targets
'guerrilla sympathisers'
that need to be bombed back into line.
So why were the talks important, and what kind of victory could anyone claim? Why, indeed, did The anster tas something
answer has something
EI Salvador, after four
war, Clauswitz's famous old maxim has been turned
The party is bureucratically dominated. For instance. members, has an institutional list left The so-called 'socialist grouping. which is at the head of the anti-NATO current, essentially the opposition of part of the bureaucracy, formerly the majority but now lorcca into a minorily position.
Hence, for example, their calls for greater party democracy. On the econ-
and the questions (Euzkadi, Paisos Catalans, Galiza) their positions are just as reactionary as those of the 'official' Gonzalez curI Call
Abstention
campaign Communist Party, PCE, is conducting its own) is that
and feminists, logelner wiln tne lar leIl
significant initiatives in the
LAST WEEK'S talks between the FMLN-FDR and President Duarte were undoubtedly a major new
Both sides described them as such, and both sides could
Yet the only thing the talks actually decided was
on its head: politics have become the continuation of war by other means.
Both sides need break out of the relative impasse they encounter or the military terrain. This impasse 1IUL total stagnation. It is a fluid semi-stalemate which has been drifting unevenly favour of the FMLN.
By Stuart Piper
But with the stepped up level US technological and logistic sup-
the revolutionar
forces have not been able to go beyond the spectacular gains they made in the latter part of last yeal and to lesser degree earlier this year. They do not have any immediate SOOSDECI defeating the government forces.
On the other side, it is clear that the army can do
FMLN; it has no chance of
For Duarte there are only two options: either he forces major political climb-down by the revolu-
must realise most
the political ground for massive direct imperialist intervention.
It just possible, though unlikely, that Duarte himself has sufficient megalomaniac belief in his own role as 'saviour' of the nation to kid himself that his call to negotiations step towards the former solution
It is much more certain that the Salvadorean army and renlagon masters see the negotia-
diplomatic step towards peace committees. These forces, in fact, are leading the campaign.
It the government tries to represent the increasing anti-establishment character of the peace movement as an attack upon its electoral mandate, the peace Movemen could build a big campaign for
neutrality, and against American imperialism and bloc politics. It could show how the government's wasteful military spending and the consequent threat to jobs were in fact bound up with its allegiance to a military bloc.
Thus the whole campaign could be centered around the twin, positive demands for neutral Spain, and for jobs, rather man Just spontaneous pro tests.
This would begin to pose a real alternative government policy, and would same time give the movement moment would carry it past any defeat on a fudged referendum.
Duarte
the latter, military, solu-
For the revolutionaries, last week's talks have been a different kind of political boost. The FMLN-FDR demanding unconditional negotiations 1982. For the first time, the Salvadorean governmen has conceded to this de-
and been seen b the eyes of the whole world
recognise the revolutionaries genuine belligerent force.
Perhans more importantly, the meeting in La
the FMLN a new prestige and
profile within Salvador. For the fact is that there is undoubtedly a large section 01 the Salvadorean people, including many workers and peasants, who, while they may have a basic sympathy with the revolutionaries cause, nave nau no wirec contact with it, at least
International
was massacred wholesale
These people are fed up killing and discouraged by the only information they do receive about the revolutionary struggle, the misinformation of the regime's press, radio and television.
Last Monday gave the FMLN-FDR their first ever opportunity to speak directly to these people, on every radio and television station in the country, and
firm and serious alternative to all these sectors.
In the end, the important thing is not what was He Don Duie ac they talked at all. Only the
will show which side is able to turn
of the struggle to their best advantage.
As the FMLN statement says, negotiations are a complement to the armed struggle, not substitute for it.
Page 9 scan of this page
Getting the South to do the dirty work
International
THREE YEARS after the hunger strike, the British establishment is preparing for a new summit with the Dublin government. Ireland, MARTIN COLLINS, look at ruling class thinking on the current stage of polities in the North.
Retiring to the country farm, lucrative chair at GEC and a graceful departure from the backbenches, James Prior is viewed by the establishment as
with an exquisite sense of timing.
The Guardian said that after three years as head ot the Northern Ireland Office, OS L unrelenting posts', he had through slow progress and rapid, random
constantly ansasles revealed the touch and authority of a political heavyweight.'
Prior was despatched to the North not to solve a problem in Ireland, but to solve that in the British cabinet neutralising wet threat to Thatcher.
The key to his image of success has been the pompous, relaxed stance which meant any hint of progress was attributed political authority, whereas any sel-vack was put down to the *perplexing realities of Irish politics'
By making the right noises about law and order
been able to concentrate
gently the Dublin government wards doing Britain's job for it. By refusing to be harried by the loyalists in-
o stepping up army pro
ile, allowing the RUC anc UDR to remain in ne front line, Prior is accredited great success reducing the casualty figures for the British army.
Hidden from
history
ANYONE READING
my arucie In last week s
issue of Socialist Action
movement might well
have come away with
the feeling that the total
male domination of the
gay rights movement in He preocal day Irus
have been reflected both
in the earlier version of
il, ana in lne concerns
of the author.
I would like to make
it clear that my original
article did contain a
section on the relationship between the Scientific Humanitarian Committee and the
struggles of lesolan
women in Germany: but ass cur our without
Editor of Labour and
By refusing stampeded into a banning
Sinn their political profile to
that of the car bomb, he has 'engineered
normality in Belfast city centre life'
The economy he leaves is in ruins, promised Iciet of unemployment has not arrived and the North remains the most he in subsidised _economy Western Europe, the only growth area being in the security forces.
Assembly
The much heralded Assembly as a prelude to rolling. 'rolled' nowhere. Boycot-
llationalist community and
signiticant sections of the loyalists, it remains as
the possibility of a Northern solution'
James Prior was not deterred. No matter how much he continued to 'pa-
with politicians to drop their boycott, he realised that the 'problem of the North' can only be solved by looking at Ireland as a whole.
The cooption of the Southern government the key policy goal of the British government. Here is the real 'progress' of the last three years.
Peter Barry, the Foreign Minister of the Coalition Government
LETTERS
my permission.
In fact, although (as
now) the early
campaigns for gay rights
trough meir exclusive
concern with laws
outlawing male
homosexuality tended
merlov avenue
participation. and
lesbian women therefore
concentrated their
acres in me weeks
movement, the
of the
leadersy
Scientific Humanitarian
Committee made big
efforts to involve
lesbians in its work. Lesbians played a,
part in the SHC's
publications and
recently spelt out four reasons for optimism:
There is a clear recognition by British and Irish
that 'alienazo calls tion in the North' (read support for Sinn Fein) is so threatening that necessary
The forum report has destroyed the 'unalterable realities.
Despite the fact that the wording of the forum report gave the 'preferred option' of reunification, its message was that Dublin was prepared to drop constitutional claim on the North negotiate 'sovereignty option that would be ac ceptable to Britain.
• The British government nave accepted une Irish government have the right to speak on behalf of the Northern nationalists. Unionists
Spelling out the implications, Barry has publicly apologised
Unionists for raising issues WaCe loser unem royal visit to the Drumadd (UDR) barracks. border
shoos to ill actions,
shoot to kill actions security TOrCeS remarks of judges com-
them He
plain to do salued my
to do would default legitimise the serious pretensions ot the Provisional IRA and their political henchmen'.
So although not one Northern nationalist voted for Fine Gael and 42 per cent voted for Sinn Fein, the southern government
forums, developing the
relationship between
the general women's
Hirschfeld wrote in 1902 that
renal lave
become an almost
indispensible and prominent component
of all our events.
But the only major
campaign waged jointly
with women took place
in 1910, when the government proposed te
extend the anti-gay
legislanon to wollen.
This proposal was
resisted by a very broad
alliance of forces
including the SHC, the
socialist party, and both
social democratic and
bourgeois womens
organisation.
Operating on the
view that the move
represented not an
inequality ... eliminated,
but rather an injustice
represented the first
contact ui lit
women's movement to
ending the oppression
of homosexuality. The
campaign was successful
in its objectives.
PETER PURTON
Southall
Prior, turning his back on three years of failure. will now speak to Britain on their behalf
Dublin and London
Have now solid governments which together will have time to make a new and sustained attempt to bring peace in Northern Ireland.
Barry's claim is that there is sufficient stability in the South to push ahead with plans to combat the alienation in the North (read Sinn Fein), means 'a transformation of the system public
Voting for black
sections
I WAS somewhat surprised by your report in last week's Socialist Action (12 October that the delegate from Hampstead and Highgate CLP to party conference was opposed to black sections.
As the delegate I can only say that I actively supported the CLP's motion on black sections when it was first raised at my branch and at the general committee and voted for both composites at
When I stood in the elections to be the CLP with the full backing of the local Briefing group, I stated that the issue of black sections would be a crucal devale al conference and I would support the CLP's position in favour of establishing black SCLEOIS.
authority' (read security
in Northern Ireland.
He shares unionist the genocidal outrage at slaughter by the IRA of
people [read the vOl ares... the IRA are UDR] border much my enemy as they
of the Ireland [read socialist republic] they want to bring about.'
A section of the British ruling class now realise that harnessing the col-
Socialist Action frequently gives a clear perspective on struggles both inside and outside the Labour Party. It is a pity that its reporting on this issue is not of the same standard.
I would appreciate it if you would put the
DAVE JOSEPH Hampstead and Highgate CLP
• Many apologies for this error. It is true we accepted the information given to us
voting without verifying true i was accuraic.
Socialist Action 26 October 1984 laboration of the Free State rulers is the best long term solution, but doubts rentall the southern
SUD DIONS tionalism of Sinn Fein? Is the South a reliable ally for the Western block? Can it control working class resistance to austerity policies?
Despite the willingness of the South offer reassurances. they cal achieve little without the
fireworks
boosting the profits of the company manufactures lethal plastic bullets
They said: •Fireworks give Immelise picasure lo millions of children and Lnel parents, „Dut plastic bullets have brought
: families of the 15 people (seven 0I
them children aged 15 or under) killed in the North of Ireland, and the countless people who have suffered grievous injuries. including blindness and brain damage.
Brocks, whose factory is near Sanquhar in Dummesse nave concaci to supply plastic bullets to
Ministry of Defence and British police forces, who • currently stock over 20,000 of them.
Last week the European Assembly for the second time called for plastic
Labour Party conference has voted twice for such a
9 active of the British government Remaining sceptical of their abilly to denver une good. the cabinet continues to
Unionists sabotage their humble ef-
While we may expect some cosmetic 'advances' to be projected from the Anglo-Dublin summit, the Tory government so soon
Brighton bombing is unlikely to give FitzGerald the helping hand he so desperately craves.
Brocks fatal
CAMPAIGNERS have warned the British public that if they buy Brocks' fireworks this year they will
which
Plastic bullets kill and maim-
ban, as did the Liberals in 1982
would be paradox. ical if local councils oppos ed to ine use oI plasti bullets were to buy large quantities of fireworks for public displays from their manufacturers. This year boycott Brocks.
Page 10 scan of this page
10
Against abolition
and rate-capping
IT IS NO longer possible to imagine that the government will change its mind about abolition and ratecapping because opinion polls and by elections have consistently shown because, through arguments about democracy, we have 'proved our case'.
They need to 'save money' by slashing jobs and services, and to get rid of the Labour GLC as a popular opposition to the government.
Union stewards and ac. tivists have thrown all their weight behind the miners' strike, collecting levies and organising meetings. Through this we have been able to point out the similarities of our fights, and to deal with the arguments about taking industrial action and breaking une something which local
WUIKCIS are reluctant to do.
But we cannot ignore the campaign against abolition and ratecapping. The government
be publishing Dull Onl 12 Vovember and hopes to
by the end of 1985.
throw 6,500 workers on the dole im-
HE HAD NO intellect, and not much
intelligence he is a
emotions -
own words, dominated by his own slogans.?
This was Beatrice Webb on A.J. Cook.
It could easily be
Arthur Scargill. His
revolutionaries' was
Webb's attack on Cook.
The hatred of the labour right for the left was
as deep then as it is now.
The period in which A.J. Cook was one of the
leaders of the left wing of the labour movement
of tremendous
reshaped British politics.
By Pat Hickey
The years after 1909 were marked by bitter
class controntations. The number of strike davs
grew from 2.7 million in 1909, to 10 million in 1910
and 1911, and to 40 million in 1912. Trade union
membership more than doubled in the same
period.
In August 1910, miners from the Cambrian
Combine in South Wales, where Cook was the
leader, struck. The strike lasted until August 1911.
It became a landmark in labour history.
There were bitter clashes with
owners brought in scabs. Police and troops were
brought in from all over Britain. At Tonypandy
was killed, and
official leaders stood by and watched.
These struggles, and the inaction of the union
leaders, provided fertile ground for the growth of
syndicalism in Britain. Syndicalism aimed to build
revolutionary industrial unions, under the control
of the members. After the Cambrian strike, Cook
turned his attention to this task.
Ablett, he formed
Commitee Movement.
In 1912 he helped produce syndicalism's most
famous pamphlet, The Miners' Next Step. Its aim
was a union whose central policy would be that 'a
continual agulacon be carried on in
increasing the minimum wage and shortening the
hours of work, until we have extracted the whole
of the employers' profits ... That our objective be
to build up an organisation that will ultimately
take over the whole of the mining industry and
carry it on in the interests of the workers.
Its shorter term aims included a seven hour
day. This demand was won in 1919.
Throughout the war Cook had maintained his
class struggle,
tions to defend the position of the miners. He was
elected Agent for Rhondda No 1 District in 1919.
Socialist Action 26 October 1984
All out 7 Nov
majority against,
These policies are part of the Tories manifesto.
mediately: and a further 14,000 will follow. In the meantime, rate-capping will hit the GLC and other local authorities.
By Fred Leplat, GLC/ ILEA NALGO shop steward
Democracy for London (the joint GLC campaign), don Bridge (the organisation stewards the London hit-list boroughs) and SERTUC have called strike on 7 November, the day after parliament opens This is to step up campaign aralisl abolition and ialc capping, and to focus on the loss of jobs and services.
quivering mass of a mediumistic magnetic sort of an inspired idiot, drunk with his
Eric Hammond on attack on 'nursery of the same ilk
The reasons are simple.
class struggle, which police as the
scores injured. The With Noah Unofficial Reform
favour of positions defying wartime regula-
services
It's a welcome change in the direction of the cam-
Until democracy was the only Icatule
solla support expected from many London
boroughs, some sections of the GLC will come out. This will make the dar
of publicity and a large turn out on the demonstration.
But we cannot rely just on days of action which the government can easily SIl through. non-cooperation with government plans, backed by industrial action, which will make LOe government
Not all unions agree with such an approach. var ticulal. the 12,000-strong GLC Staff Association is asking its members not to strike on / November. Although
will HOI cooperation, it will only oppose compulsory redundancies.
The GLCSA is basically scabbing on any posals to take the campaign forward. It has now withdrawn from the
A.J. Cook
Defend jobs and
Democracy for London campaign.
There is, however. minority in the assocalon want support a campaign of industrial action. and it is no
same
the miners unlike the
stop government plans for we HUsI build up
mittees.
must there no golden handshakes, no guarantee job
clear that
tinue VUIT campaigi. against abolition and ratecapping, all our efforts must be behind the miners
for the miners will put the government on the run and our fight against abolition and rate. capping will be that much
A.J. Cook:
a class struggle
leader
ment ended war-time control of the returned them to private ownership.
left them to fight alone. They were defeated
stated that must be wielded by a minority
through the shop stewards movement...
the Communis Minority Movement. nent trade union leader associated with this body.
ch, Cook became secretary of the Miners' Federa-
pay, not a second on the day.
Wing force behind general strike in support of the miners, on 3 May 1926.
the movement for this. Even Cook's intransigence was not enough to deal with this situation.
the workers, once unleashed, movement through.
after which the eight hour day was imposed on them.
was a class struggle leader. For over 50 years there was no equal to Cook in the British labour leadership. Today, around the miners strike, that has
begun to change.
LANDS
OFF
LE CLO
nolgo
hoto• СМ СОЛКСЛА
But the post-war boom ended in 1920, and the employers counter attacked. In 1921, the govern-
mines and The miners fought back, but the collapse of the Triple Allianc
The end of the boom, and the employers' offensive, forced the syndicalist currents in Britain to reconsider their perspectives. At the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920, Jack Tanner had
the dictatorship of the proletariat • the revolutionary minority of the proletariat in England as expressed
bane madeguacy bruis positonto dear will lI crisis and the deepening employers' offensive, led
Cook was the most promi-
In the year of the Minority Movement's laun-
tion of Great Britain. By now, the coal owners were again pressing for wage cuts and longer hours. He coined the slogan 'not a penny off the
With the Minority Movement he was the driv
me lols decision to cal a
The General Council's betrayal found the left incapable of responding. They had not prepared
Like others, he had expected the militancy of
would carry the
The miners fought on alone until November,
Cook's political weaknesses are clear. But he
York: mines
not missiles
FOLLOWING A
women's march in
August, from
Capenhurst Uranium
processing plant to the
Nottinghamshire
coalfield, 'Mines Not
Missiles' is to be the
theme of another na-
tio
3
on
Ne
Tory which
of pounds
of nuclear
weapon
nuclear stations,
La salel
and than
the nuclear
this
In mining UCallt movement, women are on
We are not
deomed. To
unresisting
No Nazis in
our colleges!
FRIDAY 19 October, Polytechnic North London, Holloway Road Site. Patrick Harrington, National Front organiser, is escorted to his lectures by police.
Of the 3000 students who have turned up to protest his presence. 4 are arrested. The campaign against his
VI CoCHICC moving towards a decisive point.
By Grant Keir, Kingsway Princeton CFE
Harrington is not just a racist with lunatic ideas.
He is a fascist organiser, responsible for the timidation and violence that is meted out by the National Front. very presence in a college is inwandalor. students, lecturing staff and auxilliary staff alike.
He should not be allowed into the college to study at all.
But the police protect his and there is a danger that
NUS, NATFHE and NALGO will back down
supporti pickets. This would open students and staff to vic timisation from both the
News
By Helen Collinson, York Miners' Support Group
the front line. Through
their experience of fighting
pit closures and struggling
against nuclear weapons
women are turning their
DACKS on the image of
themselves as passive,
"a-political bystanders
marooned in the home.
In York on
November, women involv.
ed in the miners' strike and
from the peace movement
will pool their strength in a
united *emst the Tory of
against the
government. After the
march and rally, there will
be a meeling open to al
women, to discuss future
joint actions
Galle • gel lU
know each other.
Other attractions on
the day include street
theatre and music, food
stalls, an exhibition, and a Contrain the even recite with
Contraband.
facilities and overnight ac-
comodation are also
available.
• Assemble Heworth
Green Car Park, 11.30am
Samson's Square. York
Further details,
0904 37022.
passive sprators
oberience
NF, and more importantly, the courts.
down under court threats to imprison students and staff, would be an important victory for the NF, it would be an enormous boost the right in NUS who want to SION all political activity inside NUS.
The NOLS-dominated NUS executive should Urganise
Harrington. And the Issue should be taken to NUS conference if necessary.
In the meantime, Labour Clubs should be raising the issue in every college and organise
picket (every Friday morning).
However. not enough to build the type of action necessary to stop the courts and police defending Harrington The NUS leadership must
called to order by students, who must demand the full mobilisation Dy lne umon to kick oul fascists from our colleges.
Page 11 scan of this page
Strikers fight on
In the Unions
Although they served their full sentences because retused to crawl to the bosses and 'purge their contempt 101 occupying the unfinished vessels in the Birkenhead yard • the Lairds 37 earned full remission for 'good conduct. and were releas ed eight days early.
Dooley,
Joll Birkenhead Labour Party member, described conditions inside. we were locked inside our crowded cells 22 hours a day. Paint was peeling off and there * was even shit up some of the walls.
Line warders were nol too bad. Some were ob-
sympathetic.
There was a lot of respect trom the otner They were really made up when stayed in
Vauxhall workers
blockade the ports
illel Tickt
• Workers in the 'workers' strate' • Working class and market socialism
ChrIs Artnul
MICk COX
Baruch Hirson and Lionel Chie
Kate Marsha
• Workers in post '56 Hungary Nige Swain and Bill Lomax
prison rather than creep to the judge to get out One of the prisoners asked remember them still inside for doing al sorts or lanes some not very serious. Many of LICI will years.
By John Nolan, Cammell Lairds Support Committee 'So we're telling LIBe labour movement, the wil isten, just how bad it is for unose beoole mal.
On the previous Friday, Frank Field.
Labou for Birkenhead, visited some of the Lairds prisoners who lived in his constituency He admitted that it he'd been place he 'might have done Critique Conference
Goodbye to
the working class?
Friday 9 November, 7.30pm The niversar ass?
Saturday 10 November, all day • Working class and British miners' strike
- 1917-1984 . Don lilizer and Bob Arno GAE Smith
• Marxism and Lukacs • Working class in the cold war
• Nationalism and socialism
• Women and class • The working class in Latin Americ
• Labour processed H Braverman
University of London Union
Registration: £4 and £2.50 Further details: 041-339 5267
Lairds
the same thing' He explained he felt he had to oppose the occupation because "so many other aros workers wanted Lo go back to work'
His explanation wasn't good enough for the 37, nor for the organisers of a march in support of them through the Liverpool city
the same day.
Field's demand to speak in support of the prisoners 'as their MP' was turned down "YOU have supported them from une starl. Frank. late now. week and improvement in conditions. Bristol, and Hartlepool in
Cavelo Middlesboreugh
His stewards' commit-
JOBS NOT JAIL
The newly-released strike committee will have the full support of Wirral Trades Council. Funds are already being raised. and contributed to enable the strikers to lead the cam paign and be in independent control of it A picket will be maintained at Lairds yard, and a mass picket is called for every Monday morning at 7am, when the scabs try to cross picket lines under ponce escort.
This all official strike.
The strikers will be Ellesmere Port and Luton have been solidly behind a national strike which has closed their plants since 10 October. The strike is over the rejection of a 7.5 per cent wage offer from the company. The unions want
well as a shorter working
prisoned in Walton jail.
topics of discussions. "This is the first occa-
to gel sona support Iron
company-imposed
builders' yards like
Hunters on vne where 2000 redundancies have lust beer announced — to build solidarity right across the industry.
They need the widest labour movement support — on the picket line and in hard cash
• Contact: Cammel Lairds Strike Committee, C/O Trade Union Unemployed Resource. Centre, Argyle Street South, Birkenhead, phone 051-647 6122.
Vauxhall pickets
line at Hartlepool docks
organising a "Bring a tin
Carltons and Novas are
WIll we've got to block off their
to all trade
and to respect our picket
The miners have given
must be extended
Socialist Action 26 October 1984
- what is it?
SU Executive (personal capacity)
sonally, I have
how it relates to students. or
year!
Tories abolish the GLC. small by comparison
however. up to
NUPE and NALGO. struggle of the miners.
theirs.
duty, but a burning necessity.
November. sends its full delegation
urged to attend.
November.
Upper Street, London N/ 2XP.
11
SOCiAliSt
ACTiON
STUDENTS
"The New Deal'
By Gill Lewis, City of London Polytechnic
THE POLICY of the 'new deal' was passed at the NUS 1984 Easter conference. Per-
La few misgivings over its potential effectiveness. It is worth noting why such a new deal has been formulated and
Since the late 1960s, the value of the student grant has decreased by 17 per cent outside London, and by a massive 32 per cent in London. Over half of this decline has come in the last two years. More than half a million students over the age of 16 in Britain receive no grant whatsoever.
In addition to this, the Tory government has slashed thousands of jobs and services within the emo costen did dato ruruer closures all tighter fiscal controls. As a result of the introduction of undemocratic legislation regarding local authorities, that is no rate support grants and impending rate-capping, ILEA have been forced to cut the grant it makes to City of London Pol! alone by f50,000 per month — that is £600,000 per
If you think that's bad enough, wait until the
Again using the example of City of London, it will be funded from three separate sources (regardless of their political composition), placed under severe financial restraints through the government's proposals around ratecapping, and its budget and staffing levels will be subject to airect ponucar contor Dysle govern ment. And this leaves out the 40 per cent increase in travelling costs due to the Transport Bill.
The icing on this 'cuts cake' is the possibility of a vast merger scheme that the Tories are busily cooking up. 'Poly-versities' will become the order of the day, accompanied by cuts in jobs and facilities that make our present problems seem
The new deal offers a limited beginning least on paper — to fight back against this. It is,
students to mount campaigns against the cuts. These must be linked to the NUS nationalv and localv. but must also draw in coor dinated support from unions such as NATHE,
One crucial point must be made. We have to link up with groups that are prepared to take on the fight, not only to defend the rights and stan. dards we already have, but who also see the need to demand an increase in education facilities and a decent job at the end of our period of education.
Right now this means we must support the
We can only expect their support for our struggle, if we support them in
A victory for the miners will be a victory for all students who want and need a new deal. Given that I have just been informed that the planned cuts foi City Poly in 1985-86 amount to £1 million, support from students for the miners is not so much our ACTIVISTS DIARY • National CND Conference, Sheffield, 23/24/25 November. Deadline for delegates is 5
Don't delay, make sure your college
University, 10 November. All Birminsupporters
• Founding Conference Further Education Labour Students, Liverpool Polytechnic, 10/11
Want to advertise meetings or events in the activists' diary? Write to Activists Diary, 328
Page 12 scan of this page
JOBS NOT BOMBS MINES NOT MISSILES!
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FREEZE THE ARMS RACE CND Barrow demonstration
Saturday 27 October Assemble: 1pm Trident dock
Rally: 3.30pm
VE BUIL
← Socialist Action No. 73, A, 19 October 1984Socialist Action No. 76, 2 November 1984 →