Socialist Action No. 95, 29 March 1985
The scan: 095-mar-29-1985-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.
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South Africa
explodes
The South African regime has replied in the fashion to the massive upsurge of black protest it has faced in the past seven months. It chose the twenty fifth anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre to gun down black mourners at the Langa township near Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape.
Official deaths. Others put the figure of those killed at 45 wounded. ed in the immediate aftermath of protest and reaction.
The flimsy police story thát they opened fire in self defence is believed by no one. The Black Sash women's civil rights movement in South Africa testifed that armoured personnel carriers intercepted the funeral procession and opened fire without provocation warning. ments immediately helicopter joined in the massacre.
Other witnesses, testified for by Alan Boesack, President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, explained how the police had then gone around killing the wounded and planting bricks on them in a vain effort to give credibility to their story.
Whether this carefully planned set-up job by the Botha government, resulted from a panic reaction some local police commander is completely irrelevant. Such atrocities are part and parcel of the regime. Despite massive international pressure, prime minister jected calls for any criticism at all of the killings
But the massacre escalating repression has stem the tide of black protest and black rebellion. protest and struggle has progressively moved from Within townships South Africa and its economy. These latest killings occurred, symbolically, as the mourners approached the white city of Uitenhage.
The police massacre came after 10 days of escalating protest against police repression and killings. followed the attack on the Crossroads squatters camp near Cape Town in February when 18 people were gunned down by police.
So far this year 100 people have been murdered the figure was 200.
Apartheid has spots in 25 years since Sharpeville despite the much-publicised and phoney electoral reforms.
most horrific ed,
figures admit 10
- with 50 more Africa. A further 10 were kill- NAMIBIA
Re-inforcebeen brought in by whelming
set up by the effort
massacre was dent
For whether by
black apartheid largest Botha re- directly
sion. and the This failed to
The course of black
into the heart of white the hack coordination
membership million.
The
by police. Last year
Washington.
not changed its
SOCiAlist
ACTION
But the reaction of the black masses has changed.
The protests which have been virtually continuous for seven months now have not been undermined by the Langa massacre. On the contrary the shootings have spurred further protest and revolt.
At the funeral of six of those kill-
35,000 turned shouting defiance. Further protests have followed in the townships near Uitenhage and other parts of South
Pretoria nesburge
SOUTH AFRICA
Since August last year all sectors of the oppressed black majority have
drawn HALO active against waite racist rule.
majority of Indians and 'coloureds' boycotted elections to the new, segregated parliamentary bodies
regime as part of its against the 24 million blacks. those communities
Hundreds of thousands students have been involved in stu-
strikes. Residents of black townships have risen up time and time again over the past few months in protest against high rent, taxes and bus
Last November one million workers participated in the political strike in history OIC protest the regime's racist policies and repres
the change Sharpeville in 1960. Whereas then blacks were unorganised,
community associations.
has been through the United Democratic Front — a broad coalition of more than 600 anti-apartheid organisations with a
more than And the influence of the African National Congress has won mass political support.
majority blacks directly connect their fight around immediate economic issues, with the task of overthrowing the apartheid regime itself. This is what is worrying imperialism not only in Pretoria but also in London and
out
struggle The over
of
South organised apartheid
from
they now
Powerful
achieved
two
now
29 March 1985
African goods.
Protest Apartheid Demonstrate outside South African government offices in Britain, at offices of firms that collaborate with apartheid and shops selling South
Ring Anti-Apartheid 01-387 7966 for details of action in your area and for material for the actions.
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Amnesty battle setback
Socialist Action 29 March 1985
AcTion SOCiALiS
The Kinnockites move in
THE FOUR weeks since the end of the miners' strike has seen a rapid process of recomposition witlen the labour movement as the lessons of the strike are driven home.
The overwhelming shift has been the move of the Kinnockites — and their allies in the Communist Party isolate those who led the miners' their allies.
The bourgeoisie, Neil Kinnock, and the Communist Party in this are working as a division of labour in the drive to break every force within bourgeois obensive. This means first and bourgeois offensive. foremost against the Scargill wing of the NUM. But after this is the attempt to isolate those who want to fight in local government, to attack the LPYS, and to try to break up those sections of the Labour Party that stood intransigently with the miners,
The result has been seen not only in Kinnock's moves but in a shift to the right by exsections of the Labour left - symbolised by the shift of Ken Livingstone in London. Others have deepened their course of radicalisation. result is an increasing polarisation in the move ment. The shifts are evident. • The GLC, the largest local authority in the country, buckled under when it came to the crunch and refused to break Jenkins law. The move to do this was led by Ken Livingstone who has the GLC to exclude the left and bring the right and centre into key roles. • Decisions by other councils on 7 March ducked the issue by saying it was impossible as yet to make a rate. reruse to set a rate. • In the left, led by the Communist Party, have now proposed the tactic of a work-in instead of strikes to
top cuts in jobs and service
• Georg Bolton, Communist president of the Scottish NUM, has called for lif ing the national overtime ban.
The result will be completely predictable. No jobs were saved in Steel by the policy of retreat and moving to the right headed up by the Communist Party and Labour right. be saved by these means either. Those such as George Bolton, Livingstone, Marxism Today, or Kinnock who advise retreat simply forces disorganising and demobilising struggle. A Kinnock government, with or without a coalition with the Alliance,
saster for the Labour movement opening up
r greater demoralisation even than in 197
it is from this situation that shifting alliances within the labour movement are necessary. It is not possible to unite those who do not wish to fight with those who do. That is the lesson both of the miners' strike and the local government strune Bennite left that crystalised around internal reforms in the Labour Party in the 1970s has been tested in the heat of the class struggle over the last 12 months.
Scargill, Dennis Skinner, and a whole part of the rank and file of the labour movement have passed that test and moved to the left - to real involvement in the class struggle. Others have failed that test and are now being driven to the right — as the purge which is beginning in the GLC shows.
The Kinnockites are going on the offensive against those who have moved left. An alliance of those willing to fight the Tories must be consolidated and organised if this offensive is to be effectively countered.
Editor: ALAN FREEMAN Published weekly except two weeks in August and the last week of December.
Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily represent Socialist Action's views. These are expressed in editorials.
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- to attempt to strike,
means The
since purged the chief committees of
We have yet to see who actually will
local government unions sections of the
British Leyland or British
No local government services will
become
would be an historical
one
Tony Benn, Arthur
THE RESULT of the ballot in the NUM for a 50p a week levy to support miners victimised by the NCB for their role in the strike is a blow to the miners and to the left in the union. Of those who voted, 50, 429 (46 per cent) were in favour and 58,721 against (54 per cent).
Less than 60 per cent of those eligible voted, while four areas including Notts refused participate.
Had these areas voted the number against would undoubtedly have been creased.
Some of the abstennons were aue lo opposition to the levy, by militants, who felt that the decision to hold a levy was
ship on the question of dudes!v. beneved that it was a substitute for
fight secure the reinstatement for the 620 who have so far been sacked.
This kind of confusion retected the weakness ot the campaign the coalfields. sufficient time for the acLIVISES to organise etfec tively behind it. It is clear that in some areas notably South Yorkshire and South Wales,
there was a failure by the leadership to campaign effectively for the levy.
The return to work has chancede concilorsma which the left has to fight.
While on FOLLOWING THE return to work SOCIALIST ACTION discussed the situation in the pits with DAVE PARRY, from Thurrock and BRIAN, who does not wish to be identified because he.is facing serious criminal charges arising out of the strike.
people
strike still as the
they've had Itults
again.
The experot the
different. everybody help
When we
APERE CE
So i said to him,
"Look, that unfortunate
incident at Sharpeville
¿occurred a quarter of
a century ago! Can't
we forget about it?
tivists were able to meet and organise on a con-
oasis they did to considerable
By Pat Hickey
The return to work has meant that the miners who carmenrouge lae surike are broken up on different
and in different workplaces.
I nose were not active in the strike did not
LOC exerences OI those who were on the picket lines, so their attitude to the mass picketing and the arrests are coloured by the media. Neil Kinnock's scabbing line only those not convicted of serious of fences should be reinstated strengthened the erroneous understanding of this layer and reinforced the right.
The NCB however. need not take too much CONTOT from these figures. Scargilism' is no defeated in the NUM - in fact a long way from it
No hostages for the NCB
azall YOU do something the 50
was driven
you've got Isolate.
walculle
you this why do that? don't talk about 'we'
who've
MOTION
Little did I know That the good old boys of the South African police had a little commemoration ceremony of their own going on...
The ditterence in the vote was only 8000. This understates the support in the union for the victimised miners and the support for Scargill.
However there are two lessons that need to be drawn from this result. One is the need to openly break with those in the movement Kinnock who draw a distinction between those 'engag-
the press, but those who've been sat at home don't understand that. Some of them doubt union policies.
who've
haven't.
start with. We've had cent and no
other.
that he aquitted before reinstated.
sacked for off Coal
ments....
ed in lawful trade unior activity and others
To criminalise some of those sacked is to criminalise all. They are all being victimised for defending their Jobs and com munities.
The second lesson that the activists who fought this strike through for 12 months now need to find new ways of organis-
hadn't been in this situation they wouldn't have been pinching.
Dave: What it is is that they've been to court and been fined, and some of them imprisoned, and the Coal Board now says you've got 30 years unemployment on top of
The injustice should stare people in the face. At the end of the day they've done no more than fight for their jobs.
But a lot of people who haven't been active nickets don't understand that. Its being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That's the thing about the levy. Its come out of
that they would take it out of union funds, but they've put it there in front of everybody's eyes: 'do you support these lads or don't you?' If the answer is 'no' then we've got pro blems. If the answer 'yes' then we're going
.... and then those very familiar state
News
ing in the context of the
return to work There has
to be organisation of the
militants on the ground to
back up the lead from the
left, Scargill, wing of the
national executive.
The leadership
find ways. of organising
and unifying the pickets
who led the strike, in the
day-to-day activity in the
union.
some place.
Its right make the
political about the
been sack-
the
who's not, or to pit
tors
allow certain
common prac-
tises,
over-
perience, we've
and
come, youth
#92 31$° Cormac
...which do their best to imply that seventeen people committed suicide?
Page 3 scan of this page
Myer ar co
the back to work, staying for an extra wee an amnesty for sacked miners.
situation inside the pit.
Originally 3 pits decided to stay out in Yorkshire. We tried picketing the others
alan t work. The other two decided to go back so we were forced to accept the national deciSONS.
About 3,000 of us marched back into the colliery on 8 March, half miners and half supporters.
the pIl it's reign of terror. The managers read oft a list oi things you can be disciplined for on the first day you get back.
You can be fired for intimidating scabs or leaving your work area early or for being late.
I nev are trving to 10. nore the union altogether. The management doesn't
Striking miner
witch hunted
was suspended from Mansfield Labour Party
Management Committee,
support of the miners. Valerie Coultas reports.
able to attend the meeting. ana made it clear to tne Mansfield executive committee that he was not a supporter of the Militant Tendency, that he was not a seller of the Militant and lat me gen n money lo the Militant.
Paul Shawcroft, who explained that he was a Militant supporter, back-
up Graham on this point. 'When the Exduced a leaflet advertising. ecutive Committee
meeling said that it had been printed
published under my name he and both pointed out that this had been done without my per-
The EC was convinced and decided mend that no action be taken.
This didn't satisfy the McCarthyites on the GMC. Happy to be in the
• last pit i
He gave us this report for Socialist Action on the
ask, it demands. If you
breach one
management's new rules
they send you a letter and
you get a warning.
Anv oftence committed after the warning and you're sacked. got
first letter after my first shift back at work
The mood in the pit is
ally. kept the scabs isolated but so tar they Have
they are slowly trving to reintegrate them into the
pit.
The 34 scabs in our pit will never be forgotten. They are completely nored and soon the pressure will become too much for them to take.
The management are
out to get rid of 70,000 miners. They will sack you
for anything just to get rid
We have to keep our heads low or else We cul
The miners haven't been defeated though. were betrayed by the TUC allu the Labou Party bureaucracy. Even despite
this I would do it all again.
IT"S better have fought and stood up for your principles than follow the dictates of this anti-working class government.
yet. The us or over strike's over but the struggie guts oil. Everyday we go to work we are waging a Wal.
Graham Naylor was one of the 46 miners out of a total workforce of 1200 at Bilsthorpe pit in North Nottinghamshire who stayed on strike until the end. 8 days later, on Wednesday 13 March, Graham
His crime, according to the right-wing General
was having spoken at a public meeting of the Militant tendency on 4 June in
throughout the dispute the Party had sat on the fence and was to seek vengeance those miners who had fought against pit closures and backed the NUM leadership.
Paul Shawcroft was expelled and they voted to suspend Graham pending an investigation. "They told me the Political Education Officer that shond have phoned up the officers and
replied that I hac been asked to speak as a striking miner and that I nad spoken at manv meetings in support of the miners dispute SWP,
- and would continue to do so
'I asked the Chair and Secretary if it was normal practise to ask permission
NUM by the leadership of the Notts area.
Socialist Action talked
ing in Notts.
The area leadership has organised to boycott the national ballot on the issue or a levy to support the sacked miners.
With branch elections
cos Roy Lyn and his
Lynk and merry men are also trying
prevent the strikers from . standing for positions in the union.
They claim they can debar the strikers because tney paid no union dues during the 12 months of une sinike and lney are supposedly no longer in good tinancial stanaing.
"These moves are
and they told me no.?
Special rules are obviously catch Graham Naylor out. He tirst ioned the Laboul Party five years ago but at
Join the SWP and rejoined
He is aware of why the finger is being pointed at him. *Since the been on a lol of miners and miner's wives in this area have been joining the Labour Party. Threat
'They've got me marked down as a threat to their position. People are joining the Party because their political consciousness has been raised in the strike and they
The Labour Party should b welcoming this enthusiastically not trying to push us out.
members of the Militant Tendency have HOW Deer expenca Irom the Labour Party and Graham belives that if Mansfield CLP can get away with expeling him other mining militants will
vulnerable to attack.
our Party must be
Labour must fought. It's a scandal that NUM militants like
threat of expulsion for do-
• should be doing backing its own class.
LEFT FIGHTS BACK IN NOTTS
Following the decision to call off the overtime ban this week has seen more provocations against the
Joe Mohammed, striker from Cotsgrave about the situation develop-
designed hasten the area's expulsion from the NUM. The union still has capacity to respond, but I don't know which is he best move to make ays Joe Mohammed Eager Why are Lynk and Prendergast so eager to ge kicked out of the NUM?
And why are the tactics of the expulsion such a difficult issue for those who are loyal to the NUM?
Contrary to most expectations, the returning get a to work
of Arthur
of the ex-
would South We know jority Wales
Gut. The
the la-
The difference Scargill Wales ex-
don't.
Wales excould get results
mobilised for mass
strikers have not found themselves to be in
beleagured minority.
In fact, since the return to work, the 'recruitment campaign' up working miners who wish to remain in the NUM has really taken off in some pits.
This has been aided by the heavy-handed way the management have cracked down on the scabs they treated so well during the strike.
Redundancy ments at Moor Green and Pye Mill, due to shut in June, have been reneged on.
And the considerable numbers of young miners taken on during the strike
finding many agreements on training are Delig flagrantly ignored
South Wales exec.
lost their bottle
picketing.
By Huw Edwards (Tower colliery).
At the time of the oc. cupation of the cranes al Port Talbot mass pickets could have been put on the motorway at Port Talbot and Llanwern. This had the potential to prove mass picketing was effective. It would have stopped all ore and coke movement. would have put on Sirs and the ISTC to accept an agreement to use only enough coke to keep the steelworks ticking UVE.
Scargill's lead in the strike was exemplary. He
some minor mistakes when he SuL cumbed to pressure from
TUC appeal over the heads of TU leaders. Unity gave space to the IJC not to carn out the agreements made at the Congress. I think he should have split the TUC right down the middle. He should also have publicly spoken out against Kin-
senated the ore
alienated some members. Overall though
by management.
Getting no satisfaction from the scabs who run the
Notts NUM branches, they have had to turn to strikers for help in taking these matters up
With their support beginning crumble Lynk and Cogane are desparate to bring matters to a head. Provoke
Unable to walk away from the NUM they are seeking to provoke their own expulsion
Many the strikers are re-thinking their attitude to the expulsions because of these developments.
his lead was excellent
The TUC did not want Scargill to be emulated so they agreed policies but sabotaged their implemen. •tation. The rank and file should demand the resignation of the General Council. If that doesn't happen after 3 months we should adopt a policy of withdrawal and stop our
Socialial Action 271md 1981
'Some of us feel that ar expulsion might damage this process. It might just break up the closed shop in which is what happened with the Spencer breakaway' said Joe can see the benefits of expulsions, but I can see the pitfalls too The main problem is that the expulsion of the area seems the only possible way of dealing with hardened Real winger like Lynk and Co who hold their union positions for life.
We asked Mohammed what the situation will te with the running for NUM branch elec tions. "The union will find the money in the next week to pay back dues We'll be running in these elections.
levy. Willis, Kinnock and others are calling for unity to fight the Tories. Unity is needed but not unity of the right of the TUC. Their unity is to ensure their own jobs. The NUM has shown that it is possible to push for union rule changes to give more participation to the ran. and file. This should be in all unions. The Third Socialist
Action Miners
Solidarity Meeting
Saturday April 20 'Lessons of the Miners Strike'
Snowdown Colliery Welfare Club (New
Club)
Ayelsham Kent
Workshops include Women's Liberation, Black Liberation, Ireland, the Young Socialists, the
Labour Party and the Miner's strike,
Internationalism and the Strike.
Registration will take place from 10am. First session
starts clam.
Transport: British Rail from Victoria to Ayelsham,
Kent Road by the A2 to Dover.
Coaches from London tel 01-254 0128
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Britain out of NATO
Socialist Action 29 March 1985
Last week TONY BENN presented a paper for Miscussion by Labour's National Executive arguing that Britain should withdraw from NATO. It was widely reported in the press.
Socialist Action asked Tony Benn why he had laken this initiative and to explain his views on the press reports. We will be running other responses, and views, on NATO membership in coming issues.
IT HAS been reported in the press that you have opened up a discussion for the NEC on the question of withdrawal from NATO that against NATO membership.
Yes, because at the heart of the argument about the future of our society, in a very real sense, lies the foreign policy we pursue. What the right in Britain has succeeded in doing very cleverly is using the experience of socialism in Russia to frighten our people. It is also using the allegation of the threat of a Soviet Invasion create a big military establishment in Britain, which is then able to imply that any critic of the government is a traitor.
This lies at the whole heart of the NATO argument. You get big military establishments which, because they deal with nuclear aeapons. are secret, and therefore anyone who is critical of them — as we saw through the Massiter revelations can be classed as a subversive.
Another argument is presented. which is wholly fraudulent, that the United Siates, all over the world, is for freedom and civil liberties and so or. Whereas actually the United S:ates is at a period of its imperial growth. It is using its military power, like any imperial power in the past, to consolidate and prote:: its interests.
Superpowers
You have to have a new perception of what it's all about. I trink that if you have a different perception of superFoirers I won't say they are identical to each other - but they a:: SUC DUWCIS with great economic and military capacities, who are going to see that around their own territories are cordons sanitaires.
In the case of America, you inraje Grenada. try to neutralise Cuba, and indeed, go as far as they cid in Vietnam. In the case of the Seriet Union, because of their experience, Eastern Europe is part
protective alliance and A ghanistan is brought into the croit again - in much the same
that Britain invaded A ghanistan four times when we were an empire.
If you see it that way it's different from the way it's presented ir. the media. Then the question arises 'is our role as a client state •: America?' One where our intelligence is integrated with theirs, where they have a mass of nuclear weapons based in Britain, where
are really subordinate to
HEADWORTH
Tony Benn at 1982 demonstration demanding withdrawal of the British fleet from the South Atlantic Washington in their world system. Is that the best way that Britain can bring its influence to bear for peace? And the answer is that it isn't.
I gave a lecture at Chatham House 18 months ago that raised these questions in a tentative form. I put that same paper into the national executive a year ago.
Last July we had a seminar about it. We are going to have a foreign
policy conference • at the end of the year organised by the Labour Party.
Discussion
Our discussion paper, whether Britain should remain in NATO, which ended up with a request for a paper to be presented by the international department for discussion, was
defeated. But my own opinion is that the question will continue to come back. And I think it's very important that we should discuss it. And a whole range of other subjects such as what we do when we withdraw from the Common Market, how we deal with the banks and financial institutions, with the ownership of land what I would call socialist items going back on the agenda.
Forum
All this must be done without personal hostility and really to allow the labour movement to pertorm its other function which is to be the grand forum. of the nation. Discussing how Labour can best contribute to a solution of world problems as well as domestic problems.
Does that mean that you are now against British membership of NATO? Or do you merely think the matter should be discussed?
I think the matter should be discussed. But in the paper I put in with Eric Heffer we were arguing the case for withdrawal.
The French are not in NATO of course. They are in what they call the Alliance but not actually members of NATO. I think the removal of American bases is very important.
I think in the light of what Reagan is doing to New Zealand, after New Zealand said she didn't want American ships with nuclear weapons entering her ports, gives
indication of what the Americans would do if we were elected with our present policy. All these questions need to be on discussed. If they were discussed it would be a very important part of the political argument.
I don't believe the British actually public will ever accept a non-
International
nuclear defence strategy if at the same time they're not asked to re-examine the question of whether there is a military threat from the
I do not believe there's a military threat. just don't believe it. I believe it's been built up for other reasons in the way that before the war the Axis powers (Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy - ed.) built it up.
Defence
You've got to turn your mind - to that question. If you turn your mind to that, and you win that argument — and I believe there's a very good reason for believing you would then the defence aspects of it fall into place. If you don't turn your mind to that argument then people will go on saying: 'Well the Russian's have got the SS20, so we've got to have the American cruise' and you'll never make any progress at all.
So I think its also a very important part of the process of winning public support for Labour's existing defence policy.
Could you explain when you say that you don't think there is a similarity between what you called the superpowers?
I'm not talking about parity of responsibility. I think if you were to analyse the way we regard, or are invited to regard, the Soviet Union — as a country which is dedicated by its Marxist analysis to the conquest of the world by military means, to create a Marxist world - then that is a false analysis, quite false.
If you're asked to regard the Americans as the upholders of parliamentary democracy, civil liberties and trade unionism, that's a false analysis.
What you have to differentiate between is what I would call the 'inherent interests of superpowers', and the conduct of their own affairs on their own borders, and the real question - which is why can't we in Britain develop socialism in our own form, in our own way. If you try and achieve that the Americans say the Russians are trying to take over. Western Alliance to er They'll use the of the
to crush it. I don't want to see that happen.
Constructive
And of course the socialism I want to see develop here and elsewhere is not a Stalinist form + Russian history and special circumstances were totally different. British socialism would be a home grown, relevant socialism, that we would develop ourselves. And in doing so I think we'd find
able to work with a whole range of people including the progressive movement in the United States, the peace move ment, trade union movement, the third world, and a lot of the peo ple in Europe who are part of th peace movement. I think we car play a very constructive part
So I'm not applying the simple theory of equality of responsibility. I don't think that's true. That is a simplistic analysis. But Bri tain must free itself from NATO in the military alliance of the West.
Page 5 scan of this page
Women's solidarity conference 4 May
MTFS: More Trendy Financial Stupidity
has set a date. - Saturday 4 May -solidarity conference and Digbeth Civic Hall Birmingham has been booked as the venue for the day.
A planning meeting at County Halll, held jointly WiLT Lne Mineworkers Defence Committee Wo-
Groun Friday finalised the agenda.
The conference aims to draw the links between the women Closures movement, the wolch socald and other struggles women have engaged analist the Tory government over ine last lew years.
The morning session of
YORKSHIP
ARE
NIGEL LAWSON's budget revealed itself as extremely unpopular — a special snap opinion poll in the Sunday Times showing the Tories falling two per cent behind Labour immediately after the budget. But also significant was the rise in support for the SDP-Liberal Alliance — and Roy Hattersley came up with an 'alternative budget' which tremely similar to that proposed by Edward Heath and Owen.
JOHN HARRISON and BOB MORGAN look at background to Lawson's budget. BUDGETS ARE not what they used to be. A few years ago, chancellors rose to explain how their governments would both raise and spend money over the coming year. This is people's idea of budgetting planning income and spending.
The financial mentators compared tax spending charges, and budgets 'expansionary' or tractionary' according likely impact on total spending.
In comparison budgets today are non-events. Lawson's key inovation has been the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS). This aims to bring
spending closer loser to their income from taxes as the years go by growth in the amount of floating around the economy. chancellors LUW Cul budgets according to the MTFS cloth.
Recently have been announced some months before the spring budget. So anyone
The Midlands Women's Co-ordinating Committee
• for the women's.
the conference will be introduced woman from the and miner's from the
co-oralaling Committee. Block shons wil then take nace with women leading the discussion who have been engagca i suruggle to uy and draw out the common lessons.
By Valerie Coultas
During the lunch hour
aazU
masochistic enough MTFS, dissect
assess the
March. the pre-budget newspapers.
was ex- tioning that battered dispatch
The Financial David
bridge party.
the Leaks
most
Mandarins.
and dubbed
*con- Treasury clings to
their
related paperwork
boxed in buff coloured files.
money visor Sir
Tory
their however •casual
fringe meetings are plannwith Women Against Pit Closures, Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, the National ADO LON Campaign, Greenham Armagh and black sisters.
In the afternoon the block workshops will continue and the conference plenary ena will draw together the discussions from the workshops.
It is intended that the conference should end with a short public protest against the threat women's fertility control posed by Enoch Powell's Unborn Children (Protec10 digest the public expenditure plans and monitor economic events over the winter months can easily
sum of money the chancellor can plav around with come
For the lazy there is always
Yet budgets retain a certain mystique. Even a radical privatisation mer-
box.
Times still serves chicken legs and wine to its staff in a desperate attempt to replicate an Ox-
But it's the Treasury that takes the biscuit. The 3500 souls who work in that late Victorian neogothic building which dominates the southern end of Whitehall have just suffered from a rough few weeks.
sion
Last year's budget leaks prompted an unsuccessful attempt by the police to smoke out the mole among the
After Tisdall, Ponting and Massiter nobody was taking any
time around. The tradition. All hang HUSL together on short pieces of metal tip. ped cord, called Treasury tags, and be
This vear those concerning the budget carried sticky labels bearing the legend "secret' in red capitals.
Those privy to budget discussions
including the chief economic ad-
Terence Burns - had to report all contacts with journalists
This reportedly generated masses of paperwork for one omical married to a reporter Paranoia about leaks led to security staff minding the xerox machines.
tion) Bill.
The planning meeting was pleased to hear that Women Against Pit
Closures nationally was
calling its own conference
as everyone in attendance
seemed to agree that the womers Conference had a distinct but complementary role to the WAPC movement
Decisive
That role is to strengthen the self-organisation of women in all the mass organisations and movements in which making reachat can pash active today,
ACTO
Last year Lawson's budget performance was feted by the financial press as 'bold, imaginative and radical'. They have got it wrong before. This year he knew he was in for a rougher ride. Unemployment had both edged up and elbowed itself into the centre stage of political debate. 'wets' like Heath were starting to winge in public and Tories in marginal seats were looking nervously towards the next election.
But, LOSI importantly, superior Arthur Daleys who populate the financial community were getting ULCADY • Nobody seemed to believe Nigel's claim that he wasn't going to spend any more money this year. The Economist, commenting on government's expenditure wrote: "Government public spending white papers are looking more and more like interesting Treasury discus-
documents rather statements of intent... this year's
contals assumptions public sector pay and state industries
1987-88 that belief. Even before threats of oil price cuts unsettled them further, financial markets were unimpressed, sterling tense, shares twitchy, interest rates edging up.' Tight
Twitchy shares, tense sterling, this would never do. The City demanded a tight budget, and Lawson duly oblig ed. Money that had been promised for tax cuts was now to be allocated to the contingency reserve so as to offset overspending. The £1.5 billion of promised tax cuts was halved. evidently carry more clout than Ted Heath.
The Tory budget was obviously a non-starter for
that process forward and
by having a high profile
for the trade unions and
the Labour Party. This
will encourage • women lo
join the labour movement
and strengthen
ing
The next London Plann-
ing meeting for this con-
ference, when leaflets will
on Tuesday • available, 2 April. For LuKes place
further information con-
tact Geraldine on
021-236-1240 or Valerie on
01-254-0261. A creche will
be available all day.
unemployed. But has Labour got an
Ask 'yes'. We should frastructural investment and a few token hand-outs Labour's alternative budget for 1985 Leading woud be to
than Lawson. cident', is similar to the figure proposed by the SDP and Tory 'wets'
those with evel, irs peanuts. In fact if the Tore
they package would not look much dif ferent from Hattersley's.
plans, look like? The starting point would be
jobs. Around 3.3 million people are officially registered as unemployed Алошег mion or so
than lack recognition in the statistics. Mass
unemployment is morally unaccepabout Lane abitically onstrous for the laband COLONICa
movement. Jobs for all would boost working class struggle more effectivethan dozen
depends on production and output on sales prospects. So the only way to boost jobs is to bump up spending Governments can do this by widening the gap between their from you Revenue. ing effective demand (a good thing). Lawson Public Sector Borrowing ment (PSBR and a bad thing).
Bankers
suggest that creating four million o so jobs would require an expenditure millions boost of at least £25 billion - taking
Socialist Action 29 March 1985
"The enemy within'
Belfast for International Women's Day She said:
awful', but
altered.
And if it means coming to Belfast
experience.
says. because all that's biased
long way.
it. put.
Roy Hattersley and he'll say
go for more inposals with the DUUl scupper
spend f5 billion more - which, just by 'ac-
there's This may sound like a big deal but
its current
histor then Lawson's
So what would a socialist budget
revolutionary
In a market economy employment
measures would be own expenthey funnel away the Inland Keynes called this increas of war. dubs it an increase in the Require-
Back of an envelope calculation
5
STRING MINERS,,
Janet McCreadle from Rotherham went to
Every one of us can fight now, whereas 12 months ago we were housewives. Before the strike I saw things on the television news and thought 'that's
was it. Now if we don't like something we're going to try our best to get it
anywhere — we'll do it because we want firsthand
We want to know the facts that the people who are involved tell us, not what the news
The strike's ended, but our fight isn't, not by a
We've not been defeated. Last July Thatcher called us 'the enemy within'. Well, she's still got the same enemy within and we're proud of
the PSBR to around one tenth of out-
Both the establishment and the Labour leadership greet such proboske policies would, they point-our, guffaws. Such the pound. send prices through the roof, and cause epilepsy in financial markets.
They are of course right — given current economic arrangements. But therements which concine milions 'Current they belong the gare age riagno the dole queues are moribund
whims of financial makes ff stit
to nationalise the banks When hot money flows cost tens of millions pounds in lost output, it is time to 'regulate' the currency exchanges.
These types of steps, let alone the nationalisation that necessar socialist economy, would of course b denounced by Lawson as 'extremist'
But many of them are no different than those which capitalist govern ments themselves have taken in time
As long as Labour remains trap ped within a framework where refuses to mount any assault on th financial and industrial institutions o capital it will be incapable of comin up with any credible alternative to the policies of Lawson.
Page 6 scan of this page
A new womer
THE VLM has always run an Easter ae.end school for the students on the
elease course. For at least the last
ears l've been going to Skegness to he weekend school
Gradually over the years the women
Dared from just going for a fami-
eekend looking
iren while their husbands went to
¿ chool, to having their own part of ate programme and choosing their own
for the weekend, husbands looked after the children.
There have been several attempts to keep the women together schools. They weren't cessful - although we have had quite a few meetings — because of the fact that the people coming were trom all over
county of Derbyshire. difficult to find a time and place that would suit all of them.
So when the Chesterfield Labour club was opened, I thought it was a good idea to start again, to try and get a permanent miners' wives group going with the women I knew who'd been to the last school. It wasn't all that successful.
But then the by-election came up and I joined the women's canvass team, with quite a number of other miners wives. eventually became Chesterfield Women's Action formed about a week before the strike begal. At that very first meeting we said that it was quite probable that there was going to be a miners' strike and that we would need to collect money miners. I went round the strike centres
the first weeks of the strike, Margaret Vallins, helping to set up
women's groups
groups, waich gradually grew to about 15. We eventually ended women's groups all over the county of was set up, which was called Derbyshire Derbvshire. A coordinating committee
Women's Action Group. That's how it all began.
We organised our first meeting Duckmanton, because that was one of the first villages we'd been canvassing
A group of Barnsley miners'
and students from
came to that meeting.
But lots of groups were set up group. spontaneously, all over the country in a
response to the strike. It was a kind of
survival instinct I think.
Different
We knew immediately that it was
different from the last strike.
from social security was taken away
deemed to be strike pay that we didn
get. So not only couldn't you pay your
ills, but you hadn't enough money for
food either. The groups were a reaction
of the women to the fact that they had
very little money, and were very, very
worried about how they were going to
feed their families.
It was quite staggering,
meeting we had at Duckmanton, over
100 women turned up, all of them wor-
ried. Just
them a little bit of confidence. It took a
little bit of the fright out of the situa-
tion.
Once they knew there were hun-
dreds of them in the same situation,
bit of the fright went. And it wasn't
very long before women were actually
coming to us, saying 'how do we set up
a group?'.
As there were so many groups all
over the country,
kind of things
now to sort oul bullgages,
bills, and so on, going out collecting
for food and providing food parcels or
setting up soup kitchens
ed to be in contact with each other.
The first attempt at national coor-
dination came just after the Barnsley
Our first weekend
meeting was at Northern College, near
Barnsley. We didn't get the numbers
right, we didn't get the representation
right, but at least we all met together
and a lot of discussion took place.
Out of that came our first national
rally, in London in August. That rally
had over 20,000 people,
fantastic success. I think it was the first
all realised how large our
organisation was,
movement we could be. Our recent In-
ternational Women's Day
Chesterfield was rather a big success
100.
We were offered an office in the
National Union of Mineworkers' na-
tional office in Sheffield. It was set up
as a liaison office.
Our organisation
strength to strength.
6
after
while the
between
all that suc-
Hul was the Group,
for the
wiLl
up with 34
public village
Northern College
Thev set up a
ONE OF the mest The £15
Pit Closures.
at the first
cava
representation.
Pit Closures
troversy over this. all doing the same like giving advice on
electricity miners. people who • we all needdependants
We based our national COMMIELCC
Phased on
an absolutely tee. miner's wife, are. and how strong a
event in ine suike has
of women, a part
the trade went from
The time came stay that way. '
Socialist Action 29 March 1985
important developments
from the miners' strike was
the emergence of a new
movement of women built
around the women's
support groups, central to
which was Women Against
Many working class
women from the mining
communities are taking
part in active polities for
the first time. At meeting
after meeting, the story is
when we thought we must have proper
HUsI launch ourselves as a properly organised body. We've got the name women AgainsI
because that included everyone, not just miners' wives.
There's always been a bit of con-
Some women think it should only be female dependants of
At the conference we decided that
oftice would miners' wives and that representation would be, in the main, people who were
miners, that the other people would be included as well.
national aelegatc on the same formula thạt the national executive of the NUM. is
We have one delegate for each area of the coalfield. Ann Scargill and myself are ex officio on the committee. Neither of us have a vote and neither of us deprive a miner's wife from taking a position on the commit-
The national treasurer is not a but most of the others
Now we still have to get down to the problem of what we're going to do now
ended. Even though the strike's ended the struggle has got to go on, and we want to stay together
We are now quite a powerful body
and parcel of the women's movement, part and parcel of
union movement nolitical movement — and we want i
We want to stay strong.
the same: "Before it didn't mean anything to me. Now I understand what politics is all about - and I'm going to stay active.*
Throughout the strike, BETTY HEATHFIELD has been prominent in the Women Against Pit Closures movement. She gave CAROL TURNER an overview of WAPC: how it began, what it's done, and where it wants to go now that the strike is over.
Certainly it's true in this area and, 1
know, in a lot of the other areas, that
this past year has meant that a lot of
women who were formerly unorganised
have got themselves involved
organisation which has done a very
useful job during this strike.
think we were unique
women have been involved in struggles
in other areas, like the
women, and even in the mining in-
dustry.
In the Derbyshire area,
worked down the pit in the
there are records of them picketing and
being arrested - all the kinds of things
that we've been doing: There are other
examples of women's struggles in the
mining communities, for example, com-
ing out and banging their dustbin lids
when the scabs were going to work in
the 1926 strike.
But they were isolated
munities, they didn't band
This is what we have done this time.
We're not doing something absolutely
new. But what has been done that
new to torm ourselves into
organisation.
We've not only united the com-
munities within each but
also united the coalfields. Quite the op
posite to what this government said we
doing: dividing communitles.
dividing the mining industry.
sions came when the Coal
the government started the back-to-
communities.
At the beginning of the strike the Barnsley women were incensed by the Notts miner's wife who husband across the picket line and held up a toy gun saying she was going to shoot Arthur Scargill. 'that's it, we must organise ourselves. It's terrible that women are used in this way'.
The press women who are in support of their husbands being out on strike for their jobs. They only women who didn't want them out. For once they were forced to find a lot of husbands, their sons and their fathers wives fully who were on strike.
The press have still under-reported the women's movement. realised how strong it either under-reported or, misreported it. weren't given full coverage for the size and strength of them. very many TV programmes where the women's pickets were shown.
We had pickets, especially in Notts, where women came Yorkshire Derbyshire
in an tinghamshire to do a women's picket.
I don't These went
strike, al the reques women. We went on those pickets to Greenham show weren't alone in Nottinghamshire. the women
Women's Pickets women : 1850s and
They showed the men who were going to work in Nottinghamshire that a lot of orner areas
like the women's pickets -lot of violence on the women's pickets I went on, not coming from the women in com- but the police together. with us as with the men. I think it was
done to intimidate the them feel that they wouldn't go again. because it was a frightening experience. A lot of women had rough handling from the police.
we've have
dispute. They've learned a lot in a very short space of time. Now they're thirst to know more.
The diviBoard and of us to suffer as much as we have, but
it's been short in terms of giving
escorted
They said:
didn't report all the
wanted to report
supported
When they was, then they verv often Our demonstrations
I haven't seen
from ove and Noton every week due the of the
and the men they
In fact they were very successful.
women supported the strike from Certainly, I know the police didn't
• there was a
Fi ney were as violent
women. make forget it.
Not about and how they Hundreds and hundreds of women ochE
become politicised during this they've
For instance,
The strike seemed a long time for all munities
much,
ourselves an education. Women could never have done that by reading or going to classes. It's been done in action, and it's the quickest kind of education that they've ever had. They'll never
only have women learned political parties and parliamen work, about their owI and how they work, they yet alout the moments meet learned tremendou.
about Greenham Common. its didn't retite to at om
relate to didn't take seriously what the women there were doing. Now they do.
Page 7 scan of this page
I's movement
I don't think you can discount the influence of the women's movement on
unions, they've been making slow but steadv progress for women's equality. And you can't discount a lot of the groundwork which the women's liberation movement in the sense of bringing equality for women to the notice of people.
Possibly most women in the mining communities mav not have related to that kind of movement because they didn't think it affected them, and they didn't think that kind of woman was what they were. Now they've had their eyes opened.
in the trade
can blossom '60s laid, in the
housework. denis much mike positive.
it now.
You can't discount all that, but this movement of the miners' wives, for the first time, has brought a lot of working class women out of their homes and given them a look at a wider world. It's give blossom into that world which is
into that world which much more than just the family and the
This kind of activity they've been
Because thinking, when their husbands have gone back to work and they're already coming up against are stuck there in the home with their children, they'll now be thinking why
don't we have more nursery schools and more creches so that I can have a life as well?
Some of them know, will be thinking a lot more about whether they need to be in a trade union or not. Now they'll attach more impor-
I don't think a lot of women have involved themselves in the peace move ment.
movements in their own villages
A lot of women will now branch out in a lot more they've ever done before. Very few will be happy to return to the kitchen sink although inevitably some of them are going to end up that way. Now the men are back to work it's quite a different story coming out to meetings, gadding off to a foreign and leaving the pots and the washing all behind.
Hach and everv one of the women will have their own personal problem to sort out within their own families — to be able to take the role they've been taking for the last year and even exten. ding that role. But I'm sure they'll be successful.
Women Against Pit Closures organised a sucessful International Women's Day event in Chesterfield recently
Pit
It's Our
portance
coming up.
lost.
There
gles
work
who have jobs,
for so long.
victory.
We've got women in this area
«nace on
different ways than Anyone
deny that they
them country
they Socialist Action 29 March 1985
On the future of Women Aga:
Closures, think the natio: organisation will be the body that p. on a couple of events a year, someth like that. The actual activities will much more area orientated.
already under discussio: whether to have some sort of forma: relationship with the union. , Areas have been askea to oring unis up in lnel groups and discuss what kind of rela tionship we should have with the NUM and what form it should take We've nad preliminary discussions with one o two officials of the NUM to sound out how they feel about it.
We don't want the NUM to think we're going to take them over!
organisation was formed to fight a battle which was theirs the union belonged to the men. But what that union is fighting for is of equal im
Ener women and the families. We still want to be part o that. There are plenty of struggles still Victories
I don't think the strike has been
Throughout this whole struggle we've had so many victories that we can count along the way: the strength and the growth of the women's movement has been phenomenal; the vast network of friendships and solidarity that we have created with the trade union and labour movement, the peace movement and other women in struggle.
are vast number of organisations who are in touch with each other now and find that the strug
are the same: rate-capping and abolition of the metropolitan councils, the fight of ethnic minorities. We're
And we've spread our net to almost every country in the world. This net
quite unique. That marvellous victory
The leadership of the NUM was united in the strike. That is perhaps why the majority of miners stayed out
They knew they had leaders who were intending to lead them to a
While we got a luke-warm reception from some of the leaders of the labour tainly can't say that about the rank and
All these are victories.
who watched films miners returning to work could not
were still united. They have such dignity, and such pride in the trade union that has been fighting fo
No matter what kind of victory the Coal Board or the government think
might have gained, they'll find they have another thing coming.
7
Page 8 scan of this page
Sharpeville -twentyfive years on
MONDAY, March 21, 1960. That date always will Land out in bold red letters on the calendar of South africa's history of struggle against the regime of oppression and humiliation which is known to the porld as apartheid.
On that day and the next the world's press and devision screens carried pictures of the carnage in bat remote black township near Vereeniging in the Transvaal. Who can forget the picture, spread over so pages of the Daily Mirror of those bodies of cad women, men and children round in front of the police station in Sharpville?
It brought home to the hole world the real ature the white apitalist regime in south Africa minority gime which could only eep itself in power by the ACI LISC of naked brute
against the overhelming majority of the opulation. cople died on that day in harpville, dulls them eht women and ten hildren One hundred
eighty people were pounded. The majority of hose killed and wounded pere shot in the back.
The demonstration in harpville was part of a ampaign organised by the
African Congress PAC), an Alcansi
ak-away from the
National Con against the hated
laWs
The pass is the docu-
which every South frican
wao is onciany esignated black in buth lature has to carry.
Failure to produce the ass to an authorised peron on demand can lead to
Pass laws
almost as old as white
: in South Africa. They
first introduced
Dutch colonists in the 550's when the first slaves
imported into the from Madagascar
• te cast inales.
Passes
travelling aween
With of white
in vary-
hack Govern-
The of the
atrol the
For the Blacks it was a ambol of slavery and
miliation. With the inaduction apartheid,
be a tightening of the
Blacks did not calmly
the new repressive Women, especially,
ely resisted the exten-
of the hated laws to
Protests against the laws mounted. there were 400,000
ChoRS Tor offences
control regula-
Pressure from the asses were urging the aders of the liberation rganisations to take some
The ANC decided on a maign which would in-
de deputations to local
government authores urging the abolition of
and 'day aver'
Socialist Action 29 March 1985
sprawling on the
The militant MOTE PAC, under the leadership
Robert sobukwe had resolved on 'decisive and Dosiuve allion azallist unc pass laws as the first step in
freedom 1963.
By Charlie van Gelderen
The campaign was planned to begin on March
21 when people would be askca lo leave tell passes at home and surrender at local ponce Stallons Il al Ics.
The slogar would be "no bail, no defence, no fine.
Sobukwe had informed the police of the demonstration, emphasising that it would be of a
pee demonstrators had
demonstrators had disperse orderly manner if the police ordered them to do so.
Although the PAC was not a large organisation at the time, caught the mood of the Lilasses.
On 17 Watch distributed a leaflet telling people to stay away from work on the Monday.
govColl wais organised with women playing a promical part in the picketing of bus ter-
were on the to stop pedestrians and cyclists.
by lu o clock a large crowd had formed in the open space in the centre of
neighbouring
Vanderbylpark police In the case of Vanderbylpark and Everton (another township). crowds were dispersed atter a baton charge anc lowflying Sabre jets.
Protest
At Sharpville the aircraft failed to intimidate people.
Nyskane Tsolo, one of the leaders of the protest. explained to police neutenant that ther wanted to be arrested for not having asses with them.
The lieutenant explained that this was impossible because of lack of space in the jail.
Tsolo also told the police «We will not call ott the domonstrauon antil Sobukwe has spoken.
Short v 1.30 p.m., without any warn-
several police began shooting.
Others followed. number of demonstrators started to laugh, thinking LuC police WelC firing blanks but the laughter
soon turned into terror as bodies started falling to the Volley after volley of pistol and autonale weapons tore into the fleeing crowd.
The shooting lasted for less than a minute. When it stopped, the ground was literally covered with
This Sharpwas ville, March 21st, 1960.
The immediate repercussions shook South Africa to its very toundations. In the days which followed the shootings, while the people of Sharpville mourned, Vereeniging was held in the grip of a general strike by the workers Irom Lne townships. They did not return to work till atter the mass funeral on Wednesday 30 March.
At the other end of the country, in the Cape, Housands DaCK workers rose in fury in the • lowiismps or causa and Nyanga. What was significant was that for the first time the PAC was able to mobilse migrant workers alongside the urban-based working class.
The shooting of two Blacks in Langa was the signal for three weeks of upheaval and confrontacon In Ine Cape Town area. A *stay at home' strike was called jointly by the PAC and ANC on March 28. Several nun. dred thousand Black workers around the country observed the strike call.
Blacks to continue striking PAC SUCaNCIS urged until passes were abolished,
f35-a-month minimum wage had been won, ana the authorities had pledg-
not victimize SunKers
For a brief moment in historv it anpered
DISSUE C from masses. Prime Minister Verwoerd, the architect of
a - eyewitness report
Bolivian miners receiving donation of bread THE SLOGAN of the miners occupying La Paz during the 16-day weekend was 'No Elections; We Want Bread'. This strike, which was the longest since the Siles government came to power over two years ago, was significant for the advanced demands of the Bolivian trade union strength of their position.
already in La Paz when the COB
Police open fire at Sharpeville
apartheid, was in hospital recovering from an assassination attempt. The government ordered the temporary suspension the pass laws
acting Prime Minister, Paul Sauer, said: The old book South African history was closed...for the immediate
reconsider in earnest
whole approach to the Native question. We must create a new spirit which must restore
faith both white and non-white South Africa... We
mus alter the conception of baaskap (white boss menabsolutely no reference to tality)... there should baaskap...
moved not events in Sharpeville and Langa but by the massive
Bolivian general strike
general strike which ended at the
the COB and apparent
During the next few days truckloads
withdrawal of overseas investments which gave rise
a short-term business slump. And his views were
The hardliners in the government asserted themselves Verwoerd returned to the scene. A state of Emergency was declared and the PAC and ANC were banned.
At that time, Blacks in South Africa were still represented in Parliament by white MPs. 'The Con. gress of Democrats MP, closelv associated with the Communist Party of South Africa, made the shameful plea in Parliament that the government should only ban the PAC and not the ANC He said need, it exists today for the ever Government to realize that it has in the ANC a friend and not an enemy, because lifiable hers, easily iden miners
miners' helmets, were seen driving into the city. Many were
up church-run hostels, and others stayed
families in private homes. A support system was mobilised and by Monday sympathetic households had been contacted and requested provide one square meal a day for two miners for the duration of the strike (as many as four miners were known appear unexpectedly for a meal!).
Whatever the feelings of the people of La Paz about the strike, and there was a certain amount of criticism of the disruption of the relatively well-off privately employed sector, it could not be ignored.
All commercial activity in the centre of the city came to standstill; banks, offices and shops were closed without excep
. de Conmunication outside La Paz was frozen. There was an air of tension and tancy - not least due to use conser exposes ol dynamite, exaggerated by
these organizations that we are asked to ban are so diametrically opposed that the government should SCILC lc opportunity of appealing to the ANC to
assist it do restore peace
and order Africa.' (Quoted in Peteel Drever, Martyrs
fanatics math Africa and
human destiny, p174-175).
But it Sharpville and its
brought curiscuucila
Mom the regimes alo
from regime, it also brought wealth lessons to the oppressed
the Sobukwe 'In Sharpville we overcame the fear of the consequences of disobeying colonia laws...It
ecame respectable 1 the
stripped dill....V white man of that weapon against us
The white man now, in
By Bridget Orr
La Paz's surrounding hills.
Rallies, addressed by helmetted miners, were taking place in every market square. "Blockeos" (barricades) were thrown up across main bus (route (the privately-owned bus companies did join strike although many buses Hol overdie due to petrol shortages).
Miners and demonstrators sat all use the Prado, La Paz's main thoroughfare. Armed police surrounded the Plaza Murillo, containing the seat of the government and the presidential palace, rumours that they would be blown up
By Tuesday the Siles government had offere an increase in the national minimum wage which had been rejected by the COB
which instead demanded Siles resignation. following day the headlines reiterated his
fusal to resign, and al proclaimed had arms, enemle. would be hiding under
Soweto, had to fall back on his ultimate weapon, the gun. . Soweto has been a lesson in overcoming the fear of the gun...now that he relies on the gun and we" too can get the • gun, con frontation is inevitable...
That lesson has been well learned and is inspiring the current WaVe of unrest which brought 7,000 armed military and police to Sharpeville a few months boycott which has kept the school
schools empty for months; the growing resistance t the forcefu removals of people barrer wildernesses of the 'homeland'; the rapid growth of the Black and Independent Trade Union Movement; the rejection of the fake constitution; the growing unity between all sections of the Black working 'Black' 'Coloured' and 'Asian'. their beds.'
Despite the strength of the miners' position. their acceptance of the govern.
settlement which entailed vanced demand their
advancer indicates that both they and the COB
the early elections demanded by the right would only result in the
eturn to power of Genera
Banzer. The policies of the Siles government in the economic have strengthened the right. Not oniv has Banzer more money than any other political party to invest in an election campaign, but people remembe his regime for its high level of spending - forgetting that that is what they are now paying for
What is clear is that the people of Bolivia cannot continue to exist in a situa tion where inflation runs at well over 3000 per cent Prices have been rising dai.
uncle are queues lo bread, for paraffin for cooking, and for petrol. and where strikes paralyse transport every other month. One class must prevail.
Page 9 scan of this page
Surplus Value
MR MODERATOR, Brother Lomax, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here is a friend and I don't want to leave anybody out. The question tonight, as I understand it, is 'The Negro Revolt, and Where Do We Go From Here?' or 'What Next?' In my little humble way of understanding it, it points toward either the ballot or the bullet.
Although I'm still a Muslim, ''discuss not here tonight my religion. I'm not here to
change vUUl religion. I'm not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it's time for us to submerge our ditterences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a
problem problem yUl catch hell wherer you're Baptist, Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether
ilconcalcu literate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you're going catch hell just like I am.
We're all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from une same man. Just happens. be a white
All of us have sufIllal. fered here, in this country, political oppression at the Has one woe a economic exploitation The nang. The white man, and social degradation at the hands of the wille mad.
Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but does ¡icall we're antiexploitation, were all. degradation, antioppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us. Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must tirst learn to torget our differences.
Don't let anybody tell you anything about the odds against you. If they draft you, they send you to Korea and make you face 800 million Chinese. If you can be brave over there, vou can brave Ton here. These odds aren't as great as those odds. And if you fight here, you will at least know" what you're fighting for.
Everything that came out of Europe, every blueeyed thing, is already ar American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.
Well, I am doesn't believe in deluding myself.I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner;
The ballot
or the bullet
unless you eal Some of what's on that plate.
Being here in America doesn't make yul an
TWENTY YEARS ago the great black American revolutionary Malcolm X was assassinated. All
behind the murder. Malcolm X had begun to inspire US blacks to fight for their freedom independently of the racist and imperialist Democratic/Republican party system.
was labelled a racist publishers of the British version of his autobiography. As Malcolm himself pointed out, blaming the victim is always the response of oppressors.
Today Malcolm X's ideas have inspired a new generation of black freedom fighters in the United States. reject desse Jackson's presidential nomination campaign for the racist Democratic Party. Malcolm X's ideas are just as relevant for Britain.
of Malcolm's speeches on the need for black self-organisation breaks from capitalism and imperialism. It was written in the United States where there is not even a Labour Party to confront the capitals parties.
The refusal to recognise black sections at the last Labour Party conference, and the new demand for a 'loyalty oath' that constituencies will not acknowledge the votes of black sections in the re-selection of MPs shows the same resistance in Britain to black self-organisation that Malcolm X condemned in the United States.
American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation, you wouldn't need amendments to the ally Constitution, you wouldfaced with civilrights filibustering Washington, D.C., right LOW.
No, I'm American. I'm one of the 22 million nack people
evidence points to the hand of the US government
Malcolm X advocated black nationalism. For this he
• a slander repeated by the
They particularly showed why it was necessary to
Below, to commemorate his anniversary we print one
- organisation on a programme which
who are the victims of
One of the 22 million black people who are ine victims democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So. I'm not standing here speaking to as all American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-
no, not l. I'm Wave. speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream; 1 see American nightmare.
These 22 million victims are waking up. Their eyes are coming open. They're beginning to see what they used to only look at. They are realising that there are new political trends from coast to coast.
see these UCW political trends, it's possi ble for them to see that every time there's an election the races are so close that they have to have a recount.
They had to recount in Massachusetts to see who was going to be governor, it was so close. It was the same way in Rhode Island, in Minnesota, and in many other parts of the country And the same with Ken neay and nixon waen Ine) ran for president. It was so close that СЛеУ count all over again. Well, what does this mean? It means that when white people are evenly divided, and black people have a Doc or votes on lnerowa
is left up to them to determine who's going to sit in the White House and who's going to be in the dog nouse
It was the black man's vote that put the present administration Washington, D.C. Your vote, your dumb vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote put in an administration in Washington, D.C., that has seen fit to pass every kind of legislation imaginable, saving you until last, then filibustering on top of that.
And your and my leaders have the audacity
to run around clapping their hands and talking about how much progress we're making.
It's got to be the ballot or the bullet The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that. vou should get on out of the country, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley.
They get all the Negro VULC the Negro gets nothing in and after they get it,
return. 'All ther did when they got to Washington was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn't need big jobs, they already had jobs. That's camouflage. I'm trying to knock out the Democrats, the
(Speech by Malcolm X on 3 April 1964 in Cleveland USA)
Republicans, we'll get to them in a minute. But it is true you put the
an e Democrats put you last.
The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die the government that is in a conspiracy to deprive you
your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you di decent education.
You don't need to go to the employer alone, it is the government itselt, the government of America, that is responsible for the oppressior and LOI and degradation black people in this coun try. And you should drop it in their lap. This government has failed the Negro. This so-called democracy has failed the Negro. And all these white liberals have definitely failed the Negro.
from here? First, uve
we need some triends need some new allies. The entire civil-rights struggle needs a new interpretation, broader interpretation. We need to look at this civil-rights thing from another angle _ from the inside as well as from the
To those of us whose philosophy is black na-
tionalism, the only way you can get involved in the civil-rights struggle is to give it a new tion. That old interpretation excluded us. It kept us out. So, we're giving a new interpretation to the civil-
pretation that will enable
come into it, take part in it.
And these handkerchief-heads who have been dillydallying and pussyfooting and compromising - we don'1 intend to let them pussyfoot and dillydally and compromise any longer.
How can you thank a man lot giving you wildl s already yours? How then
can you thank him for giving you only part of what's already yours?
And now you're facing
situation where the young Negro's coming up They don't want to hear that 'turn-the-othercheek' stuff, In Jacksonville, those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails. Negroes have never done that before. But it shows you there's a new deal coming There's new thinking coming in. There's new strately coming Molotov cocktails this month. hand grenades next month, and something eise next mon. th. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets. It'll be liberty. or it will be death. The only difference about this kind of death - it'll be reciprocal.
Three hundred and ten years we worked in this country without a dime in return - I mean without a dime in return. You let the white man walk around here talking about how rich this country is, but you never stop to think how it got rich so quick. It got rich because you made it rich.
You take the people who are in this audience right now. They're poor,
29 March 1985
we're all poor as individuals. Our weekly salary individually alloulils to hardly anything. But if you take the salary of everyone in here collectively it'll fill up a whole lot of baskets. It's a lot of wealth.
If you can collect the wages of just these people right here for a year, you'll be rich - richer than rich When you look at it like that, think how rich Uncle Sam had to become, nor with this handful, but millions of black people Your and my mother and father, who didn't wor
eight-hour shift, but worked from 'can't see' in
until 'can't the morning see' at night, and worked for nothing making the white man rich, making Uncle Sam rich.
This is our investment This is our contribution our blood. Not only did we give of our free labor, . WE gave of our blood. Every time he had a call to arms. we were the first ones in uniform. We died on every battlefield the white man had.
We have made greater sacrifice than anybody who's standing up in America today. We have made a greater con tribution and have col lected less. Civil rights, fo: those of whose philosophy is black na. tionalism, means: 'Give i to us now. Don't wait fo: next year. Give it to u yesterday, and that's no fast enough.
Hypocrite
Uncle Sam's hands are dripping with blood, drip. ping with the blood of the black man in this country He's the earth's number one hypocrite. He has the audacity - yes, ne nas imagine him posing as the leader of the free world The free world! - and you Ovel singing 'We Shall Overcome.'
Expand the civil-rights struggle to the level O1 human rights, take it to the United Nations, where our African brothers Cai throw their weight on our side where our Asian brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Latin-American brothers can throw thei: weight on our side, and where 800 million Chinamen are sitting there waiting to throw their weight on our side.
So you're dealing with a man whose bias and prejudice are making him lose his mind, his intelligence. every day. He's frightened. He looks around and sees what's taking place on this earth, and he sees that the pendulum of time is swinging in your direction The dark people are waking up. They're losing
of the white man. No place where he's fighting right now is he willie
Everywhere he's fighting he's fighting
your and complexion. And they're beating him. He can't win any more. He's won his last battle. He failed to win the Korean War. He couldn't win it. He had to sign a race.
Any time Uncle Sam, with all his machinery for war fare, is held to a draw by some rice-eaters, he's lost the battle.
Page 10 scan of this page
ockly, and New Salesman
Gang Socialist:
ort among sections of the Labour Party leadership.
The composite resolution passed at the Scottish onference has been applauded as an attempt to end
'grip of sectarianism' on the LPYS.
But this move has not
done by
pathetic budget of the PYS (currently 1 per cent ¡ iotal Labour Party exenditure), nor
supporting the
in the LPYS. It has *roscary been acnieved changing the relation-
betwee
the Labour and trade on leadership The resolution has
heraided F Labour prescription Labour's youth' But
reality not scription for a healthy, 1• C Iliass moveent but one to remove y potential of building a cialist youth movement ch could be any serious litical or organisational allenge to dership.
The resolution reflects concerns of the Kin-
leadership ot the bour Party rather than
working ass youth.
The first part of the solution was pitched to amed 'the grip of secrian politics on the YS
the lack of campaign-
party as sole...for the lack buth by Labour's youth prement.'
The experience of the
year does prove that
political CULICCUIS ch the LPYS and AX MONTHS ago, Central Manchester and Gor-
n Labour Party Young Socialists launched Youth action, a bulletin for activists within the North West egion YS. There is also sponsorship for the bulletin rom several other YSs.
The bulletin's aims. are
reach out throughout
North West region to
the independents in the
who want a radical bange in the direction of
LPYS. Its launch dur-
the miners strike was med at linking up with
lilally people ho had been galvanised
political struggle by de miners' dispute.
Throughout the counforth West, the leadere lorth the leadersip of the LPYS has faild to learn the lessons of de strike or even organise
single national amonstration of youth in apport of the miners.
LIUW sectarian politics
ve held the LPYS back om participating as far possible in the struggles
the last year, and bring& together broad layers youth in support of all struggles of the worke class.
Sassinlist Actina 29 Moreo 1985
Tribune, Labou the resol assed at Scottish Labour P erence on 10 March, it would seem that the of a mass campaigning youth movement in Brihas suddenly found new and unexpected sup-
Labour Party leadership though verv different are blocks to building mass campagnig youtn
By Anne Kane
The last year has been one of historic class strug. gle. Young
alu men have led this struggle
the mining communities. There has been a mushrooming of lesbians and says miners groups, the women against pit closure groups, the black solidarity
The political ideas of housands of young people have been forged in this battle. All this has added to the already existing struggles of youth Youth CND, the women's movement, the Irish solidarity movement, and
all the struggles of the op-
pressed. has helped forge a class struggle current among youth. This alliance strengthens the
of the whole working class by taking up the specific concerns of al the oppressed and Cxploited.
The approach of the leadership the LPYS during this historic struggle has been to ignore ine political lessons of
The lessons of the strike stand in stark contradiction to the YS
views, particularly on women, gays and lesbians, black
people, and generally in
building support for these struggles.
By Gary Croft
The dayschool organised by Youth Action will be a further step in the fight
build a YS on these lessons. Its first session will be on the key result of the strike: the creation of a new class struggle alliance which unites the oppressed and exploited.
The speakers will be from Bold NUM. miners' wives, Liverpool black caucus, and Les-
solidarity, and the self-organisation of the oppressed The Militant leadership failed to organise even one national LP IS demonstration support of the miners. Its sectarianism led it to miss the win many thousands of young people to the LPYS. How the leadership the Labour Party proposes to attract these youth to the LPYS, given its complete scabbing role during the
Learning from the
miners strike
bians lanes. The second the Miners. second session takes up the question of leadership and the implications of the strike for the LPYS, contrasting
YOUTH ACTION
DAYSCHOOL
struggle continues the SATURDAY MA WELFARE CLUB HOLD MEANE FLEET LANE.
PARRIS
THE LABOUR MOVE
HOOL WILL LINK TOSSES YOUTH.
MOBILISE
DEVELOPMENHE PAST YEARS STUGGLE:
N THE LPYS AND RIGH
Sentral L Bold YUM and Manchester
Has the Labour Party leadership become the friend of youth?
miners' strike, is a complete mystery however The second part of the Scottish resolution posed a 'solution' to the problem. Apart from the party whole campaigning recruitment to the LPYS the resolution includes discussing direct trade umon delegation to national and regional LPYS conferences, and involving the Scottish counch ot the Labour much more directly in the
the heroic struggle of
Scargill and the NUM to
the leadership the
Young Socialists.
On the theme of 'A
leadership that stands and SHOCK WAVES WENT AND IN THE PROCESS IT HAS
THE THE
affairs of the Scottish LPYS.
Greater political involvement of young trade unionists in the LPYS is entirely to be welcomed. This is not proposed by the resolution however. Direct involvement by trade unions at a national and regional level today means concretely increasing the hold of the bureaucracy in the LPYS
volvement of young fights', there will be
she LPS regional com-
LPYS regional committee and Manchester city
The final session discusses how best Youth Action can fight to organise the LPYS around the political lessons of the strike. Here we hope to have discussions with Coola from other LPYS bulletins around the country.
The project of building this current is a number one onionly Ior une Is l we are to respond to the magnificent by the miners and their leadership.
On top of this we must link our project into the Labour left in the region, especially in Manchester. Bringing the developments and advances the Labour left to bear on the YS will be decisive for the survival and development of this project.
Lessons of the miners' strike are centra
La leadershir ci callis which is truly as good as that we saw during the miners' strike.
workers. Without democratising the trade unions, building real youth sections in the trade unions, and making the leaderships accountable 'direct trade union delegations national and regional LPYS conferences simply means the YS being brought more firmly grip the leadership of the trade
The trade union youth
sections which presently
No fake unity
As the tury rate-capping noose is slowly tightened around local government jobs and services, the continuing public row between leaders of the GLC is increasingly a sideshow
The damage that has been done, however, will continue to have its effect.
has strenethened the hand of the centre and right on labour controlled councils, and made the job of those who are prepared to fight much more difficult.
Livingstone's failure lead the battle against the rate-capping legislation
betrayal of his responsibilities. But Un f problems go deeper than the debacle of the GLC The plans made last July at the loca government con terence were intended to ensure that all the ratecapped councils would go illegal at the same time.
The decisions made on 7 March in fact avoided doing this. By stating that it was impossible to make a rate, instead of refusing to make a rate, they ducked the key issue facing the boroughs. Many of those who attacking Livingstone were keen supporters of this sion.
The decision • to
make this course was taken when it became clear that many
pade union - that is
bureaucrats - political ange. it would can as a block Control you their people of control of own organisation
The need for such
ORECA chang in the
_PYS. an the potential for a mass youth move ment, have been proved beyond any doubt over the secure real political cha ge last year. The is to support the organisational independence of the LYS — not to undermine it. Young people, trade union bureaucrats, IBUS control their own
Without organisation that it will never be built as alass force
Activists in the Scottish LPYS who want to build a mass campaigning youth movement have organised around the Scottish LPYS Bulletin. Some of the most
about the resolution adopted which unreated. organisational independence of the LPYS, were giving very little support to this Bulletin and its aims
Lo sue a mass campaigning ILPYS and fight any witch hunting moves.
The stagnation of Labour's youth movement is a political problem. The Labour Partv leadershin 1s part of the problem posed in building a • illass youth movement Building youth movement does not just mean more campaigning. means paigning for socialist policies, supporting workers when they are on strike, and making leader.
accountable.
Scottish Labour Party resoluton gues in exactly the wrong direction.
Labour groups were not in fact prepared to go all the way. It is an attempt to unite those
: to fight with those who do. As the GLC has shown, this kind of unity does not stand up when the test comes.
by Pat Hickey
It is a problem that has •dogged the local government fightback at national and at local level. Its effects will become clear nationally as some boroughs fall by the wayside, and within the boroughs as the right and centre vote with the Tories, Liberals,
WelC.. rather than go illegal. In the local unions a similar problem is cucteue a SeCuOuS ortne left propose a work-in tac-
instead of strikes deal with cuts in jobs and services.
The left must break with this method. It makes those who want to fight, the prisoners of those who don't: not only of the right, but the fake lefts who are happy to allow the right to get them off the hook. The left must wage a sharp fight against this fake unity, issues directly to the unions, the Party and the condully.
Page 11 scan of this page
News
A CLEAR DIVISION unions' strategy of fighting rate-capping at the London Bridge shop stewards day on 19 March. Over 500 stewards heard speakers from Bentley Womens' Action Group, Liverpool joint shop stewards committee, and from Camden NUPE boiler section who have been on strike for five weeks.
One strategy is that of working as normal if the money runs out.
Hackney council workers have been told that they may not be paid next month, because of a court injuction prevents the council borrowing against rale come, until a legal rate is seus court dol has followed against Ist-
The work-in tactic was put forward forcefully the London Bridge meeting, and not surprisingly, had the support of Margaret Hodge, Leader of Islington council, representing the Association of Labour Authorities (ALA).
Veness from Hackney NUPE officers' branch Conte COLsidering strike action to saying: 'If you decide to hang me I'll shoot myself.' A representative from the Greenwich joint shop stewards committee stated that they would be seeking to delete all reference 'all-out' strike action from London Bridge policy.
Ivan Beavis, NALGO NEC member, tried to give the work-in tactic a left flavour. The tactic is part of an overall strategy in which unions are proposing to carrv on working in order to win public sympathy and maintain it until the Tories back down.
It is described as form of 'workers power' and a method of preventing the appointment of receivers and subsequent privatisation.
It is ironic that workers are being told in the face of attacks on jobs to work rather than strike. In elfect this is a serious erosion of the right to strike.
The other strategy put forward at London Bridge is one supported by the Joint trade cam-
in Gamden. This provides the only basis for defeating the rate-capping legislation and the gradua erosion of the right strike with the loss of jobs and services. This is not to counterpose work-ins and occupations strike, but to say that national action and solidarity is the only way to win.
In the context of all-out strike action, ocupations and some emergenci cover will be necessary but the workforce be mobilised first. . We should look back on the civil service and the health service
Ratecapping
National
action
needed
emerged over the trade disputes, and recognise that months of localsed actions demobilise the unions and ultimately lead to demoralisation and defeat.
As Dave Burn, Islington NALGO branch secretary pointed out, work-ins simply cannot be sustained without money It costs £3 million per week to run Islington services. By Bob Golinski, Camden Nalgo
The moves towards the work-in strategy are NO! yet a disaster, but whether the Castoner bIrS Hackney or elsewhere, the
HIUS rapidly escalated. The solidarity action peeded cannot be developed unless national action is seriously built by
Hackney
Fight stillon
or the council?
That will be decided within the Labour Group and the council meeeting this week. unions meanwhile pressing with the crucial job of organising to make that fight a reality.
A clear opening to scab on the defence of jobs and services is available to sou colacos. document from the direcLOIS makes clear. It purports to outline various ways of saving money, and implies that Hackney council could set a rate and get by without major cuts.
shop stewards committee in
Hackey, home document
that document represents a thinly disguised attack on jobs and serVICs.
The unions are sull demanding that the council refuse to comply with the High Court instruction to set a legal rate. It must oreak une law as tne Only way. to defend jobs and services.
Questions remain: who leaked the document? Were chief officers Labour Councillors involved?
local authority unions on a joint Union basis.
There must be total rerecuos compromise budgets and maximum rate increases, or we will have lost - and the Tories will be back for more next year and the year after.
Implications
The debate has impor-
IOI the national local authorities shop stewards conference in Liverpool on 30 March. This will be a major focus for the union response to rate-capping.
A national body will be set up to coordinate this response. We need to be clear on the strategy that can win.
We must defeat the notion that public sympathy Call change the lories minds, and build for the type of action that can genuinely mobilise the workforce.
THE FIGHT is still on in Hackney! That was the message from the council unions last week. The question is: who will they be fighting — The Tories
The media saw the document betore the main council leaders, and the
Not its release was not accidental. It came as the council, prevented by the court from borrowing, warned that money War running out quicker than expected.
As the prospect of no pay loomed, the unions welic preparing their members for the first round of the battle with the government. The leaks caused a lot of confusion. By Tony Hunt Hackney NALGO (personal capacity)
Last week's events illustrate serious inadequacies in the council's approach. It talks of confrontation struggle - restricting its campaign to the courts, the council chamber,: niltooares and SOSS leaflets. It failed to lear from the class struggle methods used by Arthur
Scargill and the NUM.
Alongside the unions it could have organised and
regular and frequent visits
workplace both
MANCHESTER City
Labour Party voted to
accept a budget last
Thursday 25 March,
which will mean
£300-£350m. spen-
ding.
By Duncan Edwards
This is f100 million
over government target.
In the council
chamber there are
in memory
David and Mary Anne Woolf. Hilda Kean, Leader Hackney Council
inside and outside the council, and to organised
Not the working class in Hackney. In this way the campaign would
based on working
and Coulici workforce that understood the issues, and was willing to act to defend jobs and services.
U
WHAT'S BEHIND
BIG
BROTHER?
SOCIAL SERVICE OUTS Showdown in Manchester
meetings every day as Liberals, Tories and Labour right felt that an illegal .will passed. The have called a council meeting for Friday 29 March to discuss this, so showdown is imminent.
The city party ex-
standby at each council meelllig : to be consulted that they can determine party policy for councillors.
of JOCK VEALL, a beloved friend
and comrade. Died 16 March 1985.
It is not too late for the Labour group to employ these methods, although Wednesday's meeting mas see the end of a fightback leaving firmly in the union's court. The spotlight is on certain Labour councillors whose side are they on?
WHATS BEMIND
BG
BROTHER?
VON STON
NUR's political
levy campaign
dependent voice.
Instead of meeting the challenge head on, the
Partv leaderships are trying to Will the chean by obscuring the fundamental issue of the Labour Party and stressing other issues. APEX for example didn't mention the party at all in its recent campaign, and this aspect is weak in the rail unions's official approach.
So with the probability of jobs and pay looming, we
, nave lo cerenos cic right of the unions to politica voice not two seperate tasks.
By Toni Gorton, NUR guard
As the miners' strike has shown, the fight for , jobs and living standards is a political fight in its most dramatic form and one
Concretely the NUR (ASLEF seems to be dragging its feet) has set up • a special campaign unit a group of experts who are a full-time resource for the activists in the union and sent some 600 members special dar schools to learn techniques
as The campaigy s sep
'steady method of talking fellow workers about the importance of a 'yes' vote. •It will be organised as an election campaign.
We will make up canvassing cards to record the name of every member on our patch with an indica tion of how they'll vote and make sure to get the 'yes' voters there on the day. Photo: The stage to argue that the unions should boycott .LIC : ballot has passed NUR agrees that govern-
monev will nol be taken to finance the ballot, but at least part of it wil have to be postal as there are some 10,000 pay points TOI the 140,000 rall workers.
survey has shown. 'that suppor for political fund lessens the rurtner soull one moves. It points to the crying need
29 March 1985 11
HANDS
OFF
THEMET
BY LAW all unions have to ballot their members by the March 1986 on the right to keep their political funds. It's clear that the Tories aim to slash the links between the unions and the Labour Party, thereby 'stifling the efforts of the working class for an in-
for a national campaign across the unions and Labour Party to make the
propaganda fighting against the media
increase as the ballots cone Cuscr
Unfortunately the leadership of the NUR have no plans for the tours
public workoces meetings, and rallies that . e Caco
The national campaign sO has produced leaflet and two bulletins laving out the arguments For example, one gives an idea of the money that big business into the Conservative Party, and what is SDP policy transport as well LADOUIS
By concentrating on the activists, the union is explicity recognising the weakness of its stracture: as a vehicle for the campaign.
Attendance most branches low, SOLIC branches don't exist. In
branch ofdicas ficers have led an 'opting out' campaign
Headquarters advises setting up special I action committees waee necessary, and has given
VITOR resources for individual members
This is quite a contrast to Sid Weighell's stifling of the independent activity of ASLEF members.
The big danger is that. if the campaign tais. , the leadership can again blame
on the 'backwardness of the rank ana mle. W f cannot let this happen. vital task for all activists is to call for Knapp and
We must also explore jointly working with local GMCs.
Correction
The article on rail by
Doreen Weppler in last
week's Socialist Action
only CUlt
siderably altered from
the original, but included
the statement that the
Rou Roaro
increase of 21,000 jobs
It should of course have
La decrease.
Page 12 scan of this page
Stop the Powell Bill
AT NOW LOOKS as if Enoch Powell's Unborn Children (Protection) Bill won't get through parliament lere'll be the government's own Bill on the Warnock Report coming soon.
During the preparation of Powell's Bill the situation has been daily chang-
got through comslaze thar
pected, but Powell
asn't succeeded yet in fin-
one of the Friday allocated to third
adings of private mem-
bills. ad me as special alter
red as a newspaper with the Post Office. ed by Cardinal Enterprises, PO Box 50, London N1.
SociAlist
ACTiON
but only this time round! If it doesn't,
Nevertheless, we must his on the Tory backbenches will be putting pressure on the government to find extra time.
Although the Bill will go to its third reading with these do not substantially of the
SUBSCRIBE
Be cheque/PO payable to Socialis Action for Gio Soerdes etion Subs. 328 Oper St. London N/ 2XP
Bill. And MPs who don't support the Bill will be putting down amendments too.
By Leonora Lloyd, NAC The Bill aims to prevent experimentation on embryos and, although it does not stop in vitro fertilisation (popularly known as test tube babies), its provisions will seriously damage the possibilities of that procedure being sucSo Special free book offer! Take ou a years inland subscription and me will send you free one of these books:
Thatcher and Friends by John Ross or Over our Dead Bodies Women Against the Bomb Introductory offer for new readers: Eight issues tor just f2!
THE NATIONAL , Union of Teachers' executive meeting on Friday 22 March decided to draft a motion for the annual conference of the union at Easter, calling for the action on the teachers' pay claim to be stepped up. Resolutions demanding that the executive escalate the action and begin a national levy have come from all over England and Wales.
The three-day selective strikes, for minimum £1200 rise for all teachers, are now in their fifth week. schools banoled part have regularly returned votes of over 80 per cent
and frequently li lavour. 100 рет cent. Although this can plained by teachers on strike have received full pay, it does reflect a widespread determination to fight.
The national ballot which was held on the far IVF has enabled some 250 babies to be born in this country, and 1000 worldwide.
Under the Bill, all fertilised eggs will have to be
in a 'named'
HO CRECU woman. . This means either the chance of multiple births is increased (because several eggs are implanted) will alternatively,
implant only one egg and the chances of its suc. cessfut development are reduced
In the latter case there is only a 1:30 chance of success and many doctors LIHK the and trauma isn't merited for suca alow succeos tale
And there is another problem: only implantation is allowed. There can be no testing for disease or abnormality.
Although the rates of handicap for this method are no greater than in ordinary conception, it is an
drawback for OovIOus those using this method
due to infertility.
The main idea behind the Bill was prevent research using human embryos. The promoters •are encouraging
are cutting up tiny babies limb from limb.
In fact the important research that is going on is mostly using conceptuses donated by women having sterilisation. Such ex-
Teachers
to step
up action
question of no cover and
refusal to .cover out-of-
hours work was 78 per cent
in favour of continuing the
action.
By Bernard Regan,
NUT executive
(personal capacity)
Teachers in Lambeth
and Westminster used the
three-day action to cam-
for the backing of
parents, as well as
proaching other public
SCCLO to build a
common fight.
Teachers see this cam-
paign as involving more
than pay it soreation and the priority government
attached
Newcastle speech, That-
OK WHO'S
.HOOSING
FOR US!
periments too are overseen
by ethical committees.
It is not surprising that
racists such Enoch
Powell and the Tory
people are
promoting the Bill. They,
believe we are our genes,
we are our biology.
The Bill is bad enough
on the surface that it must
opposed, but sup
porters of the Bill have
already made clear that, if
it goes through, , they will
• turn next to the question
of abortion.
cher singled out striking teachers for attack, blaming them tor providing a 'bad example'
This is part of a growing move by ine meala lo isolate teachers who have already had the courts us-
against their action. There. will be increasing demands for teachers to be 'asessed', to weed out ineficient teachers.
Keith Joseph education secretary wants to see this introduced in order to give power to individual neads and local authority employers to deny teachers the annual pay increment but - more fundamentally to produce a pliant • WOlKTOrCi challenge Thatcher's plans for the education of working class youth based on YTS-type schemes.
The left in the NUT held successful conference on March, attended by 90 activists Conference pledged itself
campaign for action and this included pro-
WE WONT
LET ANYONE
CHOOSE FOR
US
From its start 10 years ago, NAC has always turned to the labour movement
support alte action That goes for the Powell Bill too. The whole labour movement must be mobilised to stop the new attack: by petitions. lobbying and demonstrations by meetings, and articles and letters to the press
NAC is
Saturday
Powell Bill, and is suppor ting a lobby of parliament
posals to link up with other teaching unions -that is the NAS/UWT and NATHE and other public sector unions, who are fighting for pay increases De strong hinks werse miners' strike strong built especially between London teachers and the mining communities. During the Westminster strike action, members of Notts women's support toured number schools to speak in support of the teachers.
Although teachers recognise that they have a hard fight, it is that kind of support which will
their deter mination. The next crucial step is to build a fighting alliance with all other public sector unions with outstanding claims.
• Socialist Teachers Alliance pre-conference meeting in Scarborough: The Palm Court , 7.30pm Friday April discuss the pay campaign.
QURBODIES
OURCHØIESIT
between 2-10pm on Wed nesday 24 April Make sure your local trade union and Labour Party branches are involved.
• The lobby is organised 3200 for furtor ALRA. Phone 01-359
details.
O CONe on Powell's Bill, , and any other help or information, contact NAC Wesley House, 70 Great Queer Street, London WC2B SAX, or phone 01-405 4801.
← Socialist Action No. 94, 22 March 1985Socialist Action No. 96, 5 April 1985 →