Socialist Challenge No. 234, 25 February 1982
The scan: sc-no234.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Challenge
NO TRUCE!
No truce
No truce
with the
It has yet to be buried by the left.
been more needed to mobilise its whole strength to: • TURN the tide against mass unemployment • KILL Tebbit's Bill • HALT Heseltine's attacks government • END YOPs slave labour • STOP Cruise •BREAK the back of the Tories at every point of their attack.
To forge leaders. was a manoeuvre to muzzle such determined advocates of these policies and halt the emergence of new leaders. The 'truce' was to give complete freedom to the witchhunters. The 'truce' was to give full rein to the Denis Healeys and Roy Hattersleys, to the John Boyds and Sid Weighells to divide the movement.
Why no outcry when some supporter of Healey or Hattersley is selected as a Labour candidate? Hasn't the main role of such people been to divide the fightback?
Michael Foot is not interested in unity against the Tories. tion for objecting to the reselection of
Socialist
with
Foot
Tories
Unity of the labour movement has never
on local
La unity needs new Yet Michael Foot's 'truce' always The only recommenda-
he is so totally insignificant that his right wing policies have not come in for much attention!
South East. he was departing for the SDP last year by the personal pleadings of Michael Foot. After his failure to leading the pack against tendency and other left wingers.
porters Pat Wall and parliamentary candidates cannot be allowed to pass — as have the continuing witch-hunting activities of the right wing who have never observed the truce.
with real power - the unions. It is the bloc vote which props up the right and gives succour to the witch-hunters. A determined effort to take the Labour Party battles into the unions would send a shiver down the backs of the right-wing and would intensity the fight against the Tories. Such a battle would mean organising from top to bottom in the Labour Party and the unions
a strong alliance with the Laurence Scott campaign around the which can overturn the right wing ex-
As for Stan Cohen, member for Leeds
only stopped from
Again re-selection he is now the Militant
An NEC refusal to endorse Militant sup-
Terry Fields as
The battle must extend to the forces Such a battle would mean the forging of
AUEW's Rule
ecutive. It would mean linking up with the fight for a special conference of the NUR by the rebellious guards. It would mean linking up with the Transport Union and in the Post Office Engineering Union.
The whole fabric of British would be electrified if Benn and other left wing leaders boldly came out in support of militant struggle. What a difference there would be if Benn familiar threat to close down this or that plant with a pledge that Labour would reverse everything!
campaign to remove engineering leaders Terry Duffy and John Boyd if he pledged nationalisation of Laurence Scott. Such an approach would give real flesh and blood to the declaration parliamentary Labour candidates.
bring it into line with the discredited SDP policies of the last Labour government is a recipe for disaster. around Labour conference other sweeping demands is the way to win - perhaps the only way.
INSIDE THIS WEEK
The battle at Laurence
Scotts
Railworkers continue
fight
Reds - reviewed
Irish elections
Broad Left in the
politics
answered the now
What a boost there would be to the
in favour of extraaction by 32 prospective
Watering down Labour's manifesto to
Boldly mobilising policies and
Peter Huntingford
Abortion
rights —
round
one to women... PROFESSOR Peter Huntingford is not to be pro-
sortions u gieing e he oa.
abortions under
Acainst the Per sons Act. Not only is this a vindication tingford's brave stand
the repressive forces of the law but it's a big victory for millions of woren and for the right to choose.
But there is no room for We should not be fooled by
of the At-
the Director of Prosecutions was satisfied that medical reasons had been given for the abortions, and imply ine mar numungrora nad privately backed down.
It is obvious that the public outcry and the media storm concerning this issue forced the DPP to back off from what would have been the most
to chose since the 196)
to choose since the act was passed. This may not mean that 'abortion on demand is legal up to 14 weeks, Huntingford claims. But it is certainly one step on the road to greater freedom of choice
interpretation of the Act wins JUT
It shows that the anti-abortion forces within the COVETEERGH and their mandarins in the civil service do not feel strong enough for a head on confrontation with the massive pro-choice lobby which has been built up over the years within the labour and women's movements.
While the buff form which excludes medical reasons remains, then this threat remains but there is no doubt whatsoever that women have won the first round We can go ahead with strength and confidence until the day we do get abortion on demand - a woman's right to choose
Page 2 scan of this page
-Editoria.
Murdoch's job
massacre
IT'S JOB-MASSACRE
hundred redundancies.
have been over 800 redundancies. In order to
grasp whats gome on at
necessary to understand why
profitable, and
takeover of an old British ruling class institu-
tion like The Times represents.
Few
profitable. This
economic crisis but the general decline in
newspaper readership
become a much
The
mouthpiece of the British ruling class. has
lately found difficulty establishing its own
distinct space in the newspaper spectrum.
Thus, while the Guardian's circulation has in
creased by 50 per cent in ten years, that of The
Times has stagnated
trade unionism has established a high level of
staffing and wages
doch is itself a reflection of another process
at work - the increasing inroads into British
newspaper ownership by multinational cor-
porations.
knock down price of E15m.
that the real estate of the firm alone is worth
€50m. From a purely financial point of view
Murdoch would gain massively from simply
closing down the firm and walking away with
the real estate cash.
an inherently unprofitable
trade unions in the industry should defend
their members hard-won rights
conditions, jobs and pay
them to be made the victims of Fleet Street's
profitability crisis.
But socialists
capitalist papers like The Times and Sunday
Times closing down, however much they are
political weapons for the ruling class.
duction in the
democratic socialist policy that the
should be restricted. What is needed is the na-
tionalisation of the means of communication,
including all broadcasting and newspapers,
and their opening up to political parties, trade
unions and other groups so that the media
can be expanded not restricted.
they stand for a 'free press'. But the popular
press is becoming even less free, as more and
more of it gets into the hands of the multi-
nationals.
ferent groups able to publish their opinions
means a subsidised press. Running news-
papers as first and foremost businesses will
have the same effect in London as in New
York
left.
the NUJ should reject the idea that their
members should have to pay to keep Mr Mur
doch profitable. JOIN THE FIGHT FOR
SOCIALISM If you would like to be Socialist Challenge supporters in your area or would like more information fill in the form below Name
Address..
Age
Union/CLP (if any)...
Send London N1 2XP.
Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982
PO Box 50, London N1 2XP Phone 01-359-8189/8180 (editorial and distribution)
time at The Times. As we go to press. Rupert Murdoch has insisted on 600 redundancies at The Times and the Sunday Times as the price of keeping them open. It seems likely that the print unions, and in particular NATSOPA, will agree to several
Since the globe-trotting Mr Murdoch took over at Times Newspapers Ltd (TNL) there
The Times, it's The Times is Mr Murdoch's
of the Fleet Street newspapers are reflects THOU only
as television has more important news
Times, formerly the acknowledged
declined. Strong
The takeover of The Times by Rupert Mur-
Rupert Murdoch got hold of TNL at the
It seems likely
Producing low cost newspapers is today
business. The
working and not allow
should be opposed to
They represent part of the means of pro-
media, and it is no part of media
It is always the boast of the capitalists that
A cheap popular press, with many dit-
where there is only one daily paper In the meantime both the print unions and
put in touch with Socialist Challenge, PO Box 50,
page 2
for action
against
Tebbit
against Norman
ecutives at Wembley. the TUC's
to build this action.
The Emoloment and Organisation Committee of the TUC has approved an eight-point plan, ting up a Ll.1 million fund to defend unions attacked using the law and Is 10 call on constituent unions
co-ordinate including, necessary. industrial action' the Bill. But it decided by agar votes to five against withdrawing from CO-
with the COVCTTHTERT and Is dustrial action proposals
'buts'
Motion
Can the TUC paign be made effective?
The sort of action
was outlined at Sunday's Annual Genera Meeting COT the Lancashire County ASSOCCERE of Trades Councils, which passed a motion demanding:
LABOUR Greater London Council doubled its rates this week. Two weeks ago it agreed to put E1 on the rents in a budget that also went along with the Law Lords decision to increase fares and cut services and jobs on London Transport.
Where does GLC's manifesto? In tatters. Heseltine's Bill and the vicious and swift attacks from the Tories via the courts, have un doubtedly left Labour councils reeling. Stunned by this onslaught they have had no strategy for dealing with it. Instead they have pleaded that 'it's all the Tories lault and what we need is a Labour government.
But one of the surest ways of getting rid of the Tories and having a Labour government is for councils like the to take a lead in mobilising support for its policies. The Fares Fair policy was one of the most popular measures a Labour GLC has taken for many a year. And the working class nas no illusions as whose side the courts are on. Yet instead of mobilising a mass movement in Lon don to defy the Law Lords ruling. Labour announces a publicity campaign and votes for cuts.
Lahour left cannot substitute itself for the needs and aspirations of the working class but it can and should give a lead. Instead jobs and services have been cut, direct labour has been run down, rents and rates have risen, council housing sold and so the list goes on.
Lobby TUC
A MASS lobby on 5 April is to demand action
Tebbit's anti-union 'Employment' Bill. The Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions has called the lobby outside a meeting of 112 trade union ex-
who will be discussing eight-point plan against the Bill.
Socialist Challenge calls on all its supporters
*National and regional demonstrations *Organisation of industrial action against the Bill.
An end to TUC participation in discussions with the government. *A massive publicity campaign to expose Tory hypocrisy.
Commit We are asking every trade union body in Lan cashire to commit itself to weignt and resources behind union or shop stewards committee facing 1 the use Tebbit's Prior's Bill, said secretary John Parkinson. *When Heath's legislaton was introduced and in fact when Labour tried to bring in anti-union legislation in 1969, there were one-day strikes and mass demonstrations. This is the kind of action we need now to stop the Bill going
DEFEATING HESELTINE
leaders have been
those workers who
workers and BL strikers? that leave the Labour now by literally
centre of working
despite the response to the Fare
have GLC where the money really goes banks and finance houses.
to
councis pledged to. make no redundancies support all workers Heseltine
defeat the cuts.
News
through.
The meeting agreed that resistance to Tebbi STEELE 00SIS by side with defence o all existing struggles.
Next weekend is to sec Leyland demonstration against Tebbit and in defence of British Leyland workers' ODS It backed by BL strikers, by the Lancashire Association, the local
More importantly these left Labour
unable place themselves shoulder to shoulder with
are taking action against the Tories policies, What have local and county Labour councils done for the train drivers, for Laurence Scott
The Labour left has nothing to lose
opening the doors of County Hall and the town halls to use a
and resistance against the Tories. In London,
teebleness of the left's Heseltine and the Fight and GLC campaigns have operated as a focus for hundreds if not thousands of workers, in cluding many transport workers.
At the same time Labour councils
to show the labour movement - to the The level of attacks on the working class especially through Heseltine's and Tebbit's Bills demands a national political response.
But such a national response can o be within the framework of Labo
action against *throw open the books to the labour movement to aid it planning a strategy to
Given such a lead workers will feel confident to take on the Tories and fight for a Labour government committed to
James Prior - whose 1980 laws paved the way for Tebbit's Bill
Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions and the County Labour Party We are fighting for an understanding of the wa law as stands is being used to prevent Bathgate workers from using whatever tac tics they see fit to carry the dispute to a successful Conson sala Jont Parkinson.
Michael "Tarzan' Heseltine, Environment Minister
The response to this kind of call shows that it is both realistic and possible
begin now preparing for one-day against the Bill, as part of a campaign of mass actior designed to smash it. But this can work only if, as ir Lancashire. it is used as part of the mobilisation around all existing strug gles and not as substitute.
Page 3 scan of this page
Two thousand vote for Bernadette
By Geoff Bell CHARLIE HAUGHEY, of the outgoing opposition Fianna Fail Party seems set to form the next government in the south of Ireland. But how long he will be Fianna Fail's leader, and how long Fianna Fail will stay in office, are open questions.
The election results gave no clear majority to any party. The final results gave Fianna Fail 81 seats, the coalition partners Fine Gael and Labour and respectively and independents seven seats. There was a 1.97 per cent swing to Fianna Fail, mainly at the expense of the right wing Labour Party, and in constituencies where anti-H Block candidates had polled well in the last election.
Ot these constituencies, only Bernadette McAliskey increased the
Block candidates. sored by Peoples Demo cracy, Irish section of the Fourth international, she got 2,085 votes in the DUNNOTE Sensor stituency. over 500 more
Block candidate. In other
visional Sinn Fein stood in place of anti-H Block candidates the vote fell by 50 per cent.
Line main suronse In Haughey the election was the sucteSS social the fight here we will con democratic Sinn Fein tinue the fight. and we'll the workers Party. WID consolidating and won three seats compared building further on that
one eight months ago. position the SFWP. Formal the around." ficial wing the Irish Republican em last let, Success
over years. to the right on the national moved consistenty Certainly. Bernadette's
campaign was a remarkEXTENT able success Literally
the nundreds o peopie were involved, from a variety of ireland this resulted in its eclipse as a political force
there was a steady stream of apparent success eatlets of SFWP manifestos which were
HE SOUTH delivered to every house in
candidates the constituency.
One handicap of the WITO the anti-imperialist movement will be a disap- campaign was a leanet
bv the antiDelinent the move ment and its supporters.
HOwever not all they seem at first Clash
For instance, although SFWP tripled its number of seats in the Dail (parliament), nationally it only increased its vote by 0.58 per cent. And, in con stituencies where there was a direct clash between SFWP and anti imperialist
anti imperialist vote was mar ginally better in Cavan Monaghan the Provisional Sinn Fein candidate received 3,974 first preference pared to 529 for SFWP. votes GOTH
while in the two other con stituencies SFWP had nar row victories over didates of Republican Socialist Par-
Nevertheless. will be disappointed with the votes of Provisional Sinn Fein the IRSP. Ber nadette McAliskey and the other PD candidate Joe Harrington, who received 215 votes in Limerick East
ed no signs of demoralisation We went to every door in this constituency and
WE SOME GE cleady and honestly to the people she said We held the vote and we mov ed it torward, and i think we can particularly well in
And having started
abortion
support
choose. woman's
Bernadette campaigning
group SPUC which urged voters not to
Bernadette because of her support for
right TO This intervention may have lost Bernadette several hundred votes.
Ireland
A further factor which
restricted support was
that many voters may have
been worried that Ber-
haceues campaign was e
short-term stunt. In that
SOCCE HER CICEE OTO HISE
to continue the fight in the
Dublin North Central Considency will unopdoteory increase support for her
More generally. the Irish election
TESSELS shows that many voters
apathetic towards
Ireland
TONY BENN, who 18
ago helped open up the Irish debate in the Labour Party by advocating British withdrawal from Ireland 'the sooner the better, substantially modified his position at a press conference given in Dublin during the Irish elections.
Calling for the formation of a Labour Party in the north said tha British withdrawal 'should be placed in this context' In effect this is the position of the Militant and was adopted against strong constituency opposition by the 1981 Labour Party conference. Unions
Only eighteen months ago Benn attacked
CURe idea of a Labour Party confined to the north during a fringe meeting at the 1980 conference. But in Dublir he insisted that the way forward was to call a conTerence of trade unions in
the mor parties, and that the right wing social democracy preached une Labour Party has dwindling support. There remains a vacuum in Irish politics and the appeal of 6Bd
Tony Benn shifts on
By Geoff Bell in
Dublin
the north build labour
representation in the no th, and from there 'build unity around the problems people experience
In listing these pro blems, Benn featured unemployment and monetarism - but not the repression of the Catholic repression north has repression previously condemned.
Also in contrast with previous occasions when he spoke out on Ireland Benn TErUSE TO criticise the Irish policy of the last Labour despite prompting from journalists. His criticism o British troops was also muted sayıng this issue was now 'full o complexities
He was equaily evasive onwaeme me unionists in the north had the right
SOOTH CAL CEVEOD ment in the north. He said he against the LOTOVEE to Unionists but paradoxically said Irish unity could only be endorsed with 'the consent of the north.
This amounted to a
socialist policies can only increase Ine coming months as the twin crisis of the economy and partition Tenan! unresolved. The Irish election has pro ved little and settled nothing. paragraph by paragraph endorsement of the am biguities contained in the document passed by the last Labour Party conterence Tony Benn has previously publicly reserved the right to advocate . policies different from 'those agreed by con Terence, and indeed did so specifically with regards to Ireland during the deputy leadership campaign.
Conditions
He shows no such in clination now. He defend ed the conference policy in Ireland and claimed it was greeted with enthusiasm by conference delegates even though a large majority of CLPs ference voted for a more left wing pro-British withdrawal position.
For Tony Benn that withdrawal must now be conditional on what he called GESS unity and 'consent' in the north. As Vincent Browne, editor of the Irish news magazine Magil commented, CHIN Mr Benn, how can you talk about class unity and con sent when the north state was set up and exists to
such oossibilities?
Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982 page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
Railworkers plan to oust
By D. Ellis, NUR member UNOFFICIAL strike action by angry members of the National Union of Railwaymen virtually shut down two mainline stations and disrupted services throughout the London region last Friday, 19 February. A follow-up meeting of depot representatives the following Monday mapped out a longer term campaign to kick out the flexible rosters and all the other productivity plans that Sidney Weighell, the union's general secretary, seems intent on ramming down the throats of the membership.
campaign to win national support for a special general meeting of the NUR.
Union's executive that back him will be prime targets in this campaign. And it's no wonder after his performance in recent weeks. Not only did he sell his own members down the river oy signing away their right to an eight-hour day, but his attitude to the courageous action labour movement. During the ASLEF strike, it was often hard to tell if Weighell was speaking was often hard to tell if Weighell was speaking as a leader of a union or as a representative of the British Rail Board!
As striking workers assembled outside Unity House, the headquarters of the NUR, a roar went Hang on lads... We want Weighell.
came a feeble rejoinder. 'Are you trying to tell us the ecutive aren't prepared to listen to us?' demanded
railworker credulously. 'They're too scared!' shouted another.
After frantic negotiations behind carefully
doors. leaders were forced to ofter to meet six renresentatives. "No way, all of us, or nonel was the noisy verdict. Other compromises equally quickly swept aside until the executive meekly agreed to book a room in a nearby hall.
HOW TO FIGHT
"PRODUCTIVITY'
Socialist Challenge
PAMPHLET FOR RAILWORKERS
What policies are needed to tackle productivity in
the rail industry? Order now 'How to fight produc-
tivity: Socialist
workers. 35р plus 10p p₴p.
Ltd. Available from: Rail pamphlet. PO Box 50. Lon-
don N1 2XP.
Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982
Weighell
Its first priority will be to launch a vigorous
Weighell and the other members of the
executive members сопseveral angry railworkers. If the
would convince the meeting that productivity has a human face after all, then it was sorely disappointed, In the face of persis-
Sidney Weighell who
Dos Loo hange
Lane chairing meeting said, 'After hearing these viewpoints from the executive. have 1YML changed your minds! deafening roar of "No' sent Sidney Weighell on way to another engage-
Plan Williams, a left-winger on the executive nodded in agreement with Challenge pamphlet for rail-
Cheques/Postal orders to Cardinal Enterprises
page 4
Friday's strike their disgust with
angry speeches from the floor. He indicated his support for SOMe COLE ference of the membership.
conference will not easy Dozens of branches have sent in
quarters. Executive
claimed no knowledge of them.
Well, no matter how many mave been thrown into sad resolutions
Weighell's waste-bin, the growing resistance of
Le HUBE nored, Weighell's claim
KEEP
GUARD UP
By Pete Grant, ASLEF
train drivers of ASLEF
productivity plans and to smash their union.
The McCarthy Tribunal report fully vindicated the train drivers. British Rail is now to pay the disputed three per cent owed to the drivers from August. The tiexible rostering issue is to be taken back into the norma negouaung machinery without any binding com mitments from ASLEF
Ray Buckton said atter the report was published, Parker of BRIng Peter
could only go scurrying DACH Department of Transport with his tail between IGCS
The victory of ASLEF is not however just a victory for the train drivers. It is a victory for all workers who are fighting, or likely to fight this Tory govern
The Tories up CHART SPCASHIER SHETH It has now been confirmed
TESSETS structed BR's climb
Trade Unions.
proved union leaders, that 99.9 per cent of NUR members agree with flexi ble rostering is growing a bit thin. The fight is on to
that policies which reprethe terests will be promoted. mode resolution calling for a special general meeting will be drawn up
the London LDC'S (works committees). Plans are already underway for steering committee members travel throughout the country to meetings already organis ed.
Traindrivers' victory
AFTER FIVE WEEKS of industrial action the
emerged _ VICEOTIOUS against the attempts of the British Rail Board and the Tory government to push through their
down As with the about face on pit closures this victory will boost the con-
workers to fight Tory at
A note reportedly on Peter
have a sign on his desk saying the Thatcher stops here
The Tories had imagin-
small but proud demolited members t demoralised by years working in a small decay ing public sector industry inflicting any great harm on the This would be # taster for the likely reac tion to Tebbit's anti union
that railworkers are no longer content with venting but are prepared to begin to organise against them. What
striking
guards told
Socialist
Challenge
Des. Liverpool St ASLEF have
without agreeing
BrOKEN ranks Server since wouldn't have been necessary.
laws. It would have had the added advantage of removing a left wing voice from the TUC giving boost to the right wing to accommodate with those
all important Tory lawe
Inroughout the dispute, the drivers and their leaders were subject to an unprecedented cam
paign by the Tory backers
Fleet Street. Distortion of the facts, accusations
widespread even incitement Violence came from the very worst of gutter jour nalism the Sun usual, led the pack. The
despicable however came from within labour move ment itself. The right wing block trade union
Parker's desk said: the Buckton stops here. Ray Buckton should
leaders Dutty. Boyd Chapple and Weighell
prolonged scabbing campaign
the drivers Withs their call through the pres: for a return
work and acceptance flexible rostering
It's the same union leaders
What we think of Weighe shown by hundreds of resolutions from branches criticising his stand
John, Ealing Broadway
branche
Whet NOTeS Veroner second information from members
with management which
off
from Unity House. It would be
Peter
ed if Tony Benn was leader of the Labour Party. / think his election defeat was rigged. Ray Buckton: I'm laughing backbone of the right in the Labour Party and it's a lesson all members of the Labour Party should learn The fight in the unions and outside is the same. I's TIME TPB up the Bishop's Stortford agree
and shunt IMES apologies for trade union leaders into the sidings where they belong
The drivers victory
end of the fight. placency should not he allowed 10 set The tones are amendy looking at ways in which to recoup HEH TOSSES HES TO CH off the vital funding BR
DIAN DETE DANT Carialies Challenge
Mike, Southall This is a uni
got Our members
BISO fighting ecutive
Senior guard. Southend Essex radio made the charge
got campaign charge withorawn. A lot of us are aft SUNTIED campaigners
l've given 35 vears of servic
to BR and this is the first tim
The real cowards are the NUF • CACCUU! ELY COSCE
rostering the membership already been made
Other productivity items are already agreed and this year's pay negotiations have nOt even started. The ASLEF victory has changed the balance in favour of railworkers. Ine Tories have suffered a major defeat in a very important first round battle They must not be allowen to win the war
The police action at Laurence Scott's has shown workers what Thatcher's Tory Britain will be like if she finally wins. It's about time the trade unions showed Thatcher what a workers Britain will be like
Page 5 scan of this page
Strike on 10 March!
FARES FAIR
Gelderen THE UNIONS in London Transport have called for an all OUL strike for March against the proposed increases in fares and cuts in services. The recent Law Lords' decision will result in a 100 per cent increase in fares
21 March with more increases to come; bus services will be cut by 25 per cent and there will be reductions in underground services. Underground stations and bus garages will close and the night services are threatened.
The London Transport Trade Union Defence Committee launched a E20,000 campaign last week in defence of current services, against job cuts and for the restoration of the fares fair scheme.
The strike call, which will be the first By Martin Hill and Chris Pitts, Sheffield bus drivers LONDON is not the only part of the coun try where public transport is a burning political issue. South Yorkshire's cheap fares policy, in operation for over six years is under attack.
Following the Law Lord's ruling against the Greater London Council's subsidy to London Transport, lawyers have advised that our subsidy, collected on the rates, is also probably illegal. Although the county council has not yet announced what course of action it will adopt, it has started a campaign to defend cheap fares.
Ten of South Yorkshire's brown and cream double deck buses will be driving down the Mi to Downing Street on 1 March. As wels a delegation
busworkers CHIC representatives of the labour movement and community groups, they will be carrying a petition
signatures expressing sup port for the cheap fares polithere has been
three week campaign
hardly surprisingly. cheap fares policy given county
workers nave struck together. came from a meeting of 700 workers representing all the unions involved in London Transport.
It was the first time rank and file leaders had ever held SUCH meeting which was call. ed because of pressure from the Campaign to Improve London Transport. Certainly the
readers don't do much want tO although they do want to be seen to do London Transport representatives
Cheap fares: South Yorkshire
campaign picks up speed
cheapest fares in Britain, unchanged since 1975. with an average fare of 7p (working out at 9p for four Intest.
As a result, the number ot passencers carried has risen every year, the fre-
been improved, and new FOULES been troduced. The social benefits are and so are the savings in other areas of council spending- The elderly disabled, and people or
mobility they could only dream or elsewhere
There is less traffic
Broad accidents, for inner-city car parks, and so on. Bus users and car
both GIVETS Sheffield is one of the
2I MARCH
something.
This is particularly
the with Sid
CaSE Weighell's union. the
National Union of
Railwaymen, which had been very keen last summer to call a strike easiest city centres to park in anywhere in the contry.
Atlast year's local elections, cheap fares were the main blank of Labour's campaign platform, with the sogan Aren tthe best bus service and cheapest fares in Britain worth 50p.a
family).
Labour's already large majority was increased VOTETS overwhelmingly backed cheap fares
it the subsidy is ruled illegal, and has to be remov ed altogether, fares could rise this year by 500 pe cent, and by staggering 1,270 per cent according to Transport Ex-
figures. There would also have to be a
frequency of buses; the
STOP THE CUTS SAVE
Bus workers took the lead in the recent day of action in South Yorkshire
Home News
London Transport
100% Increases*
from
Westminster
against London leader Ken Livingstone, over the London Transport wage claim. Now that thousands of jobs are the line the NUR leadership not prepared to take any
100% Inarcase the first time all the unions had come together
threat to jobs is massive.
This perhaps the gloomiest prediction, but in the context of the coun cil's policy of eventually phasing out fares altogether, any rise would be a serious setback.
To many people, free sun inflation will seems crazy, but soon reduce the real value of the fare: to such a level that it wil be cheaner not to collect them. There is already one free service operating circular route around the city centre for shoppers.
The campaign petition has been a big success, with people queuing up in the shopping centres to sign it. It is being taken around factories, clubs and community original target of 100,000 signatures was 10
meaningful action
It is this attitude from the union leaders THaT made some transport workers
cynical about the proposed one day strike.
They have had no ex-
For meetings about the proposal.
At the defence com-
mittee meeting many representatives were dissatisfied with the way the platform refused to announce the date of the strike until the press conference the following day. After all.
3100 screas - Wistrinster met within a week, and the target is now 250,000
Badges stickers, posters have been produc ed, and the local press has given the issue front page coverage nearly every day for a fortnight. The cam paign has been the mair item of discussion at labour meetings, in pubs and on the buses themselves
When in uniform, complete strangers
broach us to ask for the latest news, our opinion on the campaign, or where they should hand in petition forms! march through Sheffield Saturday 13 February attracted, at rather short MOLICE . SOME 3000 demonstrators, led by 150 busworkers
But time is running out. The County Counc has to decide before
Bradford 12 Case-
laws used as
political weapon
By Bernhard Hernes
following the riots last summer -
radicals and anti-racists. have been and will be unionists.
This was one of the main Patricia few
tewitt secretary 01 Nationa Council for Civil Liberties
Leicester on Sunday
movement activists in sup-
Patricia Hewitt condemned the judiciary, say ing that no 'hard evidence is needed in order to con viet under the conspiracy laws.
NORMAL EXTORTION RESUME SHORTLY
as they pointed out, it
was they who would have to organise it.
This one day strike can only be effective as part of an ongoing campaign against Tory policies that has to be
taken into the heart of the labour moment. All trade
unionists in London should be supMarch whether to bow to the courts or defend the fares policy. Despite the tactic dazzie or penon: badges and car-stickers, it
that they preparing for the former rather then the course of action, relying instead upon the election
Labour government which will reverse the legal
We have to insist that ine campaion be broaden ed and strengthened taking it into the soutr Yorkshire labour move ment. We should organising meetings with shop stewards committees and in canteens, explaining that workers will take the equivalent of a t4 a week wage cut least if the cheap fares are scrapped. We need to organise and mobilise the labour movement behind IN THE case of the Bradford 12 - Asian youths charged with conspiring to make explosives
the law is being used as a political weapon against black
The very same laws
used against trade
There is much reliance on 'hearsay evidence nod or a wink is enough
This would not be allowed China Tal
While this sort of prac tice is accepted there can be virtually no defence
Jim Marshall. the Labour MP Souti 1 was there to give his
He reform of the Consoirac HEWS the labour movement to take
porting initiatives taken by London Transport workers
At the same time there has to be a fight
back at a national level. The campaign committee in London is giving support to the South Yorkshire lobby on 1 March and there are also plans for a selective non collection of bus and tube fares
But despite the misgivings of transport workers as to how effective this one day strike will be. it has to be built into a resounding success. London should grind to a halt.
Then transoor workers can use that action as a springboard to show how essential are tne services they provide The drivers showed the Tories that - It's the on ly language they understand.
Fares Fightback Calendar Monday 1 March Lob by of Parliament from South Yorkshire transport workers Wednesday 10 March One-day strike of London Transport worktorce Thursday 11 March Lobby of Parliament organised by GLC
the policy, and behind the county council
Finally, we have to en sure that the busworkers union, the Transport and General Workers Union, puts its weight behind the
use each region fighting on its own.
It is a scandal that the South Yorkshire lobby is organised for March while London Transport's
day strike is on 10 March We need the weight of the TWU and the Labour Party national
paign, to turn around this
автостасу and living standards.
It is only through this approach that we can make sure that it is us, and not the judges or Michael Heseltine, who decide WHET transport policy we will have.
up this case with some urgency
He said that he under fully why workers had to
the history described Labour Party Pritic along support tor im racist along
SUPPOR migration controls.
Bernie Grant, a full time officia the public
due a rounder or the kiar!
Trade Unionists Solidarity
Campaigr the
need for black workers to organise TaCE BEROSI the struggle against racism. discussed at the meeting
taken up at the
Bradford 12 national con
don at County Hail on 27
The conference is open to all those the campaign to free tre who
the Africa Centre. Covent Garden with live band and disco, E2 Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
'PRACTICAL STEPS SHOULD BE TAKEN'
By S Butler The Militant group is in the firing line of a ferocious witchhunt. Every socialist has the alementary duty to defend it against the right wing.
This said and acted onl), its politics bear scrutiny. Its new pamphlet
Militant; What We Stand Fo: gives its own account of itself.
Militant takes pride in its Marxism and its proGOETTE. But a Marxist programme, to paraphrase Lenin, is always concrete.
It should show the labour movement how, starting from today's struggles, its actions can transform society The neposite ans proach permeates
it begins trom Militant's idea of how it deception with deflectres determined prean attack from the bureaucracy, and demands that everyone should adapt themselves to it Demands
the crest odd and shoppi ing list of demands whenever any of these demands touches real life we are sternly warned that
La socialist transformation CEN guarantee
.етс.
This attitude has walled off sections of the real mass actions of youth. LESE VEERS LPYS ference decided to affiliate.
AT THE founding conference in mid-January of Labour Liaison '82, the new coordinating committee of the left in the Labour Party and the trade unions, a further national meeting was promised for one month on.
This would discuss practical suggestions on how to act on the aims and objectives of the campaign. Now at the end of February. are no concrete plans for a recall conference, according to Norman Atkinson MP. one of LL'82's organisers.
The suspicions that some of the left had agreed to a truce at the Bishop Stortford meeting of Labour and trade union leaders seem well founded.
However their dreams of a 'quiet life' are not shared by socialist challengu 25 February 1982
Milltant...
a parody of
Marxism
to CND - but the Militant nave made no move to out this mandate into practice.
The -TOT IMES sterile dogmatism is the focus of Militant's programme the demand
or 'Labour to Power on a Socialist Programme.
Power
its strategy hinges on Labour abolishing capital.
I5m through parliamentary legislation, completely ignores the role of revolu tionary parliamentarians in focussing the the masses on the state. It remains silent about, passively accepts, the existing Tory state as its chosen instrument.
How will Labour 'take power through parliament? By an *Enabling Act. but even were cabinet committed to such an Act miraculously allow
La battle for power would then rage in
WARTS WROM WITH THE LOT YOUVE GOT?
left monthly journal associated with Ken Liv-
LL'82 doesn't take up the
will.
what should be done.
there
Joan Lestor
ship election
most important issues of the day
page 6
every department of society.
Any government wanting to carry throuch mild reforms, let alone socialist programme, take its authority and legitimacy from the organisation and actions workers, because this the only way its policies could be carried out.
A Marxist programme should explain how to ad dress these tasks. What Militant's failure to adopt such a proHOOVE its ailure to fight the labour bureaucracy I DOU WE
party titanions.
Militant, EVERY thing is subordinated to its principle of staying in the party. This elevation of a tactic into a principle leads to its political adaptation.
LPYS
For MATS verbiage COOT socialist transiorall. London Labour Briering. a
ingstone, has stated that if
fight for socialist policies, it
As part of our series on Labour Liaison 82 we reprint Labour Briefing's thoughts on
• Briefing has made its own position very clear. On the question of the National Executive Committee, for example, if no lead is forthcoming, we shall be organising and campaigning ourselves, to remove Neil Kinnock and
not simply because of their abstention in the deputy leader
proven unreliability on many of the
We simply do not believe that
elect them to the executive so that they can oppose NEC control of the manifesto
mation responsibility is to
De Manage over
Labour Party which, we
can be
transformed into an ade-
socialism.
This flies in the face of
reality. Even the small
gains of the last period
have produced a furious
bureaucratic onslaught
and a deliberate drive to
use the SDP to block the
IOS HIHO of radical
Labour government.
In the 1920s the Labour
leadership closed down
half the party rather thar
permit support for the
Marxist programme of the
National Left Wing Move-
inspired by the
Communist Party.
In the 1930s the InParty
was expelled. The YS has
DEED
What will Militant
MPs do against a threat to
withdraw the whip? How
will they face a threat to
close the YS?
The fight with
bureaucracy should
prepare a new party
party with a
revolutionary programme
that cannot be des-
troyed in a bureaucratic
onslaught.
Control
Of course the con
struction of such a party
has to go hand in hand
with a battle for control of
the LP. But if no recogni-
tion taken of the
bureaucracy's willingness
to destroy the party, and
no attempt is made in the
and now to prepare a
HOW DOTTY. then the result
is bound to be a basic
political adaptation
BE- SIMSTION 6F
BORATE BLASTIO
LONDON LABOUR
UNITE IN MASS ACTION and support witch bones and purges Secondly wow.ilsupport all plac tical campaigning steps to stop the
today's labour leadership
Nowhere is this more clearly expressed than in
internationalism' "Socialism' they tell us 'is internationa nothing' In a pamphlet TRET does not mention their policy on Ireland, on El Salvador or on Poland, and whose only reference
the war drive is solemn affirmation that only socialism brings peace, this is a hollow joke
The crises that produc ed the Polish and Saivadorian SEVENTS NEVE put ten million youth on the streets of Europe in the last year against the missiles.
This is a vast repository
tain's labour bureaucracy.
Support
The centrepiece of the labour bureaucracy's defence of capitalism has always been support for KraIn C nananal terests against the interna 1OH8. HALETESTS CLAE
It is quite natural that Militant's greatest com. promise bureaucracy falls in this
that its compromise with ine bureaucracy leads To its spectacular failure to Did a mass, democratc campaigning YS in this
LABOUR
BRIEFING
No 18 MARCH 1982
PASSENGERS AND TRANSPORT WORKERS
CAN'T PAY—
WON'T PAY!•
Switch hunts. mondsey, together with Brefing sup porters and others, are producing a
What
we
stand
choosing instead to build a propacandist sect in its own image.
PARTY:-
SOCIALISE
IDEAS
another
challenge them lose!
Contades from Ber
tant
Militant: What we stand for 20p from Militant 1 Ment erraterancon
I'LL GET THE LITTLE
SWINE THIS TIME
broadsheet agamst the witch hunts and we hope to see a full page advert appearing in Labour Weekly, signed and paid for by MPs. prospective can
endorsing the views of Peter Tatchell, defending the rights of Militant within the Party and embarrassing the Party leadership.
They must be shown that they may chop off Peter Tatchelf's head but for every left-wing head that rolls
SanCtier hundred another thousand, wil spring up to
We are not going to win the issue Dy warang for a concession FrOm TH right, we are only going to win by campaigning and fighting
These are the kind of practical stens we beneve Labour Laison should be taking Yos, of course Labour must win the next election as Tony Benn said, the left hasn't bust a gut winning the policies and the constitutional issues in inter to
But the fight tor saralem withm the party is consistent with our these to win the next election, , and there can be no let-up in pursuit of either of these complementary aims
Page 7 scan of this page
By Neil Cruickshank WORKERS at Plessey Capacitors in Bathgate are determined to fight for their jobs and continue their sit-in now in its fifth week. They were sorry to see the Leyland workers in Bathgate give up their fight, but this has made them even more insistent on 'continuing for the sake of the community.
Bathgate, as they point out, once a centre of the industrial revolution, is now an industrial desert; unemployment runs at 30 per cent in the town.
The management are trying the workers by using the law
On Friday 2E February, 141 workers will be summoned to court to answer why they had not complied with an original order to end their sit-in.
The slogan of the sit-in
We want justice - and jobs' describes the
The fight for jobs is a
the 19th century law which the ment has credoed up and which has only been used once before this century is
bosses' law and represents the bosses' interests - not the workers.
By Jon Lovibond PHIL PENNING speaking at the Defend Lucas jobs' rally in Bristol on behalf of the strike committee Scott in Manchester: "We had one meeting we wouldn't turn down no matter what came up, and that was this meeting, because we know what support you've given us in the past and we know the problems you're going to come up against.
Lucas in King-
sidiary of the multi-nat-
TEST foods conglomerate
which last week announced half year profits of E19.6m.
The all-out strike now in its third week, is
save 53 jobs in the PUSH mill which is due for closure in March.
The rally attended by some 300 strikers, their Lucas strikers and families keen to fight
sit-in goes on
The only way to win is to make another Lee JESTIS Scotland Already the workers have received delegations from Plessey factories in Liverpool and Beeston and the local community is right behind them.
A rally has been called for 27 February and the West Lothian Labour Party and Trades Council are proueing me matenai m cluding badges, and col
Why don't you • Take collection sheets to
nunity organisations • Send a delegation from OUT TOCON
• oroanis meetings factory visits. particularly
event on b June called by Ine LaDOUr FarLY
money through
T Lucas - 'We salute you'
19 February said on
of Laurence families, dockers. busworkers. other unionists and Labour Party representatives began to point the way forward.
Tony Benn MP for Bristol South East as TESTEEKON the parallels between Polish Solidarity the industrial struggles breaking out oVer Britain.
He gave his full support the Lucas workers and offered
Plessey Bathgate
local women's right whactivities.
resolutions Labour Wares and tract unions calling on the TUC and LP
whatever help he could give.
The question of leadership was the consistent theme. Colwyn Jones. Lucas convenor demanded:
SULTES Coordinate 80our ano trade leadership to tight Thatcher's un. employment policies.
Traitors like Healey. Duffy. Boyd and Kitson must be thrown out.
Busworker, Jim Cheek. echoed this point: Workers are fac ing three-cornered fight. It's the rank and file against the bosses. the covernment and the trade union bureauCrOS
The need
Is to soread the dispute, to use speakers
Trade Unions
WILL THERE B5, JOBS
IN BATICATE INHON ILEAVE SOHOL DAD!
OSED nationally to show supstreet. Mary Murphy.
TOONOUSE VIES
like Tony Benn to drive the struggle into the base the labour movement and to link it
the national fightmaCK against Thatcher and her suitors in the Labour and trade union bureaucracy
As Phil Penning said at the Lucas rally, It's people like vou who are going to keep the fire burning the trade union move. ment, and hoDe blazes out of all proportion
The workers at Laurence Scott salute What you are doing."
Unions in the Bristol asked to collect money g asked to collect money to
relegatess to the cad
- LUCES DICKe. Coniecuon sheets from Colwyn Jones, c/o T. Lucas, Mor
Kingswood
1980 Civil Service strikes weren't enough Civil service pay offer
By Bill Alder, Mansfield CPSA MOST people's idea of a civil servant is a bowler-hatted city gent, but the overwhelming majority of civil servants are low paid clerical workers.
Tens of thousands are below the official poverty line.
On Tuesday February ware tid trot our 190a pay nise had Deer cancelled. Other civil service grades were offered one to five per cent.
In areas like Nottingham the response of many civil servants was an immediate out.
Last year the civil service unions were in dispute with the government for five months, the longest national wages struggles since the
Genera/ Strike
But rather than call an all out strike
of the biggest Jimited the action to selective strikes and over time bans. The result was that union members gor fed up with losing pay for actions which had little effect on the government.
eventually we settled for just one per cent more than had originaly been uffered. Union
By Judith Arkwright
factory warehouse picketing to save their jobs.
The owners of the company qile not sO lovable and have been engaged in a typical asset cash how ratio operation. A 'cash they
close the factory in
the West of Scotland
This So-caled porary crisis incidentally was broucht on Du an un paid order of bras to Libya, whose hearing of the conse quences for the workers immediately agreed to pay for the order.
For eighteen years the Pagan-Lovable company has been in Cumbernauld. supported by grants from the Cumbernauld develop ment corporation, paying SEVE WELDS
One woman we spoke to had been getting C87 for a seven-day week - with a basic rate of f30.
The women workers occupied the factory since the closure was announc-
"Ten applicants for every job'
the Tories
65,000 of us
walk
for the membership The the CPSA miserable three per
Another 'Lee Jeans'
'SUPPORT us because we support you'. This is the sign on the gate outside the Lovable Bra where 200 women are
Led in December and were finally evicted and made redundant last Wednesday. 17 February. But they haven't given up Just let them try and stop 200 angry women, said Sadie Lang the con
Garment Workers Union.
ChOl picketing the warehouse hom worth stock is waiting to be
While we were there they turned away two lo ries from British Home Stores and Littlewoods Another banner lean ing against the factory gate says Cumbernauld is not a new town, it's a broo town' and with 20 per cent unemployment the
give up without a fight Many of them are the only 'breadwinners' left in the family They know
and that sat enorg
and that's government - They talk Socialist Challenge
OFFICIAL
PICKET LIN
membership and morale fell
The nil pay offer this year makes sense to
first veal workers are less ikely to be union members because they fear victimisation and are almost ignored by union officials. stated on To it the don tike it the should Barney remember that there are ten applicants for
But as the walkouts showe membership is still willing to fight. The unof ficial stoppages must be used to force the national officials to call strike action
The CPSA's full claim is 13 per cent. The full time negotiators must not be allowed to settle for less, that is, to negotiate a wage cut
CPSA should plan joint action with the teachers unions who have been offered a
• cent,
The CPSA has the power to close airports and nuclear submarine bases, to foul up the government system of administration
That power should be used now to stop the Tories in their tracks.
Sadie Lang, Convenor about cutbacks they wanna cut Maggie's legs off, says Margaret, one of the women on the picket.
Their decision to carry on the picketing despite the closure has attracted attention and it looks as if an offer to save the factory might be forthcoming the bossed the government don't want another Lee Jeans and it's clear that the courage and determination of women workers shown In the struggle is certainly comthrough at Lovable Bra 25 February 1982 page 1
Page 8 scan of this page
Kick out the
By Patrick Sikorski THE FOUR WEEK old strike to stop 4,000 redundancies at the Bathgate and Leyland, cashire plants of British Leyland Vehicles came to an week as mass meetings Thursday and Friday voted for a return to work.
The vote at Leyland's five plants in Lancashire on Thursday was split down the middle and the vote at Bathgate the following day reflected that decision by voting three to one to return. The votes ware against stewards' tions to defy Michael Edwardes threats to close the whole Truck and Bus operation and continue the demands for withdrawal of redundan cies, an end to outsourcing and hiving off, and negotiations around the trade union alternatives were met.
Both strike committee leaders, Mick Coyne in Leyland and Jimmy Swan in Bathgate expressed bitter disappointment in the results but were confident that this was by no means the end of the fight against the implementation of the BL corporate plans. think we have proved to the company that they are not going to walk all over the Bathgate factory.
Ever since the breakdown of talks last Monday mounted an unrelenting assault on the strike and this undoubtedly had its effect in ramming home Edwardes' threats. But the decisive role in breaking the strike was played once again by Boyd and Duf fy.
Just two days before meetings the weekly meeting of AUEW national executive instructed Len Brindle, Preston District Secretary of the AUEW and ex-Leyland convenor, to read out the following letter from Michael Edwardes to Duffy at the mass meetings: Dear Mr. Duffy, It would be a matter of great concern if your recommend a return to work at Leyland and Bathgate at meetings on Thursday Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982
What
happened
at
Leyland?
Lan-
end last
few days the
ECOTEMenta
is achievable strike until
resolution from
port for Leyland workers'.
Swan said: Confed officials.
portant unanimously
Leyland: and
port of the struggle.
the mass the front Edwardes does not mendation
page 9
and Friday. My colleagues have explained to you that we would be stretched to justify the E180 million capital needed for the present Truck Plan particularly after the strike. The employee representatives alternative plan requiring E600 million is
The hard facts are that if we do not achieve normal productivity in the next
umandole win not be achievable. In the circumstances / will be recommending to the BL board on Friday that we take steps to cease manufacturing trucks at Leyland and Bathgate unless the management of the trucks business can demonstrate that the plan
Brindle read this out but immediately followed this up by reading the text of a
SURE Preston District Committee of the AUEW which express ed 'disgust' at the attitude of the EC and endorsed without qualification our sup-
But the real practical support that was ouncing up in me rreston area was not reported to strike leaders or most im portantly to the mass meeting by local
The day betore thi mass meetings, a Preston Confed No 30 shop stewards conference, attended by over 100 stewards representing every im
workplace in the area, had voted support the demonstration called this Saturday in
called for co-ordinated token industrial action in the area in sup-
The recent votes on wages and the Longbridge tea break strike in the cars division together with the fightback in Trucks indicates a willingness to con
and the Tories That medns taking on boya and buty as well The sell outs of these right wingers have built a right wing or passive section of workers in every engineering works in the country which threatens every strike
Fighting to support the Laurence Scott Rule 14 campaign is the first step in getting rid of them
workers was beaten last week by Snipe, boss of Mining Supplies,
months ago.
Penning, TASS
parent company.
ACCORDING to last Friday's Daily Mirror the ten month old struggle by Laurence Scott
Arthur Doncaster who took over the Laurence Scott group just 18 Convenor Denis Barry (centrel argues with the police and gets arrested; Phil
steward, protests at Denis arrest - and gets arrested Joint Shop Stewards Committee Statement on Laurence Scotts At Laurence Scotts we have seen a most commen-
dable stand by trades unionists for the basic principle of
the right to work. The true face of Thatcher and Tebbit's
Tory Britain have been used to stop this an overkill opera tion by the police to bust the picket line. This was preceed-
ed by strike breaking through the use of helicopters and the anti-union Employment Act was used to prevent the strikers gaining solidarity by effectively picketing the
The trade union and labour movement must both congratulate the Scotts strikers for the tremendous battle they put up but never allow this scale of attack to happen again.
The strike breaking we've seen at Laurence Scotts
could be a foretaste of the future for all trade unionists. it can be stopped, but only by building a united movement that defends trade union rights and the fight for jobs. The Laurence Scott strike has been an example to us all. Statement supported by Tony Benn MP and Ken Brett, assistant general secretary AUEW, Broad Left candidate for general secretary.
Under the sycophantic headline Britain s toughest boss' we read see victory as putting one over them all' and It was my way of telling the bug. gers I can't be beaten. do the same.
But if you really want to know why 500 police were able to escort 10 lor ree and a counle of dozer scabs through the Scotts bicket line in Openshav Manchester last week don't look in the Mirror but listen to the Scolt's workers themselves.
We were defeated by the national union leader ship and the police, not by Snipe. said Denis Barry convenor PINE committee
We are staying put in the strike offices along the street from the factory push through the Rule 14 campaign to get a ballot to remove Boyd, Duffy and the executive. We alread have confirmation of 119 branches supporting the
campaig We appeal to
every AUEW branch in th land to get the other 13 into Peckham Road.
when the strike was still official, it
week o TOOK picketing of his Doncaste
factory to bring Britain's toughest boss scurrying to the negotiating table was only after Boyd, Dutty and the rest of the nationa
COTT CISIS withdrew all union support thet Suise knew that he simply had to wait his
It was the consistent series of sell Outs and stabs in the back from the national leadership of the AUEW that CORVETCCE Snipe and police chief
Anderton that they could use brute force against an isolated workforce.
even so the massive use of the police day after
the Greater Manchester
is a testimony to the fighting SHE DELETE AB Scotts workers Tony Benn condemns the strike breaking activities
Page 9 scan of this page
HE SCOTT strike breakers
Snipe's contemptible smears in the local press against "political bandits'
professional agitators, posing as unionists,
politically will Dut acung
no ice any unionist Labour Party member in Manchester, indeed throughout the country
Local Openshaw residents immediately threw the slander back in the face of the authorities when within a few hours over 600 of them signed a protest petition against the area being turned into an 'armed encampment"
But why were Boyd. Snipe and Anderton allowed to get away with it in one of the heartlands of the engineering union?
AUEW Divisional Organiser and leading Te SCI of the union Broad Left pledged months ago that any attempt to break the THE ISG Scott picket would be met with another
Roberts Arundel
The Arundel fight was back in 1968 and involved HITCHILOR
multi-national doing an
operation asset sippig
very similar Snipe's.
Thousands of Manchester
engineers successfully supported the picket.
Laurence Scott
workers mobilised regular-
ly for that picket just as
they did eight years later
other ba battle
around Automats which
was a union recognition
battle.
In fact while other fac-
tories picketed a set day
every week 30-50 Scott's
workers went down every
day to Automat. But since
then the full effects of the
sell outs by Manchester
Broad Left hero Hugh
now Lord - Scanion have
hit every engineer. fet your MP and local trade unionists to
Scanion's support. for
years of Labour's Social Contract smashed
ability of the Broad Left to win any elections, never mind mobilise the rank and file.
Last week Broad Left convenors were in fact holding back their
from going down to Scotts as the news came over the radio from 6 o'clock onwards
But thousands of rank and file engineers supported Scotts 1060 branches — nearly half of the total passed resolutions condemning the executive's handling of the dispute last year, and it is almost certain that Scott's workers will get the required 251 branches
support the Rule 14 campaign. This is the bigDES. deepest and broadest against Boyd and Duffy
since they came to power
When Duffy and Boyd leader. ship that really fights for the rights of engineering workers, Scotts will
played
massive part. The tight Tor
TOOS drawing to a close but the Scotts may be
fight around the Rule
campaign C211 the
beginning of the end for
Boyd and Duffy.
Tuesday 16 February:
The Tactical Aid Group
(Manchester's SPG/
charges the picket to
allow the scabs
through. Cutting tools
and pneumatic drills
are used to break
through the gates. Ten
lorries are loaded up
with vital motors for
the mining industry.
Dear Colleagues,
across the land.
picket per gate.
scab lorries to make their entrance into the ractory. for 10 months was bulldozed through our picket line.
scabs.
of the scab work is destined for the coaltields.
for our support.
workers fighting for their rights
Barry.
The following scabs crashed through our picket in lorries bearing the names:
Armitage - Yorkshire
Oustgates Goole
J. Doyle & Son - Liverpool
Rouanes - Yorkshire
Clan Securities - Manchester
seriously mishandled
Rule 14, paragraph five.
General Secretary.
Cheshire with donations.
ballot to remove the union leadership: 251 branches are needed ballot.
other branches in your district.
copies to Laurence Scott. now available - to your branch
Socialist Challenge
Open letter to the
labour movement
The Laurence Scott workers are now in the 10th month of dispute in their fight for jobs, which we know has set an example to all trade unionists except the right wing leadership of all unions, who have capitulated to the Tory government and disgraced the name of trade unionism
Our letter today is to inform you that at our strike bound factory Snipe, the owner, organised a convoy of 11 lorries accompanied by a team of 30 scabs to break our picket lines. The police mounted an operation the likes of which have never been witnessed before - the strength of the police presence had to be seen to be believed. Talk about six pickets per gate: we were not even allowed one
The 500 strong police force including 48 of the Tactical Aid Group (Anderton SPG) violently removed our pickets from the gate leaving the gates free for the convoy work within the factory which we had vigilantly guardet
We had five of our pickets arrested trying to stop these
We must now appeal to trade unionists all over the country to come to our aid and black this work, especiall the National Union of Mineworkers, because 70 per cent
If the trade union movement cannot support the black ing of the work it will be an absolute disgrace. Remembe our employer Snipe has 100 percent backing from the Employers Federation, while we have to continually beg
If we cannot help each other in this struggle they wil eventually smash all resistance. Remember that the Arthu Snipes of this world will go to any lengths to destro
On behalf of the Laurence Scotts Joint Shop Stewards Committee Works Convenor, Denis
Support Rule
14 campaign
Laurence Scott Strike Committee Protest resolution for AUEW branches
THIS branch believes executive council has
Scott
dispute. As this is an issue of concern to all
AUEW members the branch demands a ballot
for removal of executive council in line with
Rule 14, paragraph five states: The executive
council, or any member thereof may be removed
from office by a ballot of the membership of the
union provided such a ballot is demanded by ten
per cent or more of the branches and not less than
two thirds of the membership are in favour of such
removal. The ballot should be conducted by the
If your branch supports the protest resolution,
make sure it is sent to the ALEW general office.
110 Peckham Rd, London SE15 and a copy is sent
to the strike committee, 20 Rounderoft, Romiley,
THE following AUEW branches have so far in formed the Scott's strikers that they have passed the Rule 14 resolution calling for a ter 17, Parsley 2, Bury 3 to force this What you can do if you are in the AUEW: 1. Make sure it's raised in your branch and all 2. Check your secretary sends the resolution to both the union HQ and Laurence Scott. It is vital that the workers at Laurence Scott receive copies as soon as possible. The branches above are just those who have sent 3. Invite a speaker/Video film on Scott's
25 February 1982 P
Page 10 scan of this page
The need for a revolutionary party
Where you can buy
SocialistChallenge
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Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982 page 10
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SOCIAL TE
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ONDON TRANSPORT fractio
Gisela
Scholtz in
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE and Revolution have organised a joint tour of Mary Zinns. United States coalminer to Woman's Day. Come along to one in your area: Monday 8 March - ManCONCI KEHSOEETHETH lional Womens Day, Lesser Free Trade Hall, Peters
NAC and the Action Committee for A Woman's Right
Tuesday 9 March - Birmingnam - socialist Challenge and Revolution Youth celebrate Internanonal Womens Day - The Fighting Cocks. Moseley Strect, Birmingham 13.
Wednesday 10 March Glasgow — Phone 041-423 2649 for details.
By Ailean O'Callaghan LAST WEEK we saw how the trade union bureaucracy was forced to drop its allegiance to the Liberal Party and participate in the formation of the Labour Party.
On the social democratic parties Dult the trade unions not the other way round, Working class OCT LIES swearing allegiance to marxism existed prior to the widespread development factory system.
By the beginning of 1914 the German Social Democratic Party had
than members and published 90 daily had 1.4m subscribers. had a large women's sec tion, youth section cooperative, and cultural organisations and led several million workers proved the need for a new party.
Socialist Challenge regrets to inform its readers of the death was
Paris, of Gisela Scholtz on 14 February. Her com rades and friends the deeply regret her
death and a loss of a courageous
488and devoted activist.
Comrade Gisela was 00m in 1935 many: her youth was
International
Women's Day
celebrate international
Thursday 11 March -
Friday 12 March - London
Rally for International Womens Day
Centre off Euston Read
Sunday 14-Wednesday 17
March - Sheffield,
Bolsover, Nottingham,
Thursday 18 March
Southampton - Conference
Room, Civic Centre,
7.45pm.
Friday 19 March —
Bournemouth, Fringe
meeting at Womens TUC
former
in social democratic trade
unions.
Rosa Luxembourg, the great Polish revolutionary
who was a member of the
SPD's left wing was
Never Ess aDIE
describe one of its leaders
following way:
There he stands in the
like pot-bellied
urinal ... In any Serbian
village there more
hamie of German So that
Democracy.
On August 4th 1914,
these "pot-bellied urinals',
calling themselves
ists, joined with their non-
marxist British counter-
parts in sending the workThe victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution and the murder of Rosa Luxembourg by the Social Democratic leaders
Socialist Challenge News-
difficult due to the hard
For we war. She involved in the struggle of the studant movement in its hey. cay and was a reuder with Rudi Deutschke in
Berlin SDS
Thereafter she joined
Fourth International, tuttiling her tasks both Belgian section
she was ana tional leader for several
*Mary Zinns will also be Saturday 6 Marsuch Can
Saturday 6 March -
diff. 2.30, Friends Meeting
House. International
Women's Day rally organis-
ed by the Wales Women's
Rights Commitice
For Jurther deluils not listed
nere phone 07-359 8371. And
why not order a copy of our
pamphler? "A Woman"
tight to Work - The Case
Contains information, sug
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ORDER YOUR
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postage),
ing classes into World War
I in the uniform of their
respective fatherlands
that day on,
revolutionary marxists
HAVE na d as their chief
task, the liberation of the
working class from the in-
fluence these reac-
tonary bureaucrats and
the creation of new mass
revolutionary parties.
V I Lenin, who in 1917
led the socialist revolution.
explained the new tasks
facing revolutionaries the
world over. He explained
the betrayals of the so-
called marxist parties by
drawing parallels with the
emergence of the labour
anstocracy in Britain. The
chauvinism of
these parties was the
result of a split in the work-
ing class with the growth
years, and on the international level.
In April 1969 she was
delegate for the Belgian section at the ninth world congress of the Fourth Interna. tional,
Gisela Scholtz was active and appreciated in her professional field as a researcher and jour-
She worked on German television for a
making several Entrance: E1 and 50p unwaged
available
ARGUMENTS for SOCIALISM
of a privileged layer with
its own interests against
that of the mass
workers.
It was this layer of
labour artistocrats and
bureaucrats who
delivered the mass
workers to slaughter. The
interests of the great mass
or workers, nowever, st
lay with the socialist
revolution. Therefore new
parties had to be built to
break the hold of the
bureaucracy
An opposing view was
put forward by Karl Kaut
sky. His most important
argument - since it is still
heard even on the left to-
day was to claim that
the mass of workers were
just as backward and just
chauvinistic
leaders, He declared that
the idea of a split in the
working class was
Simple
ment was all that was
needed to resolve the dif
ferences which would
therefore be overcome in
the passage of time.
films them, in cluding one remarkable UNIC on the children of Belfast.
Her and friends mourn with her family and her companion Ernest Mandel.
They will not forget her.
They will remember her contribution struggle for the renawa/ of the workers ACTERO the building of a revolutionary inter-
RALLY FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO WORK A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY was first celebrated on March Sin 1913 to commemorate the strike of women textile workers in New York. Since then women the world over have heen moosscu on this day to snow their strengin and to tight together On Friday 12 March women from different countries of the world will be meeting together to talk ahout their scruples and the fight
Speakers include: Mary Vinns, United Mineworkers
of America and member of the Socialist Workers Party, US Speaker from the Nicaraguan
speakers from the Fourth interna tional, including Irish section.
Speaker from the campaign for
Speakers from the action commit tee for a womans right to work
Doors Open 5.30pm Bookstalls and displays, light refreshments
Lenin was adamant: It is a lie when anybody says (Kautsky included! that the THESSES letarians have shifted to chauvinism' It was the bureaucracy that was responsible for ruling class ideas in the labour move ment. They had to be driven out.
History decided the question. In 1917, Lenin's Bolshevik party led the Russian revolution in the teeth of the opposition of the Mensheviks. In 1919 the bureaucrats of the German Social Democratic Party drown-
in blood, using troops and fascist bands to murde thousands of German workers including Rost Luxembourg and others The labour bureaucracy is the chief obstacle on the road to SOME SETTOES. The only way to overcome it is revolutionary parties rooted in the industrial working class
Page 11 scan of this page
I HAVE been distressed to read vour report
the roundation Conference of the Socialist Society by Phil Hearse in your issue SC 230. No doubt the inaccuracies of this piece reflect the fact that Phil, who did not attend the conference, has had to rely on misleading press reports.
To write that Eric Heffer was booed and hissed when he sugoested that the Labour Party was the place to fight or when he urged the Socialist Society to
AS the Socialist Socialist Society's conference 1 can agree with most of Robin's factual corrections, and hope this will ease his distress. But l also think Robin has missed the points Phil makes.
Firstly. on afiliation.
The by anyone in the Labour Party who wants to fight its present leadership li.e. about 90 per cent of its members) пО! just whether to be in the Labour Party but how to tight.
Socialist Society merely puts its services or
the disposal of the Labour
is that the right wing, with their control of the apparatus, will
more efectively than the Party rank and file.
This is not a small matter for paid intellectuals who have access to the printed word and hence great power.
SDP is a petty-
bourgeois party
HOPEFULLY the debate in the House of Commons over Tebbit's union-bashing proposals will have clarified a few minds about the real nature of the SDP. The SDP MPs split three different ways on the most important question for the British ruling class -the unions.
Seventeen of them voted with the Tories and against the advice of their own specialist policy committee. The SDP's spokesDerson or custraroa tions voted against the malentenis narlamen.
colleagues, four others did the same, a further five abstained.
Can anvone
class that the most ing
class
JOSE perienced in the world is going to entrust its future, in the middle of its gravest crisis to a party that crumbles at its fire test before it's got anywhere near office?
And what of the Labour bureaucracy? Can anyone believe that voting for measures that will attack the interests of the bureaucracy in an absolutely unprecedented wav the SDP think can forge an alliance with it7 Eric Varlev describeo Jenkins as 'Tebbit's boodle. Healev called the SDP "Tebbit's troopers
Mark. Two LORES Bill Sirs, arquably themost
of the teph wind bureaucrats in the TUC described them as minkorac - nace wora hardly the kind of overtures designed to woo ine
join the Labour Party' as VOLT COOLIO gives quite the 817153301
In fact Eric Heffer was
Labour Party there were TEnE COOUL IVO Party. This session was
he would be only too
Challenge delegate -to
There are many
and ound to use this Dower for their own ends. as the sad history of Fabianism shows. Not the smallest of these devices is the subtle abuse of the intellectuals' own desires to reshape the
own perfect ideals.
will Socialist Society
party? Will it find ways putting its services at the lisposal of those fighting oppression, inan those promoting or con-
The practical issue facing
UGUE unionists is their fight for democratic control of the party. At the centre of this
how to deal with
SDP an antiTory
3TTE coalition with the Labour right, were they?
In my previous letter 1 argued inat with the absence of support of any ot ine signicant InsuTu tions of the ruling class even the mitonaire biess has now turned against the SDP) or of the working class Inot single bureaucrat let alone trade union joined them) the would
party petty bourgeoisie oniv future could be as a junior parter to une tones
Evidence is now emerging that this is the direction Roy Jenkin: wishes to take the SDP in
Owen has publicly stated that participation in a 'reshuffling of the right would spell doom for the SDP. He wants to take the SDP in the classical direc tion that petty bourgeois parties go in. towards radical populism, a course which is one which is coomed to falure in Brtain.
Owen is not alone however. Shirley Williams explained her hesitation in voting with Tebbit by say-
happy to follow Eric Heffer's advice
Phil's report also declares with some emphasis: 'the one ques tion of practical political orienietor dISCUSSPO
the is now the fight for the right to organise, centring on the witch-hunt.
How Socialist Society make a clear state.
memberg want, not merely to be in
rany DuE to take sides and cor nduct an organised battler and 17 what is at stake: Labour Party members shy away from this issue, it indicates only their lack of a strategy for dealing with it. more instance of st But this is ONE
La more
Socialist Society has adopted a quite restrictive programme (one which excludes, for example, the
Letter!
The Gang of Four - leaders of
ing 'SDP policy is clear you cannot reform the
Company Law as well. We
proach. Isn't utopian even- handeaness towards Capital and Labour the stock-in-trade ties Detty bourgeois
SDP which can play an in dependent role in British
GalL the class
DP MPs by voting wil Tebbit signalling
WILTE that, having left Labour
Letters
Socialist Society strikes back
The report then goes on sion to the composition
COnTErEnCE independent socialist intellectuals Most of
As it happens there
COCIST
Alan Freeman replies
Communist Party) and a
individual membership structure. rejected a Conference Socialist Economists motion that strengthen the role of affiliated bodies. It is putting
resources behind definite political campaigns, implies definite system of priorities.
This forces it to make choices And these choices ficult. Would anone or simply the steering committee care to tell us whether the society will offering publication facilities
Foot? To the
Letters ATTER SETTERS
behind, their only way forward was with the bosses' party, the Tories
Certainly the SDP are important. Certainly they reflect the depth of the They may lead to a change
proces. (depending on how fast the class polarsation oro ceeds and how far the SDP is therefore able maintain its grand illusion.I
But today it is the na tional rail strike the Bathgate ocupation and the stiffening of the resistance or une inoustra trade unions and not the
editor of New SOCIAIST made a particularly effective controuton on unis point
There widespread acreemen effective or appropriate
Socialist Society
Cambodian government in exile? To Colonel Ghad dafy? And if not, why not? Such questions can't be settled by waving a pro gramme - least of all the Socialist Society's.
There is no way around
by vowing be friendly, and certainly not by brushing debates under the table. A proper system for debate is essential including the tolerance of opposition, facilities for circulation of discussion, rights of tendency, and so on.
What is alarming abou
he decision on affiliatio is that the defeated motion was not even a motion to
Letters
petty bourgeois party?
antics of the SDP which will have the more impor tant effect on the balance of -torces the classes.,
Based on that analysis I said in my original reply that the left's opportunity Is natu provided it gives a line for mass struggle
That oportunity bas ed on a projection of an SDP-Labour coalition car
be put off until the decade. The railworkers couldn't wait!
TOMMY CUSACK Harrow
way to do this at the present time
We were mainly pre occupied with establishing the society
InSine and
til late on the Sunday affiliate. It was a motion to discuss affiliating. It was the steering committee s own resolution which it withdrew and which I ther moved. In short, faced with a division on the only DIECECa question confronting it, the SiBering Conminea decided just against affiliation but against discussing it.
This highlight the danger to which Phil was rightly pointing: that of building a new ghetto for
the left intelligentsia -
very comfortable one no COUDE - by trying to close ranks uncomfortable difficulties might provake dissension, but which millions of people have to face daily because their lives depend on it
There is much which is smug in the British left intelligentsia, and if Socialist Society wants to create a
popula common its first step must
International Viewpoint is
Special introductory
Zealand, Asia $20,
Montreuil, France.
Socialist Challenge
trary / to the implications of Phil's report, there was no time to discuss it properly.
Achieving vital COHTECLO! with the labour movement will certain be a priority for the Socialist Society and we know there are easy formulas for this But 13 of the 30 peo ple (excluding Tarig) who were elected to the steering committee members Labour Party. We were also heartened by fact that the first person who applied to join the society was Lou Adams of the ASLEF executive ROBIN BLACKBURN
STEVE TO conditions for a struggle those from which membership is drawn, instead of accepting it as the only light and truth.
Socialist Society can't have it both ways. Either it has open ranks everyone in the Labour movement, genuinely put-
ai the service of the entie
labour movement Or it can set about building a new party, , in which case if it wishes to contribute con sectarian and reines revolu tionary party, rather than the left's answer to the SDP - it must confront the practical issues facing the labour movement, and create an adequate democratic structure to do so.
The alternative is to take the well-trodden path of building a new sect
International
Viewpoint
the new fortniahtiv English-language news and information journal o the Fourth International produced in Paris. It com mences regular fortnightly publication this week. All Socialist Challenge readers are urged to subscribe
subscription Taines per ys 13 ourmascribe before 1 May: Bri-
(airmail $18). Australia,
Send cheques, postal orders made out to PEC, to In ternational Viewpoint, 2 rue Richard-Lenoir. 93018
25 February 1982 page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Prepare for a general strike'
THE following letter, addressed to all Solidarity activists, was signed by Zbigniew Janas, the chairman of the Solidarity chapter at the large Ursus tractor factory outside Warsaw and a member of the union's National Committee.
From the available information about the ac. tivities of the police and the Security Service and from the stepped-up propaganda against Solidarity members, we can con clude that the military regime is aiming to smash Solidarity and society. What activities should Solidarity members undertake?
1. It IS: for representatives union to link up and collaborate with each both within each factory unit and among different workforces: achieve this and to coordinate activities, prove the flow of information.
This will also serve to relay the experiences of the union. It is necessary to achieve collaboration between those in the factories and those outside, and with Its am to
private homes outside of working hours.
2. It is indispensable to organise broad material and moral support for the families of those arrested and persecuted. This must be carried out in a regular and ongoing way. Therefore it is organise collections of money from friends in the work brigade and union groups.
It must be remembered that such activities arouse solidarity among people and make the deprivation
anyone impossible.
These actions must be undertaken immediately. considering the weight of their moral influence over people.
3. It establish contacts with underground publishing houses with the aim of distributing leaflets and all other unofficial publications. This activity is enor-
nie
POLAND & THE LEFT
OLIVER MACDONALD
CND: JOAN RUDDOCK INTERVIEWED
Socialist Challenge
Solidarnosc leader argues
mously important in light of the complete propaganda broadcast by the mass nICH lies. slanders, and distorts the January issue Oliver Poland,
Economic
cheques tional", don N1 2XP. mic Disaster
25 February 1982 page 12
facts on the basis of Goebbel's maxim that alie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth.
This activity must be
CZOS
carried out great considering the SourCeya SEGUELY CHTCHS COnSECURACHS But do not lightly give up INTERNATIONAL
features MacDonald on interview WIEn Joan Ruddock of CND, Ernest Mandel on British
Disaster and much more! Just 60p per copy, or f4.50 for an annual subscription. Send
to InternaPO Box 50, Lon-
these activities without considering the security threat. 4. Strictly union activities must also be undertaken. The elimination of all rights and the increase in the number of reprisals by
THESEE tatives and party activists makes it necessary to oppose such actions with all our strength, and to gather the names of those who have attempted to carry out these types of actions.
With this aim, files relating to illegal and antipeople activities party and administrative apparatus must be established. These files should be decentralised so that the loss of one does not lead to the loss of all of them. To the extent that it is possible. it is vital to print illegal documents
distribute among the workforce.
In this difficult period. these activities must not be left to the future: the raising of labour concepts
the establishment of new
collective arangements and the carrying out of other legal activities that help workers, such as those concerning safety and health conditions. This is important so that the authorities themselves do not imagine that our powerful organisation can be destroyed by one or a Tew blows
5. Written protests must be made, both individually and collectively condemning the actions of the military junta and demanding freedom for arrested union activists and the restoration of society's independent rights. These should be legibly signed. since only then will they have propaganda and moral value.
6. In anticipation of social explosion, necessary to prepare for the proclamation of a
strike *Thesd preparations must be carried out in great secrecy. With this aim, clandestine committees must be set up, which snou under
take the organisational preparations
They must not, however, carry out active resistance SInCE that could lead to bloodshed.
this country, the government, which claims to rest on the workers, has already spilled workers' blood Remember that they are murderers. It does not matter to them how many ceocle are shot down it n serves their interests
To conclude, l remind all activists that they were chosen through democratic elections for two year terms They
Appeal for South
Yorks Polish
Solidarity Committee
port for their struggles.
union.
theid state in South Africa.
aimed at those same Polish workers.
Polish workers of Solidarnose:
defence of working people and their interests.
workers for:
* an end to martial law
prisoners
• no intervention in Poland by ourside states
Western banks
* material aid to Solidarnose by the TUC
* trades union delepations to visit Polane
trude union meetings
Connelly,
AUEW convenor BSC
Rotherham. SM Wood.
makers
AUEW convenor BSC Rotherham.
sponsoring meetings
Rotherham with Solidarnose speakers.
7DP. Ring 0742-617174.
were given this approval and nothing but nothing can prevent them from fulfilling their role of serv. ing those who elected them.
Remember: we cannot defend ourselves through ignorance or fear. Each of must RACHETE TRE they can do when it is possible, but also what to do when it is necessary to risk their jobs or even their treedom. in inese amcul days we must all prevent the destruction of Solidari ty, which is the only hope of Poles For us, the sun will shine once again.
THE APPEAL below is to launch the Polish Solidarity Committee in the South Yorkshire area and to organise meetings with Solidarnosc speakers to win sup
We believe that the hackbone of the campaign to defend trade union and labour organisation in Poland can only come from the frade union and labour movement in Britain, and internationally.
It is sheer hypocrisy for President Reagan or Margaret Thatcher to support trade union and democratic rights in Poland, while they are attack ing the workers of their own countries with anti-union legisiation such as the Tebbit Employment Bill, or the smashing of the air traffic controllers'
We believe that it is sheer hypocrisy to condemn the military dictatorship in Poland, while propping up the genocidal regime in El Salvador, the military regime in Turkey, or the racist apar-
It is sheer hypocrisy to talk of defending the Polish workers in Solidarnose while making a TOSSE ESCOREED BE MUSEME CEMETEERS NONE Cruise and Trident missiles, many of which will be
It is only we, the trade unionists in Britain and internationally, who have the right to call the
brothers and sisters, comrades, as their cause is our cause — the
We therefore support the struggle of the Polish
* the release of Lech Walesa and all other politica
* food and medical aid for the Polish workers • the cancellation of all debis and interest to
• Solidarnose speakers to address Labour and
Rotherham BSC Crafts Committee (who have also donated £50 to the campaign), Bernard
convenor Rotherham and South
Tinsley Wright, AUEW convenor BSC River Don, D Gooding, AUEW Convenor BSC Stainless, R Bostock, NUSM WCM & BE convenor BSC
Boilermaker convenor BSC Rotherham, N Blanchard, Boiler-
convenor BSC Stainless, R Elsom, Craft Convenor BSC Tinsley Park, P Storer,
The Rotherham works craft committee are
Sheffield and Contact Rab Bird, 279 Ellesmere Rd. Sheffield S
Page 13 scan of this page
Miners should back Polish workers
THE brutal repression of the Polish miners following the imposition of martial law has angered many miners in this country. Poland has become a major issue in the union.
Yorkshire Miner correctly condemned the hypocrisy of Thatcher and Reagan over Poland. It pointed out that if British workers fought for some of Solidarosc's
crucified in the press.
'Poland's Communist Par-
enormous responsibility for what has happened in their country.
But then it changes its tune attacking Solidarnosc as follows: long before Solidarosc began LIL ments which had about as much to do with as Maggie Thatcher.
It continues: There are neutral reports of Solidar nosc beino intested with some of the very worst neo-fascist, ultra-national
and ant-semine elements. Not one shred
aucence: s given to back this up. Protest
The Yorkshire Miner anice claims to point ine finger at the guilty parties.
one*. The truth is that it is a cover-up for the bureau-
HANDS
OFF
Badges: 20p+ 11%
p&p. Bulk
London EnClOsE
ques? postor orner made
Socialist Challenge: pamphlet on planning for jobs need. Noncertle coin coinciding Northern ference on 6 February.
the conference Terry warsland of Tobacco Workers explain ed in a kevnote speech. how her union was back
Stewards had organised factory Hoor
education on nuclear Carmanen 20174
teeth of management at
gag political
discussions
The pamphlet will give
valuable
multants wantnu to tollov her union's led lt is in tended to show practically
Poland who brought the economy to its knees to defend their
and privileges They have about as much to do with socialism as Thatcher and Reagan,
Militante in the NuM should write letters to the Yorkshire Miner OTO testing about this dis Heard arce and pul ting the truth about Solidarosc. The Yorkshire Miner's view can only discredit the left in the eyes of the union member ship playing into the hands of the right wing
By contrast the Scottish Miner
BICOCHIS largely factual account of the Polish events from summer though it fence. All the ends sitting the
TIME TAPTE were forces on both sides deepening connict instead of smoothing it away.
Mick Mccaney dent of the Scottish NUM, has called for the release of the 18 miners* leaders interned following the stay down sinkes Piast, Wujek and Ziemovit
Silesis Xmas. He has demanded the end of martial law, and offered to mediate bet
the Polish miners WEET and their government.
SOLDARTY
Socialist Challenge
PAMPHLET
2000 copies said in firs
week! Order your copies
now of the second edition.
Just 25p or 20p for sup porters groups orders.
JOBS NOT BOMBS
Atma Singh looks at a new anti-nuclear
and
A timely pamphlet has been produced in with the successful Labour movement conhow arms production facilities could be con-
needsthough it deals with
Tyneside. explicitly argues against regional. ism so typical of Labour Party bureaucrats: In no sense, # says. SHOUTS examples relating to Tuneside be mleroreted
as pleading a special case
possibilities in planned production by taking into
account the type of arms and nuclear energy pro
Such offers are likely to fall on deaf ears. The bureaucracy doesn't want negotiations. It wants to smash Solidarnosc, ferably forever. It knows it can't co-exist for long with a mass independent work ing class movement.
Other areas of the
to aid the Polish workers. The union in South Wales has demanded that delegation be allowed to visit Poland. Nottinghamshire has given €2,000 for Medal a10 well as backing a recent demonducton m te area. con
necting this to the social
which have already been discussed in specific
bined heat and power district heating scheme drawn up by the Parsons shop stewards commit tee). tries link
together such alternative
isolated natives
coherent whole.
it places conversion in
the context of an alter-
but casts useful criticisms
against LEIL TUC and
Labour Party economic
strategy. How is conver-
sion to be made a working
mality? Conversion.
dependent upon a socialist
government requiring ac
countability lor
huge sums of public
The national executive is also considering what action to take. Proposals include unions to seek a ban on imports of Polish coal. raising money for the families of miners killed imprisoned or blacklisted calling for release of union
ana sending union delegation to Poland. Banning Polish coal is no way forward if it means asking Thatcher to stop the imports.
The NUM should give the lead in organising a The hated Polish militia on the Warsaw streets
money are spent. Cont
planning
ments. nationalisation, legislation on conversion, community participation
and workers control
likes Vickers can socially controlled. the pamphlet points out
However, the discussion of likely 'mass institu tional opposition by the capitalist and state is totally inadequate and there is no conception of a strategy of massaction or a seizure of control this mass is Apparently this mass stitutional supposed to vanish into
thin air with the election of an accountable socialist government
I his evasion relates to
discussed in the pamphlet.
powertul about move ment campaign for aid to Solidarnos and for sup port to the Polish workers Vilitants can begin the fight for such a campaign by getting out the truth about what Solidarnosc stands for. That's the best way to expose the hypo crisy of the right wing
A start can be made by submitting appeals to Area Councils, calling on them to invite representatives of the Solidarnosc trade union working group
speak meetings, to tour the pits and welfares Conversion is not placed in
international context or related to me presen crisis of the British economy
labour ESCHESTR strategy tor conversion cannot be effective unless
is accompanied by
WElL as economic strategy.
Despite such criticisms (which need to be given flesh in political mass ac-
tion) the pamphlet is a ma-
jor step forward for the CND in its political think A DOWN movement
176.
*Jobs for a Change: Alter-
Days of Hope workshop. 115
Westgate:
up per copy Reductions for
local anti-missiles campaign
missiles movement
East constituency party and Young
Solidarnose trade union working
mittee. Ring Leeds 490927 for details
aims to increase stickers and badges, collection sheets.
01-373 3492.
include: Eric Heffer MP, Member OT (Labour Focus on Eastern Europe) Brent: Brent South
7.30pm
Solidarnos member
Speakers include Healey. Joan Lestor and a TUC speaker Nottingham:
Eastern Europe).
Solidarity with Solidarnosc.
Eastern Europe Solidarity
METONE
paign, 10 Park Drive, London NW11. Solidarity Committees with Solidarnosc
11. Ring 021-773 5396
Jenkins 87 Beatty 0222-764195.
ASTMS, 26 Queens Rd, Coventry
041-632 1839
Drive, London NW11. Ring 01-458 1501.
Kingsland High St, London E8
Ring 0532 490927.
Banbury Rd, Oxford. Ring 0865 58238
London E13 Ring
SW5. Ring 01-373 3492.
Labour Poland
Solidarity
round-up
Oxford: more than two hundred people marched last Saturday to a rally in support of Solidarnosc organised by the Oxford Labour Committee on Poland. The committee was set up by the Oxford and District Trades Council. Gregorz Banecki of the independent students union, NZS, appealed to the Oxford students to support the NZS. Locai Labour councillor Peter Mass also spoke. The
Campaign ATOM
backed the demonstration following a discus sion on the significance of Poland for the anti-
Leeds: More than one hundred people attended a meeting to support Solidarosc on 16 February. supported by the Leeds Labour Left, Leeds North
Socialists branch. Speakers included Ivek Bialecki of the
group, Victor Moszcynski of the PSC and Geoff Bloomfield, a fulltime officer of the TGWU in Bradford. The meenna agreed to establis a local songarty com
Solidarnose trade union working group: com brised ot soldarnosc members in Britain. it calls for: freeing of all internees, lifting of the state of war, the return of confiscated union property, the resumption of union activities by Solidarnosc. It
Solidarosc's links with the Brtish trade unions and to disseminate intormation on the situation in Poland. You can help by: subscribing to their bulletin, at E5 per quarter including postage; twin with factories and regions adopt internees, raise money for those imprisoned and for Solidarnosc's underground union actions; don't buy goods imported from Poland; take our
. Contact us at: 64 Philbeach Gardens, London SW5 9E. Ring
Battersea: Labour Party public meeting 'Solidarity with Solidarnos' on Wed 3 March at 7.30pm in Lower Town Hall, Lavender Hill, SW11. Speakers
Ron Keating (NUPE), Solidarnoss, Oliver MacDonald
Labour Party meeting 'Solidarity with Solidarose on Wed 17 March at
Stonebridge School, Shakespeare Ave NW10. Speakers include: Eric Heffer MP Oliver MacDonald (Labour Focus on Eastern Europe,)
Central London: Major London Labour Party rally on Tue 16 March at Central Hall, Westminster at
Eric Heffer, Denis
Solidarity with Solidarnosc meetine on thur 1 March at? Domat Towe of fices, 259 Mansfield Rd. Speakers include Piotr Kozlowski of Solidarnose trade union working
Oliver MacDonald (Labour Focus Called by Labour Movement
Campaign: new leaflet available containing useful solidarity infor-
the Labour Party international committee resolution on Poland, the resolution from the Lancashire Association of Trades Councils, a list or sondary commitees and omer sitement Send for copies to Eastern Europe Solidarity Car
Birmingham Polish Solidarity Committee. c/o Roger Murray. 28 Blackford Road, Birmingham Cardiff Polish Solidarity Committée, c/o Mark
Ave, Cardiff. Ring Coventry Solidarity Committee, John Fisher c/o
Glasgow Polish Solidarity Committee, c/o lan McCalman, 18 Mossgiel Rd, Glasgow G43. Ring
Greater Manchester Polish Solidarity Committee, c/o Jon Silberman, 51 Montrose House Crete St, Oldham, Lancs. Ring 061-620 2885 Eastern Europe Solidarity Campaign, 10 Park
Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, Box 23, 136
Leeds Polish Solidarity Committee, c/o Dave Feickert, 28 Roundhay Mount, Leeds 8, Yorkshire
Oxford Labour Committee on Poland, 468
Polish Solidarity Committee, 69 Edinburgh Rd
01-422 2218 for London speakers, or 01-249 2665 for out of London. Solidarnose Trade Union Working Group in UK. 64 Philbeach Gardens, Earls Court, London
Solidarity Fund, c/o Cooperative Bank, 110 Leman St, London E1,
Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982 page 1
Page 14 scan of this page
No British support for Reagan's plans
By Phil Hearse A DELUGE of popular rejoicing took place on May 10 last year when Francois Mitterand was elected President of France, ending an unbroken run of right-wing
since the second world war. Since the general strike and factory occupations of May-June 1968 the French left has grown, re-organised and prepared itself through
HOMETOUS struggles and electoral tests to break the grip of the right wing and open the transition towards socialism.
After nine months of Socialist Party government. the struggle between the working class and the bosses developing only slowly in marked contrast to what many on the left had expected.
The left has come to power in rrance in a rather different context than was foreseen dur. ing the 1970s. While the Socialist Party victory reflects the deep radicalisation and recomposition of the working class since 1968, especially the shift to the left among young workers and women
the Socialist WOTKErs. victory in the PresidenBy Megan Martin IN THE WAKE of fresh revelations by the Washington Post of a US plan to bring down the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign in Britain has issued a call to its supporters to put
on the BUSSUE British government to dissociate itself from Reagan's policies in Central America.
deputation, organised by the campaign, is going to the
Office This week to seek clarification on the ments policy towards Nicaragua. The deputation includes representatives from Labour, Liberal and Plaid Cymru. Others who could not be part of the delegation notucing Socialist Challenge 25 February 1982 page 14
France- the lull
before the storm
tial and Assembly elec tions did not occur at a time of massive working class upsurge.
On the contrary, as a result of the austerity IRCUSURES bourgeoisie and nearly two million unemployed the number of strikes 1980 the since 1953. Over the last TOUT years une largest trade union federation. the Communist-led CGT, has lost nearly half its members, from 23 million to million. Mitterand has therefore not come to power on the back of a massive wave of working Class struggles, as did the Popular Front government in 1936, in which the government would have to preside over a very sharp clash between the classes. Doubt
Mitterand has been elected for a seven year term. and the parliament for five years. The Socialist president therefore argues that he has the time to proceed gradually, and many worker are inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt - for the time being. But the depth of the economic crisis. and the experience of the government so far. show that fundamental choices cannot be long delayed.
In the realm of civil liberties the government has already taken
in Central America
David Owen of the SDP and Lawrence Daly of the NUM - have sent letters.
The Parliamentary Select Committee Foreign Affairs is planning visit Central America in March and has been hearing evicence from interested parties.
Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign is asking all its supporters
MPs (in particular Tory MPs) or to go and see them at their surgeries to take up the points which the deputation will be making. These include:
1. Does the govern-
support the threats made by the US of economic military action against Nicaragua? If not, why has it not made public its disapproval? 2. Will the government give guarantees that
Francois Mitterrand: his period of grace is coming to an end. a number of very progressive measures. The death penalty has been abolished and the State Security court has been abolished. Moves have
made wrest television away from Giscard's appointees. the deportation of immigrants has stopped and BRISOARTS have been freed. Of course these measures are immensely progressive, but they are the 'easy' measures
they don't inTO LONG volve trampling on any
the bosses' fundamental rights.
Much in-
LOSe dicative of the general direction in which the government is going are their actions on shorter working hours and nationalisations. Mitterand came to power British military personnel and installations in the Caribbean STITSH arms Honduras will not be used to provide support for military aggression against Nicaragua? (There have been reports of British naval vessels taking part in Joint CHOEUVIES off the Honduran coast and of tanks being sold to Honduras). 3. Does the POVERTE ment intend to provide
Said government of Nicaragua? (The only contribution made so far has been the cost of fliants bv two Hercules transport planes deliver medical relief supplies two three days after the fall of Somoza, the por
SIUS tion of EEC aid borne by Britain's contribution to the EEC budget - and over which the govern ment had no choice! 4. When will the British
International.
pledged to reduce the working week to 35 hours and to cive more holidays. Already the government has granted a fifth week's statutory paid holiday. but it has compromised on the 35-hour week.
An agreement has been made with the French emplovers' organisation the CNPF to immediately introduce a 39-hour work-
week the 35-hour week over five
This gives the employers lots of time for prevarication during the negotiations
Moreover the employers are turning the introduction of the 39-hour week their
advantage saying that to compensate for the reduction workers must agree more
Embassy in Managua be re-opened? 5. When does the government intend to follow France's example in selling military
to the Nicaraguan government? (Or should we assume that the government is
ITT-
arms to the likes ol
flexible' rostering OT work hours, reduction in meal breaks etc.
Already whole series of struggles have broken out against these attempts by the bosses to use the shorter working week to deal a blow to the
including WOTKETS among government workers. customs of ficers and airport workers as well as factory workers. But these struggles are far from being a nationally co. ordinated movement: for the moment they remain fragmented and sectoralised.
The nationalisation programme of the government has come up against the TES SInCE or The Counts Mitterand proposed the nationalisation of five industrial groups, two finance holding
banks which remained outside the framework of the nationalised banking system, Despite the fact that
compensagenerous tion was offered, the Constitutional Council, France's •Supreme Court on major constitutional matters ruled that it was not enough Bosses
Mitterand accepted their decision and thus the bosses will get billions of francs more
addition the implementation of the na tionalisations will be held up. The decision of the Constitutional Council is typical of the kind obstruction which the ruling class will put in the way of the Socialist government.
An indication of the fundamental problems which the French government will face. nowever. is the attack on social security which it has already carried out. Faced with the
Pinochet in Chile?) Socialist Challenge should combine activity around these points with vigorous efforts to mobilise for the March demonstration called by the EI Salvador Solidarity Campaign against US intervention Salvador and Central EL SALVADOR SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION To coincide with the government's fraudulent elections Sunday 28 March Assemble Speakers Corner 1 pm March to rally in Trafalgar Square
crisis of state
PXDEN diture the government mcreased workers na-
insurance contributions by far more than those of employers. and in-
•La> unemployment benefit. This is not a good sign for the future.
The new political
situationise toning to e
re-organisation workers movement. The Communist Party, which has traditionally been the best organised party in the factories commanding per cent of the votes in elections. is suffering on
position has fallen back badly. and the CP's position in the unions has also suffered. Grip
In the Communist-led CGT the grip of the CP at rank and file level is slackening. while in many elections for shop stewards and representatives the pro Socialist CFDT is tending to gain at the expense of CGT. This reflects the deep suspicion with which the CP is regard
OT SSES tarianism and its move away from "Euro communism' towards traditional pro-Russian
The events in Poland, which have had a big impact in France have deeply shaken both the CP and the CGT leadership, as rank
verage IP presents week in and week
evlin MeAliskey. Hugo Blam
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The immediate pic ture the organisation of the workers movement
of a move away from the CP towards the Socialist Party. But the reality is more complex.
As the economic crisis deepens, the Socialist Party government for that is what it essentialIV is despite the STESEnCE ministers - will have to administer the crisis.
Any progressive moves it makes will meet the InCESCIV resistance of bourgeoisie. organisation of the trade unions and workers" parties is also taking the form of the development of opposi tional currents at the base of the movement.
Today in France, there precedented concentration of power in the hands of the workers parties both at a na tional and local level.
jority are still giving Mitterand what he calls his "period of grace. But it will not last for ever.
As the crisis deepens the workers will increasingly come into conflict with the bosses. The first nine of socialist MOTENS government have been
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Page 15 scan of this page
John Reed-writer and revolutionary
By Andrew Britton
the vital interrelation between
ment of the real
socialism!
It should not detract
from one's admiration of,
and gramude to. Warren
Beatty, the film's pro-
ducer director, and
author with Trevor Grit
fiths, that such a proiect is
contradictory. The film's
very are
creative, and I wish briefly
to indicate the major ones
The central identifica
tion-figure Reds is not
John Reed (Beatty) but
Louise Bryant (Diane
Keaton). The reason
clear enough: the film
needs introduce the
spectator to political
tivisim through a character
external to it. However,
this device blocks
discussion of ideas. In her
first interview with Reed
cute comedy is employed
to convince us that Reed,
though a socialist, is also
loveable: charm
established at the expense
of what he actually says.
Later, the political
debates within
American CP are mediated
close-ups of Bryant
looking pained and disillu-
signalling what
our own reaction is to be,
undoubtedly
Excerpts from
reken fromy Ringe
taken from American socialist paper Militant.
Whatever its shortcomings, artistically or political. ly. Reds towers over the average commercial film and is definitely worth seeing
We see the indispensable ingredient of authentic revolution the masses of people intervening decisively in the historical process.
But the film also highlights Reed's eventful life.
Reting yed national
putting spotlight on the Paterson, New Jersey. silk strike 913. He told the story of Pancho Villa's Mexican sueras, ana reported on the Ludlow, Colorado,
PENS
WELLWORTH.
SEEING
THE VERY existence of Reds is astonishing.
Here is a Hollywood movie, funded (to the tune
of forty million dollars) by a subsidiary of Gulf Oil, which attributes heroic status to the
life and struggles of a revolutionary socialist,
affirms the Bolshevik insurrection and insists on
the achieve equality of the sexes and
bolsters reflex convictions about the sterile, incestuous bickering of the left. Elsewhere however, particularly in the marvel lous scenes with Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson). use Bryant to criticise complacent, jaded bourgeois cynicism about political/sexual radicalism derives force from identification-figure Bryant's status While Reds backs the October Revolution exITeMey unclear about the revolution's degeneration. Reed is allowed, conversation with emma Goldmann (Maureen Stapleton), to voice some Trotsky's analysis of Stalinism: terms of the isolation soviets Within world capitalism, and much is made of imperialism's attempt crush the regime The film
portray obsessive, and born of his personal need to reject the SUSOICIOn his life's work has been wasted.
Similarly Goldmann's flat assertion that the system work' mine strike where workers were massacred.
Reds features exciting scenes of Reed as a fighter against World War 1, and then as he plunges into the Russian revolution and its And with all this. his tempestuous relationship with Louise Bryant. That relationship major theme of Reds In Petrograd Reed witnessed the tumultuous days leading to the formation of the revolutionary government. He reported
Reds opens this week in London.
American
two
John
Revolution.
smacks of the bourgeois
jibe that socialism cannot
and must
Stalinist.
Because Goldmann is
herself a radical (though
not, of course, a Leninist)
thé revolution seems to be
condemned out of its own
mouth. The negative
meaning is reinforced by
the film's failure even
hint at the existence of a
left opposition
Stalinisation
WATER the
Bolshevik Party: the sup-
pression of resistance
EnE bureaucracy naturally
confirms a feeling that the
TEVOLTON had go
wrong
Reds also am-
biguous about socialist
the West,
and it is easy see how
this relates to the omission
the struggle between
Stalinism
SOMBISM
one country'l and the in
ternationalist left opposi-
Reed's speech to the
striking workers is explicit-
ly internationalist, and
given weight.
the same time,
Louise Bryant is continual
used to imply that
westerr
should propagandise for
soviets rather than
build permanent revolu-
tion (the irony is lost on
the film. This is a classical
Stalinist line). We
film's WIL the revolution brilliantly and was won to it totally.
Reds captures some of the drama of Reed's return
the UNITED States in 1918 to tell the story of the Russian
TEVOLTON first hand. On his return he wrote numerous articles and spoke many meetings.
Then, after winning back notes
GanG documents confiscated by the U.S. government on nis return nere. he wrote the classic Ten Days that Shook the World
Under Review
The
film, which has been nominated for a
dozen awards, deals with the lives of
revolutionaries
Louise Bryant and John Reed - and
their involvement with the Russian
Reed's book Ten
Days that Shook the World has become
a classic account of the revolution.
criticism, through Bryant, of the idea of the party as dispensing orders to the go workers.
The problem is that she can also be read as rejecting the need for revolutionary parties in the West is just possible to read Reds as a big, romantic adventure movie which to is left, at the end, with the
one female eat love' self-sacrifice) the only antidote political despair. to Bourgeois journalists have
dredged up comparisons with Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago preserve their liberalism. During the revolution sequence. with the Internationale blazing on une soundtrack, the film inter cuts shots of the festival of Streets with shots of Reed ODOTESSEE and Bryant making love for the first time since their relationship broken dOWn over Bryant's demands for sexual and professional dependence.
But the intended implication is clear enough: Reds leaves us with a cou ple whose achieved, after long and painful struggle, through a mutual commitment to socialism.
The value of audacities such as this was brought home to me very movingly
by the reaction of the two
Lenin wrote a foreward to Ten Days in which he
said "Unreservedly do i
recommend the
workers of the world. Here
is a book which I should
like to see published in
millions LOT copies and
translated IntO all
languages.
John Reed did more
than write an important
book Reds recounts
with limited success the
important chapter
Reed's life when he plung-
ed into the working
building a party in the USA
that would seek to follow
the path charted by the
Russian revolution.
On his 1920
Reed was buried in Red
Square only
American so honoured.
But there are also parts
of Reds that can be and
have been construed as
anti-communist.
Beatty co-writer
Trevor Griffiths appear to
have stumbled, wittingly
or unwittingly, into a cam-
paign that has persisted
land as for
to
Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton in Reds
CUMENCE with which
saw the film this Christmas
in Toronto. On both occa
sions, the sequence I have
just described was receiv-
ed with spontanenous ap-
plause, and as I left at the
end many were humming in- the Internationale
Sheds limitations are
obvious, but movie
that can do that land |
know of no others that
nave s infinitely more
than the sum of its inade-
Ten Days That Shook the
World and Insurgent Mexico
both available from The Other
Bookshop and Birmingham's
Other Bookshop
for some sixty years by renegades trom comclaim Reed as their own: COUCHSO determined to people who declare that Reed became disillusioned with the revolution and died a trapped dissident.
But the "evidence" that Reed died disillusioned is based almost exclusively on what lawyers would describe as hearsay
sometimestwo and three-times removed. There is not a word in Reed's last writings confirm this. Quite the op posite.
I think a study of the available record confirms what Hugo Gellert, an early communist, recalls Reed saying to him on his first return from revolutionary Russia. As the final film credits are being shown on the screen, Gellert is heard sayn Grand things
are ahead, worth living and dying for." He always said that.
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Page 16 scan of this page
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Tories want these sweat shop conditions for youth throughout British industry
By Mark Hackett
Our motto
By P Ryan
THE ITALIAN revolutionary, Antonio Gramsci, summed it up: Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will he said. motto here in the Socialist Challenge Fund Drive department. It's a good motto, we like it, but it doesn't convince bank managers. take their mottos from the likes of Milton Friedman who, in the course of writing key monetarist texts, came up with this: no such thing as a free meal.
Regrettably. having looked at this from all angles, we are forced to agree adage. It is true, there is no such thing as a tree meal. And that's where you come in.
Producing Socialist Challenge Involves sending reporters and campaign organisers all over the country to get the very best coverage.
Just in the last fort night we sent a reporter to Dublin to cover Ber nadette's election cam paign, we BLODH to the picket line at LATTERED Scotts, Leyland Vehicles, and with the Solidarnose trade union working group all over Scotland and we plan to continue. We need your support.
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THIS Thursday's lobby of parliament organised by the YOPS Trainees Union Rights Campaign. backed by the Labour Party Young Socialists is the start to a much needed fightback against the Tories's attack on young people's living wa Yihe
government wage-cutting over the last two years threatens 10 reduce real income to 40 per cent of 1980 levels.
Young Workers Scheme encourages employers to pay less than E40 a week. to receive a ETS a week subsidy for 52 CETUETUUICEE weeks. It
blames excess wages paid to young people for the 50 per cent jobless levels.
The opposite is true: many young workers are working for low wages even as low as £10 a week Tor Fun ume and portsune work
Although the Youth Training Scheme may provide some higher quality training for a tew will mean an enormous cut in income to E15 e week to 16 year olds on YOPs
This is combined with the removal of the right of 16 year old unemploved young peopieto SOLE security
massive campaign te Enonise YOPS We must demand of the TUC tha C00R00n
support for YOPs, laur ches serious fight against Youth Training Schemes Young Workers
and helps unionise more already or YOPs into the unions
We must demand the
work and the nationalisa tion o firms making re
OTOLICELE public works, building schools homes, railways and essential medical equip me we must demand minimum wage for
the unemployed protected against inflation, the right TO training and further education and employ ment at trade union rates with job security the strenmi of the hind This means movement to defend the interests of young jobless
Bill and this cynical subsidy tO the bosses to hire young non unionised workers are the
labour movement the Tones must be defeater.
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