Socialist Action No. 15, 24 June 1983
The scan: 015-jun-24-1983-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Defend our unions Katowice -- Workers unfurl Solidarnosc banner during papal mass.... thousands march through Warsaw
chanting
called
Photo: JOHN HARRIS
No. 16 24 June 1983 30p
SoCiAlist
AcTioN
'Solidarity....
London -- New laws against unions announced in Queen's Speech...• miners leader Arthur Scargill has
for political strikes
WILL THE TUC ACT?
+
Peoples march for jobs
Santiago -- Copper miners call for new national strike for the of union leader Rodolfo Seguel
release POLAND,
CHILE
MODERN
TIMES HiL I told you not to let him near that Polish vodka, for chrissake!
Page 2 scan of this page
Socialism or survival Chapple's choice
Women ignored - WAC fight back!
Socialist Action 24 June 1983 Model resolutions for
Labour
Party
conference
Women's organisation within the party THIS CLP notes the effects of privatisation and members ot the NEL s * omen's DivisIon be somen, they should also represent women and be accountable to them.
Further, conference
notes that the Women's Division of the NEC is the only one not directly
a omen a priviledge long conceded to the trade unions. He soclalisl societies and the Young Socialists.
Conference therefore
resolves that the Women's Division of the NEC should be elected by the National Conference of Labour Women. . Conference instructs the Na cional Executive Commita 1o draft amendments to
sitution and Standing
incorporating this annelpie, and to suomit bese amendments for approval by conference no laier inan uclodel 1904
(This resolution is supported by ihe CLPD Homen's Action Commitite).
Abortion
THIS CLP notes the ef-
facts of privitisation and
the cutbacks in NHS
facilities on women's ac-
*as to sare uree aborlolls
on the NHS. We note the
boost that the election of
ine rory government nas
riven to the right-wing
Moral Majority' in organisa-
tions like LIFE and SPUC io launch attacks on
women's freedom of choice
over the termination ot her
Ne also note the
mobilisations of similar
organisations in Ireland,
Spain and the USA. As the
economic crisis drives
women out of the
workforce we believe that
these organisations will
step up their campaigns for
restrictive legislation.
nas conterence re-
affirms its commitment to
a free and comprenensive
ahortion service avalabic
through the
National Health Service.
we merce to canoden
for a statutory duty on the
NHS to provide adequate
abortion facilities in all
areas and for an end to all
legislation which restricts a
women's right to choose.
In the light of con-
ference and TUC policy on
this issue we note with
alarm the clause referring
to abortion in Labour's
Manifesto which simply
talks of 'defending.
women's existing right of
choice'. suchakowi
by the NEC on women's
nahts will not win women's
votes away from the
SDP/Liberal Alliance.
This conterence
therefore resolves to cen-
sure the NEC for
misrepresenting conference
policies and betraying the
demands of women in its
1983 manifesto on this
LODIL
Labour leadership
LABOUR'S LEADERSHIP election will be the first opportunity for the labour movement to draw out the lessons of the general election disaster.
The right-wing are already using their privileged access to the Tory press to put their message across: 'Labour's defeat was due to left-wing policies.'
Frank Chapple chair-
of the TUC and Illall general secretary of the
electrician's union •nas that the choice obe. furthest, the
where
vival'.
surprise to learn that
socialism! proposes
Norwork for Illall
Labour that
not
leadership Chapple favours the
likely to eradicate 'socialism' the Labour Peter Shore.
view. They recognise that onore, along will wells Healey and Callaghan, wide understoou to have
sabotaged Labour's election campaign by denouncing conference policies.
Lea by Ine executive committee of the AUEW they al C backing Hat-
Jo Richardson
IN THE FRANTIC flurry to line up trade union
votes in the Labour Party leadership stakes women
have once again been swept aside. Masculine ego
knows best
credibility' and their own political careers.
this potent combination
thoroughly felt in such true courteous and brotherly
buts.
Feminists in the party
fought a desperate rear-
guard against che
weight of the brotherly ad-
vice as they saw their one
chance of having real
tersley, who like Shore, sets Labour's first priority SDP-type polices and expelling the left wing of the Party.
Frank Chapple Hattersley's camp makes play of the fact that a MORI poll inLudl Labour voters would like SCe leading the Labour Party. In other words all those who would like the Labour Party to be more like the Alliance and should for VOLC Hattersley!
Roy" Kinnock has, SO far, emerged the favourite to replace Michae Foot. with the backing of ASTMS and the execulve the TGWU recommending especially when it comes to 'political
Jo Richardson might have stood (for deputy) if
hadn't made itself SO
fashion — 'well, ... Jo really isn't very well ... and
In the two or three days of furious discussion about the left's candidates not one man raised his voice in unequivocal enthusiasm for Richardson's candidature — it was aft hedged round with ifs and
voice in a party campaign being taken oh-sogenuly - from them It is perfectly true that Jo Richardson suffers from arthritis. But a pro-
him to their biennial conference this year.
• The right wing's main argument against Kinnock is that he would preserve the status quo, simply continuing the failures of the Foot regime without Foot
In fact the only difference between Foot and Kinnock is that Kinnock has already statea Inal ne will take the Party further to the right: pursuing the witch hunts and dropping opposition to the EEC
What worries the bureaucrats backing Kinnock is the continuation
of war between the 'extremes' of the
'left' and 'right' within the Party
What worries the bureaucrats backing Kinnock is the continuation of
tremes' wal between of the 'left' and the 'ex'right within the Party.
What would the price of unity around Kinnock be? Kinnock nas sell already made this clear. His backroom deal Hattersley that both will stand for deputy leader etfectively creates a 'centreright' ticket for the leadership election.
Appeal
Nonetheless many on the left risk being seduced
Kinnock's appeal party unity: For example, the Scottish Labour Coor-
liferation of other Labour
Party notables aren't 100 per cent fit either in-
cluding Tony Benn - and
they don't incur patronis.
ing worry about their
capabilities.
Kinnock.
Moreover, Richardson
for
supported
leadership
was Joan
Lestor was given
the Cabinet,
for
Party
very leadership
offer.
would
involving who
It
would have focussed on
dividual.
herself rushing
dinating Committee have already endorsed him.
Kinnock's 'party unity" will be of the sort that continues the witch hunt and discipline parties who refuse to go along. . It will be of the sort
'unity' that gives the right-wing immunity to attack Labour's conference policies and the left, but prevents the left from fighting back.
It will be 'unity' which allows the right to organise their forces for a renewed offensive against democracy, policy and their supporters in the party.
The general election campaign itself gave clear answer to those in the LCC, and some of leaders of CLPD, who argue that our first priority should be unity'
It was the Foot leadership Healey,
WilO pave Hattersley and Shore pride of place in Labour's campaign.
It was Foot's refusal to defend policy
Healey and Callaghan which the media exploited to say thát Labour didn't know what its policies were.
around the country fulfilling all the speaking
herself.
have
in, really
ment. to lib-
allowed
the right to be the only
Dunthough she
woody
has the Na-
ously WAC
demcracy
famous
with
Peter Shore.
the only
leadership, Heffer,
ed it -
responsible for the
For too long the lefi has been held hostage to Foot and his supporters. As a result the right were able to manouevre Benn and Livingstone out of parliament.
It li tor inese reasoll: that Socialist Action will be supporting Heffer for leader and Meacher for deputy Eric Heffer paigning for them to unite their campaigns into single left slate for the leadership. That slate should be endorsed and campaigned for by Benn and Scargill
Thẹ backing. of the campaign for Eric Heffer by CLPD is a welcome step forward.
Hattersley claims that
the democracy
only major backer EN E AUEW where the membership has no say whatsoever in who the executive supports. abortion on request from
Feminists manifesto
will have no option but to
Heffer through vote u loyalty to the left and feeling that they at least stand
better chance under the
of his policies, but
women are becoming very
of being ignored by the left in the party when it comes to crunch issues like
leadership elections. Pink
This only leaves
Michael Meacher of the
Labour Co-ordinating
Committee. Meacher took
very little persuading
stand by as a deputy can-
didate while his colleagues
were expressing deep con-
cern about Jo Richardson
And no sooner had
Richardson declined than
pink knight was —
plop! - into the ring.
• While Meacher is cer-
tainly the best reminists
have got - he at least gives
verbal support to women's
we've known his
LLOWE ilk of old. " In practical
campaigning and fighting
terms 'support
usually tokenists. 'Mote the
merest
over, Meacher is a promi-
nent LCC member and the
LCC bless their pale
pink socks aren't even
supporting Heffer for the
leadership, Kinnock
instead.
One further point
should be made about this
debacle. This COCCE
slates for the NEC elec-
tions.
Frances Morrell, a leading
News
The left must campaign for the maximum involvement trade
membership deciding how the union
will be cast. That means Broad Lefts endors-
Heffer and Meacher and campaigning for special branch meetings to hear all sides and vote on candidates.
It means the final decision for the casting of the union's votes must lie with the sovreign bodies of the union • IS CONCICIC.
In the constituencies it will be necessary to resist
pseudo-unity
nock.
Of course. in the last resort, it may be necessary to back Kinnock to stop the right. But meanwhile it would be a massive retreat for the overwhelming majority of CLP's who in the past backed Benn to now give their first choice to
The right wing will be wanting to claim that this election marks the end of the 'Bennite left' in the Labour Party.
The maximum vote for Heffer and Meacher will
• demonstratior that the right wing will be
• step of the lougal cvery way.
will picpare the ground for building a wing -of the Labour Party which through agroust the Tory struggles
govern-
the can can that only
rebuild Labour's support. member of WAC, was per.
suaded to stand for a second time for
Women's Section. Now
she is suddenly Iroppe
from the LCC/CLP:
A member teler Hon
LCC member Peter
and
Schonfield
worried by Morrell's prin.
opposition
CLPD's support for
'witch-hunting' register.
principled
feminists watch out.
Cavorting
Needless
feminists in the Labour
Party are finding their pa-
tience with such masculine
cavorting running out.
their next meeting on 25
County Hall
London) will be
discussing its position or
the whole wretched
business
What seems clear now
is that • WAC wil not be
throwing its campaigning
strength behind any of the
leadership candidates, but
will be working out ways
to consolidate its rank and
file support among women
in the party.
One proposal is that
the WAC demand for al
least woman on
parliamentary snort-lis!
be changed to insist on all
woman short-lists. Such
radical thinking indicates
feminists increasing deter-
mination to make a more-
resolute-than-Thatcher
stand within the Labour
Party.
Page 3 scan of this page
Queen's speech: Tories unveil 'secret agenda'
News
The return
of hanging?
ONE OF the first results of the big Tory majority in the new parliament is that the return of hanging is being openly discussed.
Right wing organising in the House of Commons to try to get a vote on hanging before Christmas.
In the last parliament the attempt to reintroduce capital punishment was defeated, but only because of the overwhelming vote of the opposition benches against it.
While only about ten MPs from Labour and the Alliance voted for hang o he Tories did so. more than two thirds
Among Tory hangers Were the prime minister and
Now that there are twice as many Tory MPs as Labour MPs, a free vote on hangONde o ove a ver
different result.
Tirst vote in the House of Commons against cabral punisament was in 1948, a reflection of
large Labour MPs after the 1945 THATCHER SAID she needed 'a second, and maybe third' term of office to complete her programme. The package of legislation being served up in this week's Queens Speech at the state opening of parliament makes it clear that the Tories aim to use this period of government to strike a decisive blow the workers movement to strengthen policy and judicial powers and to weaken the state sector of the economy.
Norman Tebbit will bring forward more trade union legislation. While the more extreme idea of ending union funding of the Labour Party altogether is being dropped, measures" very dangerous to the Labour movement are being introduced.
Ballots will have to be held every ten years or so
whether the union should have political fund to help finance Labour. The Tories will try to ensure that a 'conpolitical levies is introduc- tracting ed.
These measures could lead either to whole unions having to aro affiliation to the Labour Party, or to a big reduction the number of members payIng the political levy.
Either way, the plan aim:
o strike a body blow at the financing of the Labour
Party.
Tory MP Teddy Taylor is busy
election. Well known socialists like Aneurin
Bstanned. Eventually phe
abstained. Eventually House of Lords refused to sanction and Attlee's government
further.
The final abolition of all hanging, except for war time military offences, in 1969. Between 1961 executions, were only carried out for certain types murder by shooting, Siliforof.But since that so forth. since that time the neandertai section of the Tory party has consistently campaigned for reintroduction.
This time round Teddy Taylor ano nis claim that they have a majority for hanging 'if the issue is posed in the right
Police powers will make it easier to scab on strikes
Other items of trade union legislation will include compulsory ballots for strikes and an attack
he closed shop
TELE
way,. In other words, they
ravour" of hangingte ir
favour hanging crimes of 'terrorism' and the killing of police officers and prison warders, and the use of firearms.
There is one massive problem for their plans. Ir 'crimes of terrorism' and the use of firearms is to be the criterion, then the first vem redor tion of capital punishment are likely the DoES privatise
British Telecoms
Bill is the fundamental attack
Pro-capital punishment students greeting recent execution in Texas Republicans®
The langin of Republicans would lead t
enormous outery Ireland, both north and south of the border. It is difficult to see how any British government would dare to risk the scale of disorders would
the execution of Irish freedom fighters.
But this kind of objection might not hold much into buildings; the ability to hold suspects in police stallolls for UD IO four days and demy suspers a
Ltd....
sway with the Tory back-
A free vote might yet result i victory for tael.
Recent Supreme Court decisions in the United States have resulted in a spate of executions, as the
prisoners in death rOW go to their deaths, by Various forms of execution have been used in different states — the electric chair, gassing, shooting by up road blocks for as long
they want, even as
whole com-
munities think
===70.:
Socialist Action
PREVAi LS!
firing squad and in one case a lethal injection. But no form of execution 'humane'
own longperfected hanging technique has resulted numerous cases of decapitation and slow strangulation. The fact that many Tory are seriously prepared to countenance a return to this barbarism is a sure inaicator or ine social reaction the Tories have set in
ion and search, includir
he age-old right of habe
corpus tis were 20: had
24 June 1983 3 motion. The maintenance of capital punishment is an indication of the lack of civilisation of a society.
Any chance of its reintroduction Britain would be enormous
backwards. That's why if the hanging lobby
way, whole Jabour and socialist move ment must exert every effort build gigantic movement to stop it ed, which will be even 11101. repressive. The Jellicoe Report suggested new restrictions the right to demonstrate as well.
A rapid confrontation with the Post Office Engineers' Union will develop as the Tories push forward their privatisation plan. As POEU members have been reported sent home already for refusing to link up the state system with the private Mercury system
The offensive against the nationalised industries will be extended to include
ownership of British Airways and parts of the National Bus Company, towards privatisation any part of the transpor system which might be • profitable. A new Housing Bill will be introduced as a • further attack on council - housing WIARD of this pro gramme was not contained
the Tory manifesto. With just 42 per cent of the vote, Thatcher has no mandate to launch this fundamental attack on the workers movement and
liberties movement resistance must include an immediate cam .paign against the police bill and support for POEL resistance to privatisation
Respectable parliamentary resistance will Do:
S:0D
Page 4 scan of this page
F YOU ARE speaking about who can speak for cotland we have as strong a claim as anyone' says Peorge Younger, Secretary of State for Scotland. We have a wider spread of our members than any
arty with absolutely no right to speak on behalf of
cottish seats. Despite the relentless media pressure or a Tory victory their 1983 vote dropped by nearly
50,000 to 969,000 giving them 41 seats, a decline pace 1979 of three seats.
ae the SDP/Liberal Alliance.
•claculal duvalles
carly 700,000 votes.
Whereas the Alliance
deeper class polarisa-
La social level in
roven to be utterly false.
battle for the rights
LUIDwa not
oll attitude survey con-
Socialist Action 24 June 1983
Scotland the grave?
But, the Scottish Tories are the only significant
In 1979 916,000 Scots voted Tory. They won 22
But Labour's vote dropped by more than
The real victors of the 1983 election in Scotland,
Labour voters, who mainafter a lacklustre
Labour candidate.
Hulluci VOLCA
Labour, which suffered a
1919, more man any owne. party in Scotland. To do as
tish dee ined in the SP tish vote and the 5.5 34.3 per cent of the pos percent more than
Give Labour 41 of the 72
Wese concentrated land's
pool were the only major
the Fory vote (double the in the U.K
A PECE OF THE ACTION
The tories have ho Wandave.
aLBa Leatha Fein asep o-marr
which now
Labour leaael, ueorge
Movement
following the election. Deeper
tish operation
and the Alliance asking for
met this week to discuss
strains on the Labour Par-
the sonal pro potic
movement are becoming
necessary to give a detailed
We will defeat But Thatcher cannot be de. caved in
«DEPENDENCE — SCOTLANDS FUTURE
now the labour movement will lead Jight for devolution.
su secrete shadow
inevilablc HESS calllbaizi
paign for the Assembly. It is in this area
the opular Pay tha together with its intimate
call would be made with those in the Labour Party who
Clail cessions to the Alliance. Argument
called for by Scargill) is the
for and sembly for he tories outside
movement in Scotland or it will come from nowhere. The slump in the SNP's vote does not indicate the lack of support for this project but rather the realistic feeling that only the labour movement in Scotland Cal deliver.
Forces outside the Labour Party and the trade unions in Scotland (like the Scottish Socialist Society) can enter important debates; but first must decide where it must concentrate its efforts.
Drew
It is the right wing of the Scottish labour movement that will use any 'honest brokerage' on offer between the parties in Scotland.
They will use it to break the back of the independent mass action campaign which must be fought for and launched
the Scottish Labour Party and trade unions.
Today the issue is to organise the forces at the base of the labour movement who want to launch that fight. It is the relationship ot forces which will determine how tar ine Assemoly Is usea a the watchword of the batte against natcher: and
far its powers will ultimately extend should it be wrung from the hands of the ruling class.
We must start Thatcher has no mandate in Scotland.
CORMAG
discuss he sullect
of electoral reform and proportional representation
IRELAND
UNFREE
What next for
Prior's
Assembly?
counties.
youth to starve to death.
government persisted.
The 1982
ment that fell in 1973.
United Kingdom, slipped in the ratings
the troops went in
Assembly
The failure of the Assembly
of the Westminster elections
up.
cordingly. scraped home in elections.
would put
is still there.
mind a massive strengthening
impose a powerful loyalist Assembly. Sen Fein Sinn
nationalism.
Hurthe 'softening spearheaded by the
year
mandered six-county state in the North.
News
THE FUTURE of the Northern Ireland Assembly, James Prior's brainchild, has not been aided by the election results in the six
The Assembly was first thought of at the closing stages of the H-block hunger strike. It was the 'Irish dimension' that Prior could use to sell the idea he was doing something more for the future of Ireland than allowing its
With the decline of the H-block movement, it started to resemble an attempt to give unimpeded Loyalist rule in the North a democratic facade. The Council of Ireland mooted in the original plans dropped from sight and only the Dublin
elections to the Assembly gave a massive spur to the Democratic Unionist Party oi lan Paisley who demanded the Assembly be given full powers to administer the attairs of the pro. vince and bring back the hated Stormont parlia-
The Official Unionist Party, tied more closely to the old Tory traditions of integration into the
In the same elections the success of sinn rein. joining the electoral arena for the first time since
contributed to the continuing decline of the Social Democratic and Labour Party who had lost any direction but collaboration successful was Sinn Fein, they managed to hold the
from the sham
even to hold together the Loyalist camp is seen from the results
where parties most COA DOTION with Ine British declined, and those wanting a fight went
This was the secret of Paisley's rise and he will not be slow to reassume his bombastic mantle acEnoch Powell, Official Unionist candidate,
It was expected that the failure of the Assembly
Prior's head on the chopping block when Thatcher was demonstrating the art of butchery as applied to the Cabinet. But the 'super wet'
This can only mean one thing. Thatcher has in
of the state apparatus in Britain to push ahead with attacks on the unions and Labour Party, on the welfare state and on blacks. She is going to prepare the ground for that by more repression in Ireland which will
tempt to boost the SDLP vote in the elections by
"al reland Horum' that excluded shows that the Southern government cannot easily halt the rise of militant revolutionar!
up' of the minority military in an attempt to reunify the loyalists is the prospect for the coming
British Labour must say clearly it gives no credibility to the fake Assembly set up in the gerry-
Page 5 scan of this page
women in the election?
-NOT REALLY
A SISTER!
The Women's
Movement
response
AS MELANIE PHILLIPS pointed out in an article in The Guardian the day before the general election, the women's movement has always found Mrs Thatcher rather difficult to handle.
underlies the difficulty is that the women's move-
issues.
This was always difficult
although unity can be achieved among women around the struggles and demands 01
- abortion, contraception, equal pay and education and so more and more women have been forced to link these to the broader question of what kind of economic social strategy will achieve them.
By Valerie Coultas
So we have seen women joining, political parties of the left, particularly the Labour Party has recently had a big influx of feminist women into its ranks.
Outwrite, unequivocal as usual, came out with a
• Recause thought of another Thatcner governmenl fills with absolute horror, those of us who can will be voting Labour on Polling Day'•
They then listed their reasons. Tory attitudes on
racism, health care, law and order, unemployment. the 'family', education 41u homelessness all being reasons to vote against the Tories and for Labour.
The Rights of Women (ROW) collective,
press conference called to
discuss women's issues in the election, took a dif ferent view.
pamphlet
Women Fight the Tories
carried detailed information specifying what four years of Tory rule had
meant for women, laying
this information our m the
context of the seven
demands.
'Another five years could prove
'They are putalcalace ting us out of paid jobs, cutting the welfare services and threatening to restrict
"our place" in the
us 10 home. The
women as a nation of housekeeners.'
But Jenny Earl, speak-
ing for the ROW collective, said they
couldn't agree on calling
for a Labour vote. She
suggested that
should vote against the
HARDLY EVEN FEMALE~ Images of the 'Iron Maiden' apart, what really
ment over the last ten years has tried to steer clear of 'male polities' and concentrate instead on women's
Tories but that each candidate should be judged locally on women's issues Decise neither of the other groupings had brilliant record on women.
The press conference turned into a lively forum for debate at this point. One of the women from Channel 4'S Broadside suggested that the Labour Party had far more to say
it's manifesto women calling for increases in child benefits, Dosilive prog rammes, the establishment of Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value than any of the other parties.
It was pointed out that there were women standing from both the SDP and the Labour Party who
legitimately claim the title feminist and that this was a crucial decision for women because their votes could make the difference between a coalition or a Labour government.
Shirley Williams, some one added in, anti-abortion. But still the representatives were not to
be budged, one or two
said they would Wolel
personally be
Labour but they felt that it was to women to
decide.
Asked about the Tory
manifesto commitment to ban videos the issue was
left aside because no
woman from Women
Against Violence Against
Women was present.
Spare Rib played it
much safer than this and sothing about a gover- absolutely nollllls•
ment being remanied
power that will create
more poverty, unempios•
ment and unhappiness for
women than we have ex-
perienced for decades.
It's about time the
feminist press became
more political and stuck its
neck out against both blue
and pink Tories. It'Il have
to if Maggie stays in power
for another five years.
United action around
issues shouldn't mean the
smothering of political
views within the women's
movement. Abstaining. on
your opinion
nowadays is an invitation
to tactical voting.
ONE THING is certain
tell them in no uncertain terms.
the labour movement lessons from the way that they voted.
What appears to be the survey of women's voting patterns the BBC's poll, analysed Guardian last week. Ivor Crewe The
By Jude Woodward
This demonstrated two important facts. One, tor the first time since women have had the vote, more men voted for the Tory Party than women. But secondly that the women who stopped voting Tory are • being won the Alliance and not to the Labour Party. More women than men voted for the Alliance. How should we understand this result?
The decline of Tories' support among women is the continuation
the first world the Tory Party established a firm base of support among women. The tact that a Tory government
women the VULG cannot have been an insignificant factor in this.
When the overwhelming majority of women didn't work, weren't organised in trade unions, and were isolated in the home it was not surprising that the Tory Party's values of law and order family life and 'stability' should have had more sway among women
Since the second world war all this has begun to change decisively. The massive entry of women into the workforce has altered the shape ot the labour movement. In the early seventes membership of trade unions was maintained and increased as a direct result of the new unionisation of millions of wolfich Care
The welfare state has benefitted women in particular, relieving women of
sole responsibility for the
the sick
and the elderly. The rise of
the women's liberation movement
result these factors
acted to deepen the con
sciousness among women
that they have rights too,
and that change is in their
interests.
Today women are tur-
ning away from the Party
which threatens to remove
these rights and at a taster
rate than men.
It is this historic shift in the political loyalties
millions of women which
is reflected in the increas-
ingly assertive and radical
role of women within the
labour movement.
The role of women in
the fight anallisl the
missiles at Greenham
Common. the radicalism
of the Labour Party
women's conference and
the increasing pressure of
unions to
take up and defend their
hard won rights, are all ex-
amples of this.
What happened to
- they didn't get into parliament. The election has resulted in precisely 23 women MPs, just one more than in 1979. If women hadn't already realised the degree to which they are excluded from political life in Britain, this result will
But whether women got into parliament or not, has to learn some urgent
But these women have not yet succeeded in forcing the leadership of the labour movement to itself champion une CUSC women. That is why the ruling class has been able to preseni the SDP/Alliance as an alter native pole™ for those women breaking from the Tory Party.
The SDP was launched with much trumpeting about Shirley Williams was able to present herself as the tribune of a very definite layer of
the journalists teachers, lawyers and acwocasicis tinged with feminism as they fought to
on in a man's world. Polly Toynbee, Guardian
editor stood for wolel s them in the election. The SDP was the only party to insist that a women had to be included on thé shortlist for the selection of every parliamentary candidate. made a special appeal to On this basis women, that at last there was party that put women tirst. The voting shows their success.
Promote
What the
mote more candidates previous
marginal prowomen Tory; that women got
that are cause.
women the labour
and trade ships that fighting for
extra.
defending
Sovelncil.
The got Alliance Williams.
The Women's
back
Richardson for deputy
starl. is not ine
mand by Labour
has to for
women. with the
backing the labour
mon
We it's
women.
Less women than ever are supporting the Tories
MAL
Leading lady
BUT why are there no women candidates standing for the left? rumour is circulating the Labour left in London that is a sorry tale.
Once upon time (not so many days ago) an informal meeting of the left took place
for leader and deputy leader.
Jo Richardson was proposed as a candidate
for deputy leader, but exnrecsee some couoi a to whether she was up te it. Michael Meacher
Bright
on the horizon!
ONE practical wav
fighting back is to get as
many lett women deleg
ates to the Conference as
possible, and it's not too
late to organise to get an
additional CLP woman's
delegate to Conference.
Written detais must bi
sent in by 5 August, and
will
work, sat you need di
you uteu
find out is the number of
individual women
bers, plus the number of
affiliated
organisations (ie trade
socialist
LOIS.
societies, Co-op
who are resident in your
constituency.
Written evidence
(presumably
from officer of affiliated
body) is necessary, and it
Socialist Action 24 June 1983
ORDER
oroc amed that. Gissa a job!' Bu Michael is not the villain of this tale The editor of a well-known weekly Labour paper (not Labour Weekly) 1S reputed to have vehemently opposed Jo standing, on the grounds that, being woman, she wouldn't be supported by the unions Positive action alive and dead! It would appear the fight will have to be won over the bodies of some of our 'comrades' on the left
has to be based on 1982 figures.
If the total number of women comes to 1500 or more you've got your woman delegate who can • 0I pe elected
time as your 'regular' delegate (who can also be a woman, of course). Get in touch with your CLP secretary for details.
Bad form
SOLI LABOUR had a section
of its manifesto devoted women's rights although not the full pro-
was way above other two main parties in this respect. etc), Ch fortunatel illered
much of through in the national campaign, although letter some local parties pro-
duced very good material. Howevel,
5
Red, white
or pink?
WHILE on the subject of electing women, the battle for the leadership cannot be giving anyone
cause Or tion , least of all women.
Choosing between Shore and Hattersley is
over Omo or Persil. And
you don't fancy the white right, how about Kinnock for a pink tint
the sort that washes out after a single application?
But all is not lost for
thered, the Ray Hans
entered the on though, isn't Eric the one who ensured that thi Labour Party's position on abortion was deleted from the manifesto at the National Executive?
Compiled by HILARY DRIVER. Send contribu-
'Male Order'
Socialist Action, 328 Uppel Street, London N1 2XP arrive norger na au day a week prior to publics„LUI
seems the question of women's oppression still hasn't penetrated the hearts and minds of the Party bureaucracy who
guidelines and
instructions for the loca parties
Form O' is a sum-
mary of election offences
which many readers will come sitee roopias on s have seen displayed
une. It explains that th
Jor
assistants. commits any of the following of fences.
And Form L' in-
structs polling agents that The Election Agen
Sub-Agent will in.
dicate those sections io
which he desires the Poll
ing Agent io give atten
tion, and will delete such
as he may wish not to ap-
ply.
Page 6 scan of this page
New strikes threaten Pinochet
WORLD
IN ACTION
Pope pleads for peace IN HIS VISIT to Poland the Pope has been urging
the Priest pes speeches
speeches Dalicle. have been void of any appeal for lifting of martial law.
In this he has follow-
of Cardinal Glemp who has attacked
mobilisations such as those which took place around May Day this year.
Nevertheless the occasion of the Pope's visit has been used by Polish workers to relaunch
After the Pope's first thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw chantim Meanwhile 'Solidarity'.
Lech Walesa virtual house arrest under surveillance police 24 three security hours a day 'for his own protection'.
Afghan
talks enter new round
TALKS between Afghani and Pakistani
Geneva 1ccollalvld have begun with the objective of finding a settlement for the ongoing war in the region.
Points on the agenda include timetable for the withdrawal OI the 100,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan, conditions for the return of the three million Afghan refugees and guarantees of non-interference by other countries.
Swine me brodess expected from the talks, It 1s an indication of the lack of military success by LIC Soviet Union in the fighting against the rightest guerilla forces that they are happening at all.
Li Xiannian and Zhao Ziyang Another
president,
another
congress
ANOTHER unanimous
election for President
took place at another
Peoples Congress last
week.
Li Xiannian the former of
finance took over the
largely ceremonial position of Chinese President
once held by Mao Tse-
Another landslide
victory
TO NOBODY'S surprise Yuri Andropov was unanimously President of the Soviet Union adding une utie lo that of general secretary of the CPSU.
A nice twist was given the occasion by having it proposed by Andropov's previous chief rival, Konstantin Chernenko.
At the same meetine the Supreme Soviet mandated its negotiators to put forward the idea of a nuclear freeze to the USA, Britain, France and Clina.
Moi's
amnesty
ruse DESPITE the announcement made by President Moi of Kenya on 1 June that had released 8,463 prisoners including 22 "detainees', so tar no person officially detained without trial has been released
Kenya has one of the highest prison world. w mons In le The release of 8,000 prisoners out of a total of 132,000 at the last count, was intenaea to reauce prison running costs rather than releasing political OClances
The Kenyan government has so far refused
meet. world-wide dennes or ease of intellectuals and other ponucal prisoners.
Copies of demands to the Kenvan that they should do should be sent to Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners Kenya, 76 Stroud Green Road, London N4 3EN (01-272 4889).
tung's rival let Shil.
election will
make no difference to the four and a half year
rule of Deng Xiaoping,
the leader of
'reform' faction of the
Chinese bureaucracy. Denfor the claimed
credit 32.6 per
cent growth output
achieved in that time.
But prime
ministerial address Zhad.
Ziyang explained that in
efficient industries will
face shut
amalgamation in an ef-
fort overcoe a f4
1982 budget
CHILEAN COPPER MINERS started an illegal strike last week to demand the release of the jailed president of their union. The arrest of Rudolfo Segel came after a national day of protest on Tuesday 14 June which ended in clashes between demonstrators and police.
The protest, like that of 11 May, was called by the copper union and four trade union federations. The strikes pose a new threat to General Pinochet's regime presiding over a deep economic crisis.
The events of 11 May had been preceded
demonstrations March, where to shouts of 'Pinochet murderer' and "Jobs, bread, justice and freedom' hundreds people demonstrated in Santiago, Concepcion. There were
cashes betweel demonstrators and the Donce helped bi right wing civilian gangs, with the result of more than 350 arrests.
By Colin Stevens
The events of !! May showed -unquestionably that the recomposition of the Chilean workers movement is under way. This qualitative new situation, we hope, will help dispel the many illusions spread by the Popular Unity par ties, illusions to which many exiles nave lalien
All dreams that junta would collapse by its own internal contradictions, that would be removed by Une US government because of in-
difficulties, that would be removed by a coalition of bourgeois op-
parties and democratic' generals ought to be forgotten.
Experience has shown that WORKCIS
has the social movemell conerence me nomorcucty to fight Pinochet. The
class WORKERY has shown that it is the on-
capable ly social l0Icc giving leadership for everybody else the
strugle toresente govern
Process
The process of working class recomposition goes back to 1976-80 when the first mobilisations took place around mass redundancies, elementary union rights, factory closures,
All this happened within the framework of the Labour Plan imposed by LIC military junta regulating the operation and tivities of unions.
some LUC strikes took place mainly in proletarian strongholds like the steel and mining industries. Since 1980 the movement, always struggling, has engaged in a process of trade union reorganisation.
The process of still reorganisation fragmentary and uneven. The reasons are not hard to imagine: the multiplicity of unions sanctified by the Labour Plan and wholeheartedly encouraged by the authorities through their agents in the workers movement- plus ten years of unrestrained repression - have brought
dispersion and about disunity. Yet the underlyIng trend of trade unionism at the shop floor
level is one of increasing militancy.
In the Chilean context
bosses
the Hence
need realist
activities the
And
Witness these
women's committees
associations, youth committees relatives political prisoners and the homeless.
CaNCS delegates the fac-
Duuu Co funds, medica attention, legal advice and training.
Proliferation
from
class well
dication that is the
location of
Vicuna Cerrillos, Maipu, Rosa,
Norte, Estacion Central,
that • the
advanced
localism precludes further political or callisa
sion and limits their
central the Chilean working Cas. faces is the organisation of
single national trade union. Pressure
There are several so called 'national' trade unions. Bodies such as the CNS. FUT, and others claim to represent the trade union movement. But these claims are empty boasts. It is no exaggeration that these bodies have no links whatsoever with the local organisations of struggle. The thrust of their strategy iș to extract minor concessions from the through pressure-politics.
This explains for example the 'Social Pact' 'proposed by the CNS to the
dictatorship (a proposal endorsed the other groups), it also explains the appeal for a broad op positionist front made by
LA LILLATA
18 A
SINDICA
CIMENTOS
government of Salvador Allende Tucapel Jimenes (presi dent of the Civil Service union) before he was murdered by the SCUT CI police. Not a single strike has taken place since the beginnings of the recompositon in 1976 which ha been led or materially supported by any groupings.
They represent mere
by the reformist parties link ed to Popular Unity and by the Christian Democrats. Their lack of a rank and file implantation is explained by the politics of these parties. They all put forward class collaborationist policies that would make even the most right wing European socia democrat blush
Basically, they propose the setting up of a 'broad alliance comprising Communists, Socialists, Chris-
democrats, tremely reactionary SOLACE landowners victims of the monetarist
of the ment.
Also proposed for the alliance are Generals like Gustavo Leigh, (a member
onth 1977 when 'e waa
until when was dismissed most of the National part, Pinochet),
(the party of landowners and Chilean oligarchy) now very disatisfied with the economic recession, Leon Vilarin
Ten years ago the people mobilised against the right wing threat to the Popular Unity
Cumsille (the first leaders of the truckworkers and the second leader of the retailers' association) both ill-famed for their instrumental role in creating the conditions for the overthrow of Allende, and other
Prominell dustrialists
Of course, the political independence of the working class would be totally submerged in such a front, which would be dominated by its bourgeois segments. Parties
In summary, the parties responsible for the 1973 defeat are totally handicapped in providing the basis, let alone leading, any process of trade union tally. trade union movement is an essential ingredient of any vigorous and real accomposition cannot be solved by any aggregation of these
• superstructure.
Any national reorganisation OI the workers' movement, if it is to be meaningful at all and if the interests of the working class and oppressed are not to be betrayed again,
from below CUlIC and be established on a totally new basis.
No bureaucratic agreement at the summit can
International
USTRIAL C
ENTE F
ERNO Y SU PR
substitute for the necessary profound debate and widest participation of the working class through their elected representatives
This national debate must end up electing delegates from all over the country who will meet in a National Constituent Assembly of trade unions, where workers will provide themselves with democratic SLUCLUTES elected and representative leaders, a programme of struggle which includes demands for the restoration all democratic rights, economic demands, and the way to achieve the overthrowing of the dictatorship.
This programme is the only way forward and the onv means to auract olic layers of unorganised workers up and down the country
The task is difficul and there is much to done, but this is the analysis that informs the practice of Chilean revolutionary socialists.
1. Popular Unity: the allianc
which led the 1970-3 Allende government Dominated by the Socialis
and Communist Parties. 2. Cordones industriales:
workers committees of a
proto sovict characier. wnici
grew up in the workers area
during 1972-3
Page 7 scan of this page
Rebuilding Labour among skilled workers
News
FOLLOWING the election debate has opened up in labour movement around causes of Labour's defeat, how the Tories can be defeated and how Labour can be rebuilt.
Here John Ross argues against the view that the majority skilled working class forever to the Labour Party and proposes the minimum steps to
THE MOST catastrophic of all falls in support for the Labour Party in the last 10 years has been among skill-
demonstrated by the opinion poll studies we show on
decade ago, in the election of October 1974, Labour.
massively among skilled workers — by around 49 per cent to 26 per cent. By 1983 the situation had been totally reversed with the Tories leading Labour among skilled workers by 40 per cent to 32 per cent.
What is shown by opinion polis confirmed geographical analyses of distribution of voting. Thatcher won her electoral victory of 1979 with huge swings of 7.1 per cent and 6.2 per cent to the Tories in Birmingham and Outer London - just the areas of the country with the highest concentrations of skilled manual workers.
Those on the left who try to claim that the results of the 1979 and 1983 elections reflect just movements of the 'middle classes' are merely deluding themselves.
An enormous desertion of the baDour rarty by an important section of the working class has taken place. Indeed all studies show that both in the 1979 and 1983 elections support for Labour among clerical workers and 'professional' groups scarcely fell
Votes
loss of votes among the manual working class that the Labour vote went
workers that probably the most vital political battles in any trade unions in
are fought. Norman Tebbit and David Owen have as their chief political goal the aim of smashing the Labour Party links of such unions as the electricians ing the highest proportion of skilled manual workers. Tebbit and Owen are greatly aided in their goals by Duf-
port of that almost 20 per cent of skilled workers who have stopped voting Labour in the last ten years is one of the most urgent single tasks facing the support means rejecting all the fictions that are put around concerning what has happened and resolutely
to be rejected is that Labour lost the support of skilled workers because its policies were too left wing' therefore Labour must go even further over to the right.
The fact that this is precisely the explanation given by the entire Tory press, Healey, Callaghan, and Duffy should already give rise to
great suspicion - for after all when
have they ever given good advice to
the the
lost by the
Photo: JOHN HARRIS
Union bosses Duffy and Chapple
the Labour Party?
But more important than simply the origins of the go further to the right' line are the Labour support and of the real interests which sections of the working class have.
four years, ever since Tony Benn was removed from the Department of Industry, not a peep had been heard from the Labour left. The idea that the loss of support among skilled workers is due to 'extremist left wing policies' simply does not fit the facts. The point can be made even more clearly by going back further in time. opinion poll studies for the skilled working class votes in the elections of 1970 and 1974 but the trend can be
geographical shifts in the vote.
Swing
If we take Birmingham, precisely the area of Thatcher's great electoral swing of 1979, then voting is absolutely clear. The Tory victory of 1970 was in very considerable part due to an enormous swing of the West Midlands in general, and the built ingham and Coventry in particular, away from the Labour Party.
The swing to the Birmingham-Coventry built up in 1970 was 6.1 per cent, and 5.8 per and cent in the West Midlands as a whole,
compared to 4.7 per cent in Britain as a whole. This West Midlands swing was easily the highest in the entire country and beat even the South East Chapple of England.
In 1974 exactly the same process happened but going in the opposite direction. In February 1974 Britain as
facts both COTI Labour
cent.
By John Ross
Labour having 'extremist'
its pattern of
up area around Birm-
Tories in the
need to bel.
Labour fought the basis of the
a whole swung by 1.1 per cent from the Tories to Labour. But the West Midlands swung by 3.9 per cent to Cabentry built up area-by s.8 per Birmingham-
Fought
The shift of skilled workers away from the Labour Party started long Party before the 1983 election or the rise of 'Bennism' after the 1979 election. The
World
dramatically before and during the explanation 1979 election. The 9 per cent fall in
workers in 1983 is obviously just a continuation of the 8 per cent fall in
fought the election on the record of a government which had pursued the most right wing line ever applied by
As for the manifesto, those with long memories will recall that 1979 was the election when Callaghan twice threatened to resign if the National Tory Executive Committee did not accept the right wing manifesto he personally
Once more if you try to explain these shifts by 'left wing extremism' it simply will not fit the facts. In 1970
election on the Tory absolutely right wing
policies and manifesto pursued by the
Wilson government. It was severely defeated both in Britain as a whole and, by all the evidence, in particular
among skilled workers.
In 1974 the Tory Party's support among the population as a whole, and the working class in particular, fell to the lowest level ever recorded.
In 1974, however, the Labour
fought the manifesto which, for all its faults, was the most left wing since the Second
War. in contrast 1970 Labour won the 1974 elections. The
that Labour loses because of left wing extremism' and that this particularly turns away skilled working class voters simply will not stand up to any factual examination of 1970, 1974 and 1979.
Table 1 Percentage of skilled manual workers voting Tory, Labour, Liberal/ Alliance
October 1974
Gallup Poll
Labour Liberal/Alliance
MORI Poll 26
Labour 49 Liberal/Alliance 20
Socialist Action 24 June 1983
There is however one issue which both fits the overall decline of th Labour vote in the last fifteen years explains the facts, and in particula explains Labour's loss of suppor among skilled workers. This is th issue of incomes policy.
If we take Labour's vot historically then the highest level o support ever recorded for the Labou Party in the opinion polls was 53.5 pe cent in May 1966. Labour had won general election two months earlie with a vote which at 48.0 per cent wa scarcely any lower than the • ICLO Labour vote of 48.8 per cent in 1951 In June 1966 Roy Jenkins, then Labour Minister, announced that th Labour government was going to in troduce wage controls.
The result was the beginning ( the catastrophic fall in support fro which Labour has never recovere By a year later Labour was 6.5 p cent behind the Tories in the opinio polls and by December 1968 Labour support had fallen to under thirty p cent. Incomes policy, not 'left wil extremism' is what smashed Labour Party's popularity in 1966
It is also this which of course e plains the outcome of the 1970, 197 ticular the collapse of the Labour Pa 1979 and 1983 elections and in ty vote, and the rise of the Torie among skilled workers.
Lost
The Tories lost in 1964 after th introduced incomes policy in 1961
Why was there the huge swil away from Labour in the Midlands in 1970, to Labour in 197 and then away from Labour in 197
The Labour Party applied an comes policy from 1966 onwards the skilled workers ot the Wie Midlands and ole. massively away from Labour in 197
In 1972 Heath introduced an i comes policy and the skilled worki class swung massively away from ti Tories in 1974. Labour introduced : incomes policy in 1975 and in 1979 t skilled working class deserted it
'Between 1979 and 1983 Thatch rejected introducing a formal incom policy and by 1983 the Tories won the election and were the larg party among skilled workers.
Incomes poliey hits the better o
skilled workers, most severely of a Skilled workers have every objecti
and they have done. Wh there is no evidence from the
workers are put off by 'left wing tremism' there is absolutely mass
evidence that they are put off by wa
quite logically
have the most to lose from them.
The number one requirement 1
the Labour Party to regain its bi
among the skilled working class
complete and total rejection of a
1979 1983 Change 1979-83
46 39 -47 35 - 12
11 27 +16
41 40 - 1 41 32 - 9 15 26 +11
Page 8 scan of this page
'GOODBYE' TO THE WORI
HE
AFTERMATH of Labour's worst
election defeat
unce the 1930s has
of necessity
parked off a
ride-ranging
ebate.
The right wing
I the movement
aim that Labour was out of touch with the voters because its policies were too left wing.
According to the likes of Chapple, Shore, ¡Hattersley and Duffy the only
The 'new' working class is no longer concerned with old fashioned class war slogans, but individualistic goals like owning their own homes, and higher incomes.
Such people are not interested in old dogmas like nationalisation and socialism and will never vote for a party hidebound by the myths of yesteryear.
In essence, these are the arguments put forward by Guardian commentator Peter Jenkins, a well known
Jenkins points to the low proportion of trade unionists who voted for the Labour Party.
There's an awful feeling of deja vu about this argument. For it was exactly this proposition that the Gaitskellite right wing of the Labour Party put forward after Labour's defeat at the general election in 1959.
The fight over Clause Four
IN THE mid-1950s, a group of right wing Labour theorists with what was called the
The most them was Anthony Crosland, book, The Future of Socialism (1956), had a profound effect on the thinking of the right wing.
Crosland argued was becoming 'humanised' gradual re-distribution OI
through progressive taxes democratic owners Managers were becoming important than owners of capital.
The old goals of nationalisation and
Socialist Action
answer is to ditch radical policies
like the SDP.
argument, fundamental one. The pundits are arguing that Labour is bound
wing policies
because the traditional working elass, especially the
manual working
class, is getting smaller.
was becoming more state intervention
was abolishing capitalist crises Hugh
arguments.
Tory leader
Cabitals! Doolll. disguised the
MIOC DrOSUCIOUS
rising living standards.
millan's appeal and election decisively. dependencerincipe ping the coalitionist Liberals
wanted the po the fosterenion ale came forward revisionist' prominent keynote speech
whose 'old dogmas'.
capitalism ful idealism and
by the broaden our base.
wealth dinary people and more cuotes companies. ridden fanatics'. much more 1 urning
argued that 'while
24 June 1983
and become more
Behind this
however, is a more
to lose if it has left social ownership were becoming irrelevant to the affluent society, as everyone
equal. Further, the economy through Keynesian planning techniques
Gaitskell, who became Labour leader in 1955, embraced these thing,
The 1959 election was fought by Harold Macmillan under the slogan 'Peace and Prosperity'. Ine late '50s were the height of the post war
which for while economic decline of
Te prosperdus Bder was tories
seemed to be true. Most working class people were indeed becoming used to
debate more social welfare
Gaitskell drew the conclusion that Labour had lost working class votes to the Tories because of its old-fashioned socialist dogmas.
tion
By Phil Hearse
Douglas Jay, another 'of the 'revisionist' authors, proposed getting rid of all references to nationalisation, breakIng une unks will tne trade unions and dropping the very name 'Labour Party More signiticantly, he proposed 'drop-
political in olner woras some deal the
Another leading right winger who sections joined the fray was Roy Jenkins, who
to drop nationalisation and election, revise the party constitution to lessen
The Labour con Bevan ference in November 1959 Gaitskell's
look up une tneme or Labour must no longer count on old eroding loyalties. It must recognise the changes, continue to aciena me unacraog, appeal to youln• Four
above all try to be in louen with or and avoid becoming doctrine-
nationalisation he shall certainly we want to extend social ownership ... ou away.
POLARIS PROTEST Ship is not 100 per cent state owner-
Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution, which calls for a socialised economy, he said 'lays us open to continual misrepresentation plies that we wish to nationalise ever-
but we? Everything? whole of light industry, the whole of agriculture, all the shops — every little pub and garage. Of course not. have long ago come to accept the mixed Conolly. Fraud
Gaitskell's way of posing the question was a deliberate fraud. What was. and is, at issue in the nationalisation
WaN whether should be nationalised, but whether the commanding heights of the economy, together with the banks and finance houses should be nationalised. In other words, should there be some private enterprise within the framework of a socialist economy, or some nationalisa-
framework COT capitalist economy?
The issue of Clause Four was largely a symbolic one. Many of the constituency delegales and trade unionists who regularly voted against further natonalisation were against the removal of Clause Four from the constitution.
The ensuing row was really over whether Labour should cease to be a party based on the working class, committed at least in name to socialism, or whether it should become just another capitalist party like, today's SDP
Gaitskell's speech was booed by
of the conference.
Foot, who had just been defeated in the
strode IO Ine platform launch a bitter attack on the leadership
conference ended with the cade sno rescue by saying that since everyone agreed that not everything should be nationalised, everyone was really agreement!
The uproar in the party over Clause
was chorous. skell had to back down and abandon the attempt to scrap ll. The fight between Labour's left and right had within anilateral nuclear disarmameno Smuled LO question
of the dispute over future of the Labour Party never went
Must Labour stay a party of the past?
The formation Democratic Party can be traced directly participants in Labour's future after 1959
It im- Labour and the
The working class
THE DEBATE over Labour Party can win as a class-based
questions — the structure of the working class and its consciousness. Is it true that the manual working class is declining? And is it true that workers are losing their traditional sciousness?
In order to see the development of the British class structure it is worth oking at the accompanying tabl able 1 shows that the proportion the adult population engaged in paid
and 1970. The figures would have to be
unemployment, but the basic point reMoans wud their labour in order to earn a living. The majority of people who aren't working for someone else are either retrea or acpendent on someone else s come state benefit. The most definitely not disappeared.
Table 2 shows the shitt from private employment to public employment. we sowever. shows mne mos dramatic shift and one which has continued apace - a big shift away from manual to non-manual jobs.
What conclusions Michael from this? Without
doubt the structure of the working class to is changing,
traditional Aneurin dustries.
In that sense there is a 'new' work. ing class, one more likely to be working
in tor. But the shift in employment pat-
Sterns has not reduced the size of the working class. Nor can any automatic conclusions be drawn about the con. sciousness of the working class from this new employment pattern. In the 1983 general election the workers who voted most heavily for But Labour were public sector workers (46 the per cent). So it is just not true that a
party based on the working class will be appealing to a 'minority'.
LABOUR
LOS
Peter Jenkins
Kinnock has an evangelist's fervour and a great deal
of charm but he l need ever.
bit of it and more if he is
to go out and win socialists
of the Social But something the disputes over working
the 1930s,
working whether the
revolves essentially around two whom
thorpe,
class
John hardly changed between i961
take of nal of
• most people have to sell
Just
at Vauxhall, in
nowadays, receiving the
work cassa
people
attitudes
Increase
can we draw a shadow of a UNIORISTE reflecting the decline of the especially British manufacturing in-
damental sciousness disappeared.
section of
Labour
even if that is true, , hasn't happened to traditional • Consciousness. the habits of class solidarity rather than in. dividual greed? Isn't today's worker a very different person to the workers o
much more concerned with individualistic goals, with 'getting on'?
This idea about the development of
class consciousness was put forward in the 1960s by a number of sociologists, the most prominent
were Lockwood and Goldwho published a series ine alliuent worker.'
Their basic thesis was that of the 'em bourgeoisment' of the working class. If workers got together in a union it was only because of 'instrumental collec tivism' — not class solidarity, but just a way lo get more money.
The fate of these theories was vividly demonstrated by the celebrated study
Goldthorpe of Vauxhall assembly workers in Luton. In 1966 his report on Vauxhall in the British Jour-
Sociology, indicated a fundamentally co-operative and non-class conscious attitude to management.
two months after was published an open revolt broke out
which two thousand workers stormed the main offices, sang
Red Flag and shouted 'string him up' whenever the name of the manager was mentioned. The fact that working
want higher living standards does not make them 'bourgeois' in their
Right up until the mid-70s trade
was increasing rapidly, among white collar and •puone sector workers. Unly lne rise ol unemployment has pushed the number
The tun reflexes of class con. and solidarity have not
But what is unfortunately true is that the rise of trade unionism and of industrial militancy in the 1970s has not Labour Partynas sosed to the Ste automatic support and the Tories — in the election only 39 Decide unions voted lo
The reason for this is nothing to dr with Labour being too 'left wing', or too fixated on the working class.
Page 9 scan of this page
The shift away from Labour among trade unionists reflected the fact that Labour's right-wing Gonnalcu paign could not unite the employed and the unemployed, the skilled and the unskilled, the working class and other sections of the oppressed around fighting socialist policies.
To do that would have meant an entirely different kind of campaign, one which linked up with struggle and the mass campaigns, not one sabotaged by the right wing.
Beside the betrayal leadership, Labour had another problem the 1983 election. employed workers, living under the Tories have not dramatically but they did go down under the last Labour government. But this present 'honeymoon' the Tories will end. start to disappear forced into savage attacks on the working class.
In the coming struggles, must seize the initiative by basing itself on the interests of the overwhelming majority — the working class.
To move to the right, to become the kind of party that the latter-day Gaitskellites want, to become an SDP mark 2, would be to decline even faster.
The Labour Party can be rebuilt, not basis of 'classless' party, but by clear radical alternative to the SDP. mass party which champions every industrial struggle, every campaign nuclear disarmament, every struggle by the oppressed in this country.
The splitting of the anti-Tory vote at this election is just a stage in the fight for such a Labour Party. But it was not class-based politics which Labour's defeat, it was the sabotage of a right wing which wants to say goodbye to the working class.
In the next few years more and more workers are going to discover that there are no individual solutions to their problems. 'Affluent' workers are going to be few and far between. fashioned' people in the labour movement are those who confuse the myths of the 1960s with the realities of the 1980s.
Tables from The development of the British working class by Jean Gardiner in Aaronovitch and Smith leds! The Political Economy of Capitalism (McGraw-Hill, 198l).
KING CLASS?
of its Among standards gone down
enou will As the oil revenues
will be
Labour becoming presenting
for The old.
British
Aneurin Bevan (right) came to Hugh Gaitskell's rescue over nationalisation at the 1959 Party conference
Romemically acare
Unemployed
Economically inactive Students Reuired Miltary
Local authonity Public corporations
Total public Private
* Great Britain only groups, 1911-66 Occupational group
Non-mannal worker
Clerk
Skilled
Sent skale
Toel
Roy Jenkins, ex-SDP leader, has already waved goodbye to the working class Should the Labour Party join him?
Economic activity of population of Great Britain, 1961-77 Self employed and employers Employees in employment Part-ume workers (included above)
Male workers (included above)
Ferate workers (included above)
Total economically active
Housewives and other persons
Total economically inactive
Total adult population (thousands)
Sauree Sociat Trends (1974) General Household Survey (1977), sinal Abstact (197).
Employment in public and private sectors for the UK, 1951-76
1951°
3.6 Civil central government 4.9
6.1 121
26.7 13.2
Sources Soctal Trends (1979), British Labour Stattsties Historical Abstract (1979) The occupied population of Great Britain by major occupational Employers and proprietors
/ Managers and administrators
Lower professionals and technicians
Foremen and inspectors
Salesmen and shop assistants
Percentage of population
1961 1977
43 44 54.6 34.4 10.4 36.3 32.4 18.3 22.0 1.0 3.4
59.9 62.2
2.5 3.0 6.2 11.7 31.4 23.1
37.8
39569 41353
Percentage of total
1961 1976
5.3 8.1 7.6 12.1 9.0 8. 1
23.8 29.5 76,1 70.5 As a percentage of total occupied populations
1911 1966
6.7 3.4 - 18.7 38.3 3.4 6.1
13.4 3.1 6.5 1.3 3,0
132 5.4 746 S8.3 30.5 23
126
Page 10 scan of this page
10 Socialist Action 24 June 1983
AcTioN
The Common
Market. Labour
ducks the issue
FOLLOWING 'humiliation' at the EEC summit, depending on which paper you read, answer the simple favour. of immediate believe the answer should be an emphatic
response from any of the four candidates for the Labour leadership.
While Roy Hattersley has made no secret of his. opposition to Party policy on the question, for Peter Shore and Neil Kinnock it represents a hinted that 'a lot can happen' to policy over the next five years.
The capitalist press are licking their lips over such an easy victory for the campaign they have been pressing against Labour's central policy
Why should the labour movement be favour of immediate renegotiation of the Treaty of Rome? First and foremost because the Common Market is the multinationals' market.
The objective of the Common Market when it was established was to rationalise Europe capitalism.
The Tories made much of the argument that withdrawal from the EEC would result in the loss of two and a half million during the election. Labour's spokespeople could showing that the decimation of the dustry and the hit-list for the coal industry were examples of the Common Market's rationalisation policy.
The reason is not just the perfidy of those who ran Labour's campaign — although that was the chief factor. The fact is that withdrawal from the Common Market by a Labour government will signal the beginning of a break by Britain with the laws of the international capitalist order millions to misery and wastes the massive productive resources which this country still has.
There would be retaliation, as there has been against other countries who have taken such a step - Nicaragua being the latest exampie. therefore have to introduce further measures to tionalisation of foreign trade would be absolutely
A massive step towards a planned economy would have to be taken. This is the main reason why Labour's leaders Tories have policies.
Withdrawal from the EEC only makes sense in the context of a socialist economic policy. The task therefore is not to drop the commitment for immediate withdrawal Market, but to make it more consistent by spelling out the consequences of withdrawal and the policies necessary to meet them.
The hopetuls the especially those who claim to be left candidates, should note that their eagerness to abandon conference policy is not shared by the rank and file.
Editor: ALAN FREEMAN Published weekly except two weeks in August and the last week of December.
Signed articles bv contributors do not necessarily represent Socialist Action's views. These are expressed in
Send all correspondence regarding subscriptions, sales and receints to Socialist Action Distribution. 328 Upper Street London N1 2XP. (Tel: 01-359 8180) sena all malena for puoncanon (mcialig davertisig)
Action Editorial at the same address. metze a cue to me niga cost or postage we cantoi
Thatcher's "triumph' or
Labour has to question: are you in withdrawal? We in withdrawal and
Western
have back
But the Tories were allowed to get
are running shy. The
exposed the nakedness of their
from the Common
Labour leadership, * siece edge caselicited copy or photographs
SOP
STP
Slipman should be sacked
I SHOULD like to sup-
port Geoff Martin's ap-
peal to NUPE members
Ior e sacking 01 sul
Slipman, but I should
Jike to situate it in a
slightly different context.
In my belief, Slip-
man has jeopardised the
jobs and working condi-
tions of hundreds of
workers whom she is
paid by NUPE to repre-
However, I do not
believe that the main
issue is the granting of
paid leave to campaign
in the election. (My
view is that NUPE,
forced by legislation to
grant her leave to do
this dirty work, should
not pay her for it).
issue is that she is allow-
ed to continue ner work
as a full timer as a pro-
PHIL Hearse's article, 'Crisis looms for CND', makes some admirable
: pathetic showing that CND made in tne clechon
However, Phil makes
gesting CND should not have called for a Labour vote. In fact oniy a policy
whole organisation to campaign for Labour stood any chance of sucLos.
Individuals like Bruce Kent and EP Thompson can't be expected to speak on Labour platforms, when they are
Alternative to war
COMRADE Baker (SA J3) accuses me of sudoor-
Thatcher's task force and the 'Fortress Falklands' policy. This is dishonest and slanderous.
I opposed the former at the time, and would welcome a serious labour moyclicht callball against the latter now.
Our disacreement is over whether the strategy
Thatcher is to hope for
Argentina, or whether the labour movement must take the lead in preventing a new war breaking out in the South Atlantic.
Comrade Baker believes that the nationalist passions of the Argentine people can be used to do what the British labour movement has been unable to ao. and put an end to Thatcher's triumphal procession. This is a cynical and desperate policy.
In the first place, it prevents the British
SDP. It is the tradition
of revolutionar socialists to be against bans and proscriptions from labour movement bodies.
However, NUPE full time officers are not elected by their
- therefore the demand for sacking' corresponds to the campaign for 'nonelection' as the only way rank and file NUPE members can hope to influence events
Therefore, believe it is right that NUPE branches demand Slipman's sacking, on the grounds that she is attacking the rights of the members and the union she is supposed to be representing. But al NUPE branches should
in this position again. Only through annual
CND should have supported Labour
precisely the people steering the disarmament movement in the direction of middle-class 'pressure group' politics. The apoliticals in CND have always feared deterring Liberals and non-aligned supporters of the
But the real point is. which party represented their interests? In practice it was and is Labour. An independent CND campaign would not only have increased the pressure on multilateralist backsliders but also have led CND activists to an understanding of the STUCLOL
. The
SDP
SDP
As for the Executive Council, they should make plain where they stand by issuing a state. ment completely denouncing Slipman's campaign and the policies of the party she
DAVE BENLOW, Branch Secretary, Wandsworth District NUPE.
nature of the Labour bureaucracy.
In future when we call for a 'Labour movement vaculaur we musi make it clear we mean the abour movement of rank and file democracy and
The main task is to pull back the fighting minority from futile adventurism and into a sober and long-term struggle to root out both the Labour traitors and the middle-class pacifist leadership of CND.
JOHN KREEGER, London WC1. seriousness, to fight now for an alternative to capitalist war
Come to think of it, comrade Baker supports Thatcher's policy, since it
will lead to the war which he craves.
COLIN MEADE, Surbiton.
Picket outside South Africa house protests against executions Executions protest WE, the undersigned, members of a local test strongly at the execution of simon Mogerane Gerry Mosololi and Marcus Molaung or lit African National Congress
This will increase our determination to step up
Malvinas diversion
JOHN BAKER (SA 13) must be very confused il he thinks either Colin Meade or myself 'back Thatcher's unjust claim' to the Malvinas/ Falklands.
In fact I pointed out in my original letter on He ssue bal les duty of socialists is to op
imperialism
BUT does ina automatically mean that any country (imperialist or nou conne unto conflict with British imSurely not
We take our stance from the interests of the working class, completely independently of the position of the bourgeoisie here, in Argentina, or anywhere else.
What interests do workers in Argentina have in pursuing the Malvinas claim anv further? It could only be a diversion away from the fight against their own reactionary (and pro-imperialist) rulers division which would cost yet more Argentinian working Class lIves
'It's a historical fact,' says John, 'that from the moment of her foundation the Malvinas islands were a part of Argentina as much as Buenos Aires itself. This statement is ustorcary accuralc
Letters
LETTERS
the fight against apartheid and to help to bring about a country ruled by a majority of its citizens.
IAN MARTIN, union rep plus Dave Chapple, Johr Bjergfelt, Phil Haycock, Gordon Howard, Norman Fisher and Roland Taysum
France claimed the islands first, until Spain took them in the 1760's Between 1765 and 1770 Britain 'possessed' ed them until 1816 when they were clanca v.
Argentina. There was no significant Argentinian population in 1833 when Britain took over.
But apart from this, the real point is that for Marxists nations are peo ple, not geography. There are no Argentinians on the islands, and the islanders themselves oppress no-one (unlike the Ulster protestants, for instance).
So why support Argentina's claim? The only explanation can be some sort of mystical, irredentist* nationalism quite alien to Marxism.
That such nationalism, is, in John's case, undoubtedly borne of a genuine hatred of Thatcher and of British imperialism, does not make it any the less wrong or any tne less ulsastious il so far as its consequences for Argentinian workers For British and Argentinian workers, the main enemy is at home!
JOE GUARNIERI, Birmingham. * Irredentist refers to an Italian party which ad. vocated the recovery and union to Italy of all Italian-speaking districts now subject to other countles
Write to us!
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(Tel: 01-359 8180)
Page 11 scan of this page
REVIEWS
PICTURE if you will a fourteen foot heaving mass of sybaritic ugliness, with a striking resemblance to Roy Jenkins. was it the Kahn of Hut?) chief obstacle to the progress of our chirpy bunch of heroes and heroines in the first twenty minutes of the latest edition of the Star War saga
Luke Skywalker, Chewhacca, Princess Liah, friends and 'droids' are attempting to rescue Hans Solo, who has.ended up as the likely prize exhibit in
cavern of alien delights at the end Wars film The Empire Strikes Back.
Reviewed by Brian Heron
Poor old Hans has been fused with 'carbonite' making him look like a new variety of ice lolly. He looks down at assorted allen grotesques jiggling around to music reminiscent of the Shadows, while their master eats live frogs and drops various recalcitrants down a hole to be eaten by THING! big horrible
The Return of the Jedi (pro-republican knights, trained in the Mysteries of the universe) full
Battle in Europe Sunday 26 June Channel 4 DONALD Trelford,
editor of the Observer
chairs discussion in
which a bunch of Euro-
Mean journalists grill the JATC Supreme
Commander of Europe
on the nuclear build-up. Dimbiedy
the British scribbler.
Vietnam - The End of the Tunnel
Monday 27 June,
9.00, Channel 4
LAST of the series
ailu
the end of the war. The
takes us
to April 1975 when the
North Vietnamese tanks
finally roll into the
Presidential Palace.
Come back Quatermass
There you have the Hut of Kahn (or
— Return of the Jedi. 'horrible things' that try I various ways• lo cal ult LUVU CUD. When they are not being saved from digestion they are whizzing around in and on various
supersonic ware, while all around are, literally, loosing their heads.
The film pokes some fun (Hut's guards are walking versions of Disney rhinoceros guards the cartoon Robin Hood.) Ferocious teddy bears prove the undoing of the villains in the end. But that is about all that remains of any subtle-
round technological
As Reagan puts more miles between us and Vietnam all the shades between
Gone is the independent and wilful princess. Gone is the reluctant and nervols no who Necor the loot, the machinery
need for heavy philosoph-
CHOICE
The liberation forces
describe Sunrender.
It's not widely known
Inal Ivixon naa plans lo
re-invade Vietnam if the
Thieu puppet govern-
ment looked like being
toppled, but Watergate
put an end to that.
South Africa,
Sport and the
Boycott
Tuesday 28 June,
BBCI
THE BBC's sports
department has ap-
palling record for
willlewasting apartheid
and South African sport
soccer team fiasco being
Commentators like
Hill barely
Illallare
ising which marked The Empire Strikes Back.
The nearest thing characters in the Return of the Jedi are the androids. The humans have become complete ciphers.
Believe it or not this detracts from The makers of Superman started with …ine presence
Marlon Brando. Star Wars Guiness When they appear to take it seriously it helps you swallow the mixture. The Return starts with princess Liah being 'forced' into a bikini for the glutenous delight of Hut. So its back to those lurid covers of the 1940's Sci-Fi magazines. Semi-clad 'victim' being advanced upon by rapacious alien. A tried and true formula:
bit depressing now as it was then.
Machinery
Once any semblance of character loses out to machinery, the first casualty invariably
The imperious princess is replaced by the moonstruck devotee of honcho Hans. All the nice ambiguities of her relationship with Skywalker (which threatened the
disguise their hostility to the boycott. Fellow commentator Ron Pickering goes to South Africa to investigate.
It does seem to be a more in-depth analysis than usual with "com-
parisons between the
black townshins and the whites-only clubs blacks plus
with NILCVICWS who argue strongly for the boycott.
Opinions - Has the Labour Party a future?
Chartel 30 June, 8.00.
COMMUNIST Party member Bob Rowthorne leads off.
certainly won't future if
Rowthorne's rapidly right-ward moving views have anything to do with
stability of the set up) are
She is able to faithtully. spoon after both men. One neatly turns out to be her brother. Instead the 'real' conflict resolves itself into the fight between walker and his dad Darth Vadar. Will young Luke be won over to the dark side of the force b'
Lets dear on dad sees te
throttle him and cut head off?
'Yes, ... I can feel your Kill your alcer C... father and become my ap
pasty-faced emperor. When Luke refuses and the emperor flashes a few thousand volts and dear old dad doesn't know which way to jump
But everything turns out for the best in the end. We see Alec Guiness. Yoda (the now dead master of the good side of the force) and dad all lined up grinning away in their ethereal glow and their change of linen. They look like the picture of heaven
my old prayer book.
have joined '5 per cent of the Gross' club
I'll still queue for the next one though.
Britain in the Thirties Thursday 30 June, BBC2 FOLLOWING the gramme about Mosley's followers, this week the series looks at the influx of refugees from Germany during the thirties.
It concentrates mainly on the benefits to science in this country by the recruitment of Jewish scientists.
Civilisation Friday 1 July, BBC2 HAVING departed for the Great Art Gallery In The Sky, the BBC are showing Lord Kenneth Clark's very knowledgable but somewhat elitist (to say the least) look at the development of civilisation and culture.
Worth watching
you can put up with the pretentiousness.
power
The most popular project inside the British workers movement is that Economic Strategy (ALS) Alternative which has many variants, but essence constructed around the idea of planning agreements with the big corporations.
George Blazyca belongs a developing schoo which wants to cemocrase me ass. l put the emphasis on local council planning and workers, planning itiatives. His book begins with a critique of centralisEuropean model, which it planning on the East It claims the alternative is locals anne malalves workers plans and local council planning to create jobs, which can start here and now, Thatcherism and the crisis not withstanding.
Such confused and misleading
- and potentially will lead workers into a blind alley.
National planning
the contemporary industrialised countries has either been the bureaucratic the Stalinist states, or the "indicative planning of the social democrats. But the failure of both types is not because it is national planning.
The East European Planning Disaster as
CAN see young militants put this book aside disappointment, just as so many did with the Beginners' Guides to Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.
Irish history can't be reduced — or at least it shouldn't be catalogue of names, dates and big events any more than Marxism is
family tree of philosophers.
Connolly was able to make history understandable because he reduced it to its essential development and the struggles of competing class forces. Only then dic he add the details.
Reviewed by Martin Collins
This is how Rius dealt with things in the Beginners' Guide to Cuba. He explained major historical developments and then the
were used to inLal LUIs troduce the characters.
Evan's drawings and texts depict major events and stereotyped 'prods' and 'taigs' appear Crank and file version of it every 20 to give the all. This device • fails miserably. We get about Connolly's attempts io win ine nauonalsts socialism but nothing about his arguments with the English, American and nish socas one vita importance of the national
Socialist Action 24 June 1983
Planning and
IT SHOULD be a fundamental socialist thesis that the anarchy of capitalist crisis can only be overcome by socialist planning. The question is: what kind of planning, in what context, and with what powers? Blazyca calls it is the failure of bureaucratic planning - national plan 'ning without workers inmauve did WUIKCI Culi
Inevitably such leads to major breakdowns and crisis
However we shouldn't ignore the immensely pro gressive aspects of such national planning, for example in carrying through the • industrialisation the Soviet economy. Social democratic 'indicative' plannine • has failed because it has refused to
Many serious challenge to the power and prerogatives of capital.
Problem
The problem with the alternative economic
that it sul alcoy
'radical variant of dicative' left Keynesianism. It is not that it 1s 'undemocratic' although doubtless it is -but that it refuses to envisage an all-out assault on the power of capital.
Planning whether local or national only be
call successtul it the immense resources that capitalist Britain has at its disposal are put in the hands of the working class
no socialist short cut which goes round the nationalisation of the banks, the finance houses
Ireland for beginners
He pointed out how the national struggle would open up the perma nent socialist character of the revolutionary process. The authors however fall prey to the notion that it is religion that Irish workers not parti-
tio Thus the book fails to
deal with the root of the problem which is that the division of the Irish working class can only be solved by the fight against British
and the leading monopolies.
Workers control ano local initiative will surel! be needed to prevent thi beginning becomin bureaucratic planning But 'local' planning car not substitute for it
Attempts at local plar ning by Labour council: will in the coming years b increasingly constrained by huge social expenditur cuts. Labour councils are
have to tread fine dividing line betweer defence of working clas gains and administerins -the capitalist crisis. Onc you start to resort to rate: increases to finance loca plans, you are stepping over that line.
The only answer then i: disengagement from loca power. Workers plans. like the Lucas plan, have a
ing for workers ad ministration of ar 1 UVCId socialist plan for the
They have crucial educational and mobilising role. But the cannot substitute for, no: be put into effect without an overall socialist plan fe: the economv
Without understar. ding that, many illusions ultimately reformist 1llu sions, will be created.
•Planning is good for yo
case for Popula Control'.
George Blazyca. Pluto Pras
for Socialssentes Pluto Press £2.50 imperialism. Only whe the border has gone, ca the secondary matter the division betwee loyalists and nationalist b solved.
By putting religion firs and the politica cause last, the book can not es plain what is happening i İreland, nor can it provid a sulutivl Ireland for Beginners By Phil Evans and Eileen polock Writers and Readers £2.95
Page 12 scan of this page
12 Socialist Action
DIARY
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WE WERE pleasantly
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had won a bet that the
Tories would get in
but didn't have the
heart to spend it.
Not so good was
the letter from the
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rised over *2.IN to help
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target.
With postWhat Next
clection tour,
for the Left? kicked off
by the successful London
meeting with Ken Living-
SUIC well under way.
you can see we are using
it to good effect. Many
thanks to all those who
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But if you look over
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24 June 1983
• Walk for Life from was ane nuclear submarine base to Greenham Common, 19 May to 6 August. For more cerals or event. contact the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM). 11 Forth Street, Edinburgh 031-557 4284.
Who Killed Colin Roach! Video film of the campaign
meetings, youth
Roach Family Support Committee, 50 Rectory Road, London N16 7PP, 01-254 7480.
Youth CND Conference, Luv. vanenester. For details contact YCND; 11 Goodwin St. London N4.
Fighting the
missiles after the
election East London CND Rally with Tony Benn, Arthur Scargill, Alf Lomas Tony Hart (GLC), Jenny Edwards (CND).
Chair: Jo Richardson
Wed 29 June, 7.30pm,
East Ham Town Hall, London E6
• women lor Lue on Earth, 1983 Star marches
Hiroshima day, 8 August. Leaving County Hall, COnCO ON Contact 01-699.6712 for 29 Julv Mixed.
details. • Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine National Conference Sun 26 June, 1lam, County Hall, London SEI. Conference fee tut unware oservers welcome. Further details from Andrew Hornung, 28 Carlton Mns, Holmleigh Rd, London N16.
WE
STAND
MIRIDEN
TRIDENT
A problem on the horizon
roblem on the horizon
What happens if we get to the end of the month and we haven't met the target? What happens if the CND chain hasn't covered the map?
Area
All you have to do to nave a say in it is tne following. If you are in an area with other sup-
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Get new readers or the paper to become sup-
Make sure mey
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Help put a stop lo Reagan's plans, nelp us make the target. Post off
• Troops Out Movement is organising a mass delegatior
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wur wovement benefit 1 July with Carol Grimes and supporting
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• Anti-deportation picket in support of Parveen Khan
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• Benefit concert for women in Chile rr 24 June, Hampden Community Centre, 150 Ossulton St, London Nwilsom Further information from Paula 691 2603 or 969 2292. • Scottish Socialist Society day conference 2 July at the
strategies for the left in
scotland after the election
ne ronus or neal ! Zimbawbe Hour long video available for meetings or
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A homage to 'Marcial' and 'Ana Maria'
Date: Friday June 24th
Place: L.S.E., Old Theatre, Houghton
St WC1. Holborn
Time: 7pm
- Waldo: Chilean Singel
1 Marcial & Ana Maria - Biographical sketch of
Join the
fight for
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Appeal target of
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will be covered by a
massive CND chain.
So help us to stop
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today to Spring
Appeal, Socialist
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Socialist Action National Tour
Socialist Action supporters are organising a national series of meetings to discuss What Next after th election? Come to the meeting in your town!
BRISTOL Fri 24 June, speaker Valerie Coultas (contact 0272 510242)
CAMDEN Wed 29 June 8pm; Camden Labour Club Carol St NW1. Speaker valerie Coulta (contact 387 1361)
CARDIFF Wed 22 June, speaker Valerie Coulta:
EDINBURGH Wed 22 Jun speaker Alan Freemai (contact 041-667 4116)
HARINGEY Thu 23 June, speaker Redmond O'Neil contact 01-889 3487)
HUDDERSFIELD Thu 30 June, speaker Steve Potter
(contact 0623 653216) [LEAMINGTON — to be arranged (contact 0926 33408
NEWHAM Mon 27 June, speaker Pat Hickey (contact 01-470 4360 MANCHESTER Wed 22 June, speaker Bob Pennington (contact 001-130-4903 NEWPORT Thu 23 June, speaker Valerie Coultas OXFORD Mon 27 June (contact 0865 247624)
SE LONDON Wed 29 June ontact 01-858-686 LASGOW Thu 30 Jun speaker John Ross (contact 041-339 0333)
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Page 13 scan of this page
What future for Hong Kong?
Surplus Value
AMONG the topics for discussion at the National Peoples Congress currently in session in Beijing (Peking) is the eventual status of the British crown colony of Hong Kong, the lease' of which runs out in 1997.
With the memory of the Falklands War only one year old the British labour must come to an attitude on the Hong Kong question.
We start consideration of this subject with a contribution from October Review, a revolutionary Marxist journal published Chinese in Hong Kong. translation is by October Review. IN ORDER to assure their investment prospects, Hong Kong and capitalists have urged Britain to propose to China the question of Hong Kong's future. So, Beijing and London each has to clarify its position on this unresolved historical question. On the other hand, the people of Hong Kong, who constitute the majority of the population and makers of Hong Kong's prosperity, have maintained a different mentality.
Tradition
The Hong Kong working class have glorious tradition patriotic, revolutionary struggles. During the Second Revolution (1925-27) 250,000 Hong Kong workers participated in the Guangdong-Hong Kong strike which lasted 28 months. The workers waged imperialist actions against Japan during the Second and against British colonialism after 1949.
The workers greeted the successful 1949 revolution, ported China's reforms, and hoped establishment democratic socialist system that China could quickly overcome her backwardness poverty and help Hong Kong people from perialism.
It is a historical task for the Chinese to regain sovereignty and end colonial rule. To 'maintain the status quó' is contrary China's national interests.
Events of the past months show that the colonialists have met with frustrations but they are arranging to give necessary concessions in order to COLLILC squeezing profits in Hong Kong. The Chinese government hopes for an uncnanged capitals! system after . sovereignty has been regained over Hong Kong. As for the great majority of the people of Hong Kong, they reject the Chinese Communist Party's bureaucratic rule, and have tallen into a dilemma.
Under this particular situation, une slogan sen-rule or nong nong Dy the Hong Kong people' has been raised. The basic cause for this situation (and Mrs Thatcher even shamelessly declared herself as the caretaker of the welfare of the Hong Kong people) is the corrupt rule of the CCP for three decades which has given rise to a deep crisis of faith and confidence among the people in China and Hong Kong.
When the CCP leaders propose 'self-rule of Hong Kong', they are more or less admitting the above painful fact. But more
movement
In The
the British labouring
the of
Chinese
anti-
World War
sup. economic
for the of a truly
so
and perialists and capitalists liberate the
im- convulsions will incur, •ul ne
source of foreign currency.
to when DOVCICI-IL establishes it as a Kong, Hong Kong
On the other hand,
means the
the Constitution
element added
Hong unwilling to
important still, •UDESOL.
they are aiming at pleasing the im-
Hong Kong. They hope that the minimum
sovereignty smoothly transferred, and Hong Kong can remain a free port or financial centre and continue to be a
the ССР regains over Hong Kong, 'special zone allows 'one country with two systems' and tolerates the existence of foreign and Chinese capitalists, it will not however tolerate the exercise of true democratic freedoms by the people. This is evident from the three decades of CCP rule in China, from the present secret way by which Britain and Beijing negotiate the future of Hong
and from the lact that the people's democratic freedoms have never been mentioned. ple.
the maintenance of capitalism in Hong Kong
preservation of colonial economic forces in Hong Kong. With
of the People's Republic of China protecting the capitalist order, it actually means the establishment of a varied form of colonial rule in Hong Kong, the new
joint exploitation of the CCP bureaucrats and the red capitalists. The majority
Kong accept this schema of retaining old chains and adding new
Mass rally against the denial of democratic rights in Hong Kong practiced under the British administration.
One must fight for a desired perspective by one's own efforts. Ii the people of Hong Kong do not want to passively accept their fate, must make a conscious choice and fight for a truly democratic self-rule of Hong Kong and give the idea the content they desire. Highest
To realise this, a people's congress elected on a fully democratic basis must be set up. It will become the highest organ of power and will have the full power to decide all important questions. The congress will elect a standing committee to exercise powers while it is not in convention. This is the most concrete, democratic and effective form of self-rule of Hong Kong by the Hong Kong peo-
For this form of self-rule to be ultimately achieved, one must first strive for the following: 1. Political democratisation. use of all channels to express political views on the present and future of Hong Kong. Expose the reaction of theories which uphold the tiveness of the colonial treaties and Britain's continued rule of Hong Kong. Explain the necessity of self rule of Hong Kong by the Hong Kong people on a fully democratic basis The Chinese labouring people who constitute the majority of Kong's population have the right and the ability to decide their own destiny.
Hong kong enjoy rights including the rights of speech
they strike, rally, association and forma-
tion of political parties. All political organisations have the right of public rally, postulation of their ideas, winning of mass support and intervention in politics. Abolish all political repression and colonial laws and regulations. Heighten the people's political consciousness and enthusiasm for intervention in politics.
terests of the people, especially the labouring masses. Practice a social insurance system, with unemployment
its aids and compensations for unpaid
wages or dismissal. Prevent capitalists Make
effecHong
500 Km
Socialist Action 24 June 1983 workers aneuseive
OHCE м- 4 resolve district.
and mainland
ICICOLS 2. Guarantee that all citizens in
all democratic Only
3. Concrete guarantee of the in
the China.
CHINA
13 from arbitrary closure of factones. Freeze all price increases of public utilities and rental of public housing
DUDHIC ulunes. Sliding scale of workers' wages.
4. The ten billions of Hong Kon dollars of reserves comes from the labour of the Hong Kong people and it should be used for Hong Kong' education, health and other social welfare enterprises. It could finance various public construction works to alleviate the unemployment problem.
5. For the above ideals to become the reality, Hong Kong's citizens and
must first organise around trade unions. labour associations and progressive social groups. Where there are no trade unions, the workers should al
organise one in production units. Promote grassroot general elections, union democratisation. Get rid of the control of the union bureauc. racy. All trade unions and progressive groups should practise a great alliance and set up a united front.
6. Make use of all opportunities to participate in democratic elections. such as participation in elections to district councils and the Urban Council. Although the powers of these in. clos are very luteo. e æo! ty of their members belong to the upper and middle strata of society, and there is as yet no real representative o! the labouring classes, yet this does no prevent the citizens to make use of al opportunities of democratic election: to voice their opinion, intervene is social affairs, and strive for the ex. pansion of the powers of these institu. tions, so that they can have the powe
major problems in th All councillors must be democratically elected and subject to recali ov ue electors arauy ult
7. The link between Hong Kon
mainland China, lalwan anc Macau is close and inseparable. Im portant developments of one par have much impact on the other parts The people of Hong Kong must br closely concerned about the situatiot and developments of the mainland Taiwan and Macau, and actively sup port the struggles of people in the
and for democratic rights and economic in Waning
Hong Kong cannot develop indep endently from China. In a capitalis world that is suffering a general reces sion and waning, Hong Kong canno have any perspective of reformism Only by the political intervention o the Hong Kong labouring people ca the term 'self-rule of Hong Kong b the Hong Kong people' be given an! actual meaning and prospect. By th gains of their struggles, the Hony Kong people can encourage the strug gle of workers and peasants in th mainiand for socialist democracy
when this struggle in th mainland is expanded and develope with the ultimate abolition of the ruk of bureaucratie dictatorship can Hong Kong people restore their. con fidence in their motherland and hel
construction socialis
3 January 1983
Page 14 scan of this page
COHSE conference: defend the health service
Socialist Action
HOW CAN
Black Nalgo members a force for change.
y Mark Whyte elegate COHSE 211 branch (personal capacity) LAST WEEK's conference of COHSE, the health porkers union, provided an early indication of the hood of trade unionists in the wake of the Tories' eneral election victory.
allowing the betrayal of our long pay dispute last ear, the conference showed that there is still plenty willingness for a fight back against the Tories.
From our National Ex-
Committee we eard a lot rhetoric gainst the Tories and we pere urged to organise for
Labour victory at the ex! general election.
Many delegates replied hat we could not wait five ears, but must begin to mild a movement of oposition to kick out the fories and defend THS immediately.
Evidence of the suport for a fight back was wen by the passing of a solution, by a 2-1 maonly,
ion to all-out defiance
Tories anti-union
Sane
despite HIBOES calls from the NEC to abide by the law ad not to put the union's ands in danger.
Agreed
The conference agreed
the NHS was that of
and the
owith of private
ormitted the COCHIC Conference NEC to
massive including industrial Drivalsa.
Unfortunately another
otion calling for offical
cking for any industrial
against privatisaand calling for a naconference of all shop stewards
C unions was narrowly
feared After the
24 June 1983
nalgol
•IF THE TUCCAN
SUPPORT ASLEF
Despite a certain amount of demoralisation
the noc hehe services
TUC health services committee talled to give an adequate lead during the pay usDulc. such a conference could have represented a big step forward.
Following the pay dispute many strong joint union shop stewards committees have been formed. It's a shame therefore that the conference voted azalnsi amalgamate with NUPE. moves to
Such isolationism will need. to be combatted and unity built at a local level,
we are to successfully
Tories plans for the NHS
June coaterence adopted an excellent resolution calling for Improvement child care facilities in the NHS, improvements in the rights of working paren Photo: JOHN HA.
and opposition to nursery closures. Conference also TRay resolved the running dispute about: tilation to the Abortion Campaign following the NEC refusal to implement a conference Lolutiol two years ago when delegates instructed the NEC to affiliate to NAC forthwith.
Conference approved moves to make the union's delegation to the Labour Party conference more democratic, but unfortunately we were unsuccessful in committing the union to opposition to the witch hunt.
COHSE members during 1982 dispute.
David Williams, COHSE's new general secretary, showed that he was committed the
reverse this will now *have to be built.
The broad left in the
Group '81, formed at the 1981 conference, attracted considerablè sup port throughout the week,
THE SHADOW of Labour's defeat in the general election lay heavily across the 1983 conference of the National and Local Government Officers Association in the Isle of Man.
sector union they were in the firing line for the Tories' attacks on jobs and conditions.
Conference marked a small but by no decisive shift to the right. At the same time, the lett showed clear steps towards organising its forces for the battles ahead.
In the first major debate, on •pay, ference voted to accept a 4 per cent offer, but delegates made it clear that they were deeply dissatisfied executive's handling of the
Branches had structed the NEC to pursue a claim with a substantial flat rate component, ie £15, and to avoid percentage claims which fell into the incomes policy trap.
In the event, the NEC had let the flat rate clairi go by default. Delegates went censure the NEC for its failure to campaign in une membership
for the full claim.
debate, while centéring on wages,
wider cerns of delegates. clear that many NALGO activists are distinctly unhappy with the present leadership and regard it as an inadequate instrument for the future fights with
Weneed
12%-
including several well at-
tended fringe meetings.
From the conference, sup
meetings will be
held in all regions followed
by a national meeting later
summer to decide
policy and coordinate the
ight back in the union
* An emergency resolu-
tion put to the conference to back Neil Kinnock for
NALGO conference:
black workers make voice heard
Delegates were acutely aware that as a public the Tories.
Unfortunately there was no alternative leadership capable of putting up a chanenge to ine right. Steps are being taken … LO rectify this.
A Broad Left rally, a which Ian Stevenson from Bury spoke, was attended by nearly • 200 people
The Bury branch has recently conducted a successful fight privatisation of refuse collection.
The meeting decided on number of steps towards establishing a national Broad Lenn une union. Activists recognis ed that a Broad Lett which was concerned only with eecuons was nor an accquate organisation for dealing with the problems faced by the union.
Equally, however, effective building the workplace needed to be combined with a fight to
establish a more adequate leadership national
COHSE
the leadership of the
Labour Party was not
discussed.
Instead COHSE
branches will
copies of the manifestos
for the leader and deputy
leader. The Labour Party
delegation of the
will be bound by the ma-
jority decision of the bran-
ches.
level.
The meeting decided to build conference privatisation in the autumn and to establish a steering committee to con-
of NALGO in the next few MOTHERs. with the aim of preparing for setting up a
The combination of preparing for , left that can challenge for leader. ship of the union with building the fight against privatisation is major step forward for the union.
TUTT towards preparing NALGO for the battles ahead ' shown in a debate on campaigning tor shop stewards system.
Again, conference voted overwhelmingly for
motion and other branches which instructed NEC campaign for all branches
estaousi shop stewards organisation.
The overwhelming vote on the shop stewards
important SVSLCH. all break with the profesSold association traditions that have dominated the union for many vears Iț was yet another indicaLO1 that preparing for a battle to defend the against the Tory attacks.
Gay rights
demo rocks
Isle of Man
ONE OF the high
points of the 1983
NALGO
was 300-strong
demonstration in sup-
port of gay rights
which presented
petition to the Manx
Parliament.
By Theresa Conway
The petition pro-
tested against the laws
which rule that male
homosexuality is still
completely illegal in
Gay Pride March 1979
In the Unions
There was major debate on issue of racism in ine union Con: ference was sharply divid-
motion from the Metropolitan District Council inspired by the Black Workers Group The motion called for 'affirmative by the union at all levels to com bat personal anc institu-
On two issues in particutar, . there was opposItion in conference One was the drawing up of 'appropilale ruic and cedures discipline and expel NALGO members forpetuating racism. The found guilty other was on a call for 'all vacancies to be advertised externally and internally
The motion was defeated by 219.600 to 43,900. Despite this
tinuing its campaign in the ¡cAl ycal.
Increasingly NALGO is less and less like the professional union of
. It is more and yesier ycai
workers. women and black. These
the forces . of change which will show itself in the face of the Tories' attacks: the Isle of Man. The demonstration received front page coverage in the local press and was mentioned on local radio and TV.
It was followed by
debate on conference floor which decided NALGO would not hold another conference on the island until the law was changed.
The motion also called on the union to boycott other venues where the local authority contravened NALGO policy on such issues as privatisation.
Earlier in the week
à highly successful fringe meeting on gay rights was held which discussed ways of fighting anti-gay prejudice in the union.
There was also a press conference to launch the union's Photo: GM COOKSON new pamphlet on gay rights, possibly the first produced by any national trade union. Nevertheless NALGO leadership attitudes during the debate on the issue showed there is a long way to go.
Page 15 scan of this page
In the Unions
WORM'S
EYE
VIEW
Fair
trading
SOCIALIST Action's
award to industry goes
this the British
sycal
owned Falkland Islands
Company which owns 43
per cent of the islands
and employs nearly half
the population.
OK, many true pat-
riots got upset when the
Argentinians •occupied
the island. But the com-
pany's enterprising
DONSC Teanieu the first
law of capitalism which
is that profit comes first.
Misfortune could be
turned. into hard cash.
When the Argenti-
nians started digging
LNI-CIC _COINU the
company's 'liberators'
sold the
LHC
Argentinians tons of
WODE U ine their tren-
ches and dug outs.
The company charo.
ed the Argentinians £2 a
kilo instead the
market price of £1.40 a
kilo, which their
Was
contribution the BT MANAGEMENT gauntlet to the newly elected left executive of the POEU. They have begun to send workers home for refusing to connect the privately owned Mercury system to the state network.
based on the latest technology. This is the first challenge to the POEU conference decision to fight the privatisation of the industry.
The fight privatisation and Mercury araliisu are linked. The businessonly Mercury system was given permission by the
LUlIDCLC against BT at an early
Most of the groundSLaZ•i work has been done, but without connection to the state system its cost would nuzciy lucicasc.
By Pat Hickey
Mercury has run into a number of technical difficulties, puts question over its viability.
For example, the initial plan to lay the optical fibre cables alongside Rail tracks has had to be abandoned, due to the etfect of vibration. The latest idea is to connect it
British Rail's communication system.
Whatever its economic
its political significance in opening up BI to private competition HOOdOL.
Mr Needham chairperson of Coalite should call at our office so we can give him the Socialist Action Award to Industry. undermining of Galtieri's economy.
Believing in the old adage WNe NOL W%ill not after the war reclaimed the bales and shipped them back to Britain as damaged goods
Now peoole are com. plaining about the com-
pa tra dick of patrio tisme
trading with the
Che!y. How stunid can
they get? According to
Margaret hatcher patriotic to make a profit
anu tal bo cracuy WLal this subsidiary of the
Telecoms Bill
battle starts
with Mercury
have thrown down the
Mercury is a business communications system development In office
Alongside of p Cll" couragement private competition the Tories are
further plans.
The government will be reintroducing the Telecoms Bill, shelved when the general election was called.
However instead of a straight sell-ott ot 5 pe cent as originally proposed the lories will be adopting
piecemeal apWUC I Di Udlll.
This is not because the government is concerned to protect workers in BT. The reason is that the size of such a sell-off around f4bn would the
D W alllstock market. The new Bill, will allow the government to sell OTI by means to be decided later U1l.
The new approach is to acheive privatisation by schle off ot the tasiness such as specialis-
Custolc coulolicl and various business ser-
Derbyshire firm Coalite did.
Nor, 1 am glad to say, does lne compan believe in featherbedding bUDIC Sel tor. The British army is charged £1.50 a head per night for billeting those "brave lads' who freed the islands to boost Coalite's profits.
One of their three bedroomed Goose Green housed i6 houses
soldiers a night. When someone complained this
overcrowding the company explained most oe ov e ge the dark and don't like siceplng on lelr own.
That billet grossed Coalite £650 a
HOELlI Normally the cottage is rented out for f60 a month. You can see the advantages of privatisation over the heavily subsidised puDlIC sector especially you haye shares in the private one.
However Coalite is not ganste hit donateiE50,000 ever even donated
of its €5 million assets to the South Atlantic Fund for service men and their families. This
acoll" ably is marked down as tax-deductable.
Compiled by BOB PENNANULUN. Send colinoutions Socialis Action, 328 Upper Worm's Eye,
Street. London N1 2XP to arrive not later than Thursday a week prior to publication.
vices. The reorganisation
withın Bl, basea on loca
profit centres, will
facilitate this approach.
Firms like Plessey's
which are heavily depen-
dent on BT orders and
have enjoyed virtual
monopoly will be given
time the changed conditions.
But there will be no such breathing space for the workforce.
Management have opened their campaign by sending letter all workers and their homes
last week suade them not to support the action. This is the first shot in their propaganda
LalllDaizl unacc the new executive.
Mandate
But the POEU is shap-
ing up for battle. Follow-
ing the vote on no con-
tidence in the union's in
Action Sub-
ference, a new committee
has been appointed, which
accurately reflects
contereuce uccisiolls.
Meetings being alC
held with the leaderships
ot the branches who led
the action against the
Telecon: Bill last time
round, and an industrial
Lewis Merthyr pit — its closure heralded hit list
Mineworkers about the uneconomic pits have proved justified.
jobs.
Bryniliw colliery near Gorseinon the latest South Wales pit be threatened with 638 jobs at risk. Philip Weekes, the NCB area director, claims the pit uneconomic, despite the report of an investigating team which included mining experts from the Board itself.
Post Office engineers on City of London picket before general election
action bulletin has gone out to branches already.
The mandate given to the
kulalec. CUl ference to take in-
was dustrial action as soon as the measure enters Parlia-
Miners set to fight closures
THE WORST FEARS of the National Union of
'hit list? of so-called
Less than a week after Thatcher was returned to Number 10, the National Coal Board announced closure plans involving the loss of 65,000 mining
The report found that there were at least 15 years of workable reserves leit in the pit and that Brynlliw should actually be expanded and new seams opened; their recommendations have been bowen ruled.
The miners at Bryniliw TELEPNONES! ment. This seems likely to coincide with the first reading of the Bill.
In the meantime the - fight against Mercury will set the battle lines for the fight against the Tories.
Socialist Action 24 June 1983 the NCB's judgement. As Eric Davies. lodge secretary, puts it:
"The reason that we are in a precarious position is simply because we have
Suar vel of LICE machinery and development capital.
Bryniliw have had stomachful of this.
Now that the hit list has miners will be seeking to lnk togetner tne turcalel ed pits and develop Solani ac01
The situation at Brynlliw is not unique, but
Union rights won
in Manchester
AN IMPORTANT vietory for union rights was won at the Manchester firm of Barber and Colman this week. On Monday the 100-strong Trafford Park work force voted to return to work after six days of strike action.
The company had conceded to their demands for union recognition and for the reinstatement of four of their colleagues who had COCCl made pulsorily redundant.
Two of the four including Jon Silberman, who had been one of the prime movers behind the unionisation drive, had been given a matter of minutes to pack up and leave the premises
Now there will be a period of six weeks during which there will be negotiations to find alternatives compulsory redundancies
Throughout the negotiations spanning the whole strike the manageSlicl SU DDO refused to accept reinstate-
CM COOKSON
Lical
They know only too well how strong union organisation will lead to drastic changes in the Victorian working conditions and ultimately the wage rates • oT Tne workforce. They had proposed number of different formulas which recognised the union, but which kept Jon and the others outside the gates.
What changed their was the escalation of the dispute to the other Barber and Coman fac tories in nearby Sale. The strike committee leafletted
15 left on their own they can be defeated as the ex. perience of Lewis Merthy at the beginning of this year showed.
In their attempts to improve operatino costs and 'balance their books
NCB are quile pre pared to close pits with
workable reserves. Feasibilit!
and 'expert reports will not save such pits.
As Arthur Scargill saic of the Tories' plans, las week, it is time to stanc up and fight.' the Sale factory the fourth morning of the SENIKe arranged some of the Sale workers. ISO L CHC li the pub at dinner-time to •usCIss Wial woo CoulE OL
In all nearly seven!! lucica uo, baonie overla beer garden. They then ar ralecd for SCCond meeting the following day at which about a hundred turned up and after a full discussion voted unanimously to suppor! the Trafford Park workforce and respec Lel acker
The developments Sale forced management to concede. On Frida! Halacil! director Norton was broadcasting on the radio threatening to close the factory and ap pealing the strikers wives. By Saturday after noon an agreement hac been made with negotiating team thai guaranteed full union recognition and reinstate ment
The strike wel supported in the local labour Some £300 was raised in the first week, but perhaps important of all was the depth of action involved by all the strikers in the dispute.
Regular mass meeting were held, the overwhelming bulk of the workforc were on the picket line and every day about a quarte! of the workforce were involvea In delegations tc other factories.
A strong rank and file strike committee gained nvola sie expenece ne stage is set for a strong new
shop heartland of Manchester Luluustl y
Page 16 scan of this page
Courtroom farce at Roach inquest
FOR A week in July,
US airbase Greenham will arget of an sonal blockade.
The starting date is 4 July, which has dosen because American independrace day and women mant to show their refection of America's mar plans for Europe.
Socialist Action will be orguing for labour moveseat tee blocks de. We
blockade. ope that it will be possible
baild on the links made with the Labour Party and rade unions on the Interational Women's Day for disarmament in May.
Every action ampaign against
rom the point of view of milding the biggest wave
opposition ly wcalIs. *gal system holds for black people.
id callousness.
Journalists wait bored, heir notebooks on their inees, not concerned eless some sensational autburst takes. place omething which
ake good copy.
Meanwhile,
ockery of justic mues. The greatest VIC-
the Roach buld get would be derlaration of an open ver-
meaning that Colin
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at Greenham be the internaand it
been that we can win. it By Valerie Coultas
rests at Upper the Tories, the July
gloves by the police.
The
Monday 4 Tues 5 the Weds 6 the Thur 7 Fri 8 seen
these TO BE present at the inquest into the death of Colin Roach is to see close up the contempt the British
The Roach family sit among their supporters in he public section of the court listening with pent-up eger to the arrogant police denials of their own catements, their own claims of police harrassment
Emitted suicide the matter sidered at an end.
will By Tim Wright
the During con- of Friday,
family Tul ud for the
Was
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SOCiAList
ACTiON
AM
ment
the
"the demonstration at
in December had just that effect. It was a show of strength of the women's peace movement
generated confidence and a real feeling
from
But atter the mass ar.
Heyford ICLULL ULC it is unlikely that bied blockade won't exactly be treated with kid
energy, initiative and enthusasm that the women's peace movement have brought to the fight
Regional mobilisations:
Further information: send SAE to July 4 Action,
London Greenham Office, 5 Leonard Street, Lon-
don EC2 (01-251 3133) may or may not have com-
and there will . con-
the the afternoon June, a shy and frightened person was
Chapman,
neell asa te prison over
UL SUlI over
subscribe
For readers who take out a yar's inland subscription
we are offering a free copy of Hard Times, a new book in the 'Arguments for Socialism' series by Bob Sutcliffe. The book normally costs $2.50.
against nuclear weapons can easily become lost futile controntations with the cops.
What is needed is to tap the huge support that exists in the labour move-
and especially from the unions build mass action against
missiles, including strike action.
It is important to support the blockade, and just
OTTUNE 'ODD unions and the TUC to demanu unal ley
their itiatives in the anti-missiles campaign.
"the Transport
General Workers Union conference meets
4-8 July, and has a policy argues for the TUC to take
against aLlIUl missiles. At the same time as the blockade, the T&G conference should be lob-
to ensure thes strengthen their commitment to stop cruise and Trident, and force TUC to organise action. • Continuous blockade
Greenham Common USAF base, 4-8 July.
International and Scotland Wales Ireland, SW England
London SE England
North and Midlands Christmas.
Attempts were made in questioning him to prove Colin to have been mental-
David stated that Colin nato never struck him as strange, just quiet.
said, talk to himself. This was sectas very recyauı But then, David admitted he talked to himselt too.
Next, Detective Constable David Pointer was questioned. His story
January Lab culles when Colin died on was incoherent and contradictory.
When asked Michael Mansfield, acting
behalt of Roach family, how he knew it was SPECIAL
OFFER
Alternatively we are offering Alan Freeman's book, The Benn Heresy. ror new redders tere is our special introductory offer of 8 issues for S2. All subscriptions are posted
first class on day of publication.
in
and in-
and
and
the
the
exactly 11.35pm when he discovered Colin's body he was completely unable ove tcm knew because it was in his diary.
diary up on the same day aRIC WIUEC LICSLaLCICHL death? Then it must havs the after been from the station duty OOOK. Book
12
dutv book
by minutes after discovering
Colin.
exactly what the time was? Pointer was moment for an answer. He then fell back on claiming it was a policeman's intuition to have an awareness of the time of events.
A member of the jury a young black man, askec to put a question to DC Pointer.
did Pointer's questioning start that afternoon? copper looked contused After several deep thought, he answer ed. He was wrong. point had been proven never trust a copper's intuition.
Sergeant Pearce. the questioning of Michael vstend
of holes.
The worst what he told the
though,
to .answer. He •ONCE
But did he not write his
out Colin's
you
ned.
But when did he fill the
in? Several
in's death, Then how did he know
stuck for a
ington disregard
munity
What time, he asked,
The Monday, ing out seconds of jury in the quest The
propriate.
Next in the dock came
.Unde mittee,
was shown to be full evtence verdict was
aspect of court,
Solidarity!
SL ADACA how he treated Colin Roach upon finding him slumped in the
suale SHe admitted Colin could have occu unconscious
How did he try to find
whetner ne was still alive? By shouting at him, Pearce stated. But didn't he feel his pulse? Oh no, certainly not, because he might have been dead, and
never move a dead body. The court was stun-
Whatever the verdict of the jury, and whatever the circumstances oi Col
which will reulanlcau cacıy unceılanı beyond this inquest, one thing is proven for certain. The police of Stoke New-
have savase and brute hostility to the black comburhoodof the neigh-
Stop press
20 June. After be for three hours the
returned majority verdict of 8 to 2 of suicide
tions from the coroner that ins tolowe cerener Photo G.M. COOKSON
other verdict Was
Barnor Hesse, of the Roach Family sudDort Com
announced that the s irrelevant all that would satisfy the Roach family and their supporters would be a full and public en-
← Socialist Action No. 14, 17 June 1983Socialist Action No. 16, 1 July 1983 →