NOW!
The 1. WRITE to your MP, it she is likely to be sympathetic to the bill, asking her/him to be there on 9 December to vote. It is crucial that lou mrs are at the house or commons to support the Bill - less than 100 and a vote will at the bottom of this leaflet and send it to your MP at the House of Commons, London SWI 2. Be at the House of Commons yourself, in the public gallery from 9.30 am on December 9 to heor the debote and to show thot women are concerned. will be voted on in the House of Commons THE SEX EQUALITY BILL is a private members bill, introduced by Jo Richardson MP It will fill the loopholes in the present sex discrimination low and introduce now rights to fight inequality and discrimination.
THE SEX EQUALITY BILL will:
• allow part-time workers to claim equal pay (proportionately with full-timers • make sexual harassment at work. unlawful • make paternity leave a right for all fathers • make it unlawful for private clubs to exclude women members from using club facilities • introduce stronger measures for positive action at school and at work • make discrimination against homosexual people at work unlawful • stop discrimination against single people at work • stop occupational pension schemes giving different benefits to women and men who are members of the same scheme WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR SEX EQUALITY DAY?
not be taken and the Bill will tall. Fill in the form 3. Write to NCCL Women's Rights Unit, 21 Tabard Street, London SE1 for more of these leaflets to circulate among your friends, trade union branch, at work, your political party branch and anywhere else 4. Write to Jo Richardson at the House of Commons, telling her that you support her Bill 5. Ensure your local paper carries a feature on the Bill on 9 December
Is Mrs Thatcher's smile beginning to slip?
THE NGA STRIKE against Tebbit, the POEU campaign against privatisation of British Telecom, the 400,000 strong CND demonstration against cruise, have highlighted the growing opposition to the Thatcher government.
Evidence is also emerging of a slow but steady erosion of support for the Tories. JOHN ROSS looks at what the opinion polls have revealed about the popularity of the Thatcher government and its policies.
OPINION polls are justifiably regarded with suspicion socialists. On particular questions they are often notoriously biased.
A recent MORI poll on unemployment for example saw alternatives women leaving work, jobsharing, iower retirement age. Even Labour Party policies like reflation of the economy or job creation schemes — never mind socialist measures — were mentioned. Not surprisingly the poll found wide acceptance that mass unemployment was inevitable.
The polls generally have an inbuilt bias against the labour movement. the last general election virtually every single poll underestimated Labour Pariy support by around two to three per zent. in rebruary 1974 almost all the opinion polls predicted a Tory victory. In fact Labour won narrowly.
Telephone polls are even more biased. The results of polls conducted by ielephone are in general reckoned to show an inbuilt trend in favour of the Conservatives of between 1l and 14 per opinion they seek to measure. in public support were taking mass support.
the only Limitations official UDIllIUlI alludes are snirting.
At results political trends.
Election results and polls -even more important, polls are biased against Labour. cent. Finally, and most important, opinion polls do not show the actual forces which are creating the shifts in public For example in 1972 and 1974, the polls at the beginning of the miners' campaigns of those years showed the majority of people opposed the miners. However, by the end of the 1972 and 1974 miners' strikes public support was overwhelmingly in favour of the NUM claim • i nese polls In 191z ana 1914 accurately showed the way in which shifts place.
But they were powerless to explain that it was the decisive action being taken by the miners themselves which had actually changed opinions and won over wane.
Despite these limitations however polls do reflect in a cutta manner the way in which opinions and They nave une same sort of advantages and drawbacks results. Elections underestimate the real strength of the labour movement and do not show the ¡cal cavices open to we workme class. But no sensible socialist would ignore as i all indicator of • provided they are integrated with the real dynamic of politics — are valuable indicators of political trends. Judged by that yardstick the trend of the polls of since the general election confirms the trends already showing in June. This is as the opinion BRENT ACTIVE PENSIONERS invincible. ways Labour can build up its support.
In a distorted way the polls reveal that Thatcher's popularity is on the latest Gallup poll snows SuDDUll 43½ per However nearly every opinion poll, including Gallup, overestimated the Tory vote by two to three per cent at the last The Thatcher government's real support is therefore probably down to 40-41 per cent of the electorate. Hardly an impregnably strong popular base from which to assault the labour move. ment. Given another six months or year of decline and Labour could have a very interesting base indeed from which to launch a campaign for an immediate general election.
An outstanding popular success has also been the POEU campaign against British Telecom.
Although the POEU executive retreated over the use of the Tebbit Bill against the union nevertheless the shiti public opinion on the privatisation of British Telecoms has been dramatic.
December 1982 before POEU campaign, the polls in the Times run by Gallup said 43 per cent favoured LIFE NOT privatising British Telecoms and 37 per cent were against. By November 1983, cent. at the height of the POEU campaign, opinion had been reversed. Forty six per cent opposed privatisation and only 39 per cent supported it.
This shift in support from a majority in favour of privatisation to a ma jority against is one of the most successful political campaigns carried out by a trade union in shows that counterposed paigns wing of the trade claim — it demonstrates that industrial action and propaganda go The two together way to win public support. This was the lesson the miners taught in their strikes has in 1972 and 1974 On only one issue — that of attacking the waac show the government's central policies keeping almost the support. On almost every one of its other most central Shift privatisation of British Telelcom public opinion has been gradually moving away from the Thatcher The most dramatic shift of all is the one which has taken welfare state. Thatcher has consistently attempted to present as a central plank of her government's policy the need to slash the welfare state to 'permit' tax recent years. industrial action not propaganda cam— as Len Murray and the right hand are the best do the polls unchanged majority policies like place on the home to give them their parents have no public care, solely because 4,500 children will be in Tonight more than
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