the Sam Bond affair in Liverpool affords us an opportunity of appraising the record of the opposition's line in practice. Black Section Steering Committee In answer to the demand that black people be properly represented both in the formulation and implementation of policy that is, on policy-making bodies council subcommitttes, as well as at a national level should take up the 'white man's burden' when comes to the black community. Nor does their record stand up in Livercontrolling District Labour Party and the city council Labour group. • Prior to the last general election representatives of Liverpool's black community went television (Channel 4's Black on Black programme) to proclaim that they felt that they should stand a candidate against Ine Labour rally lo voice their dissatisfaction with unwillingness to consult the black community or take the views of black people seriously. • A black caucus was organised as long ago as 1979 in order to pressurise the council into adopting equal opportunities policy and positive action programme. The present Labour group has been dragged kicking screaming into establishing the race relations unit which is the focus of the present dispute involving Sam Bond.
• The same Sam Bond was unceremoniously marked' for the job despite the or olestallvils of both the black caucus and the NALGO observer on the council's subAfter all, they won the day in terms of votes, and committee. Comrade supporter Milliant policies. • Despite a signed agreement between Derek Hatton and the black caucus LaDUul reaffirmed Bond's avi politicul. • Derek Hatton and Sam Bond had to be persuaded not to cross an official NALGO picket line they refused to recognise a black picket. • Steve French, a prominent member of the black caucus, had an application join the Labour Party 'deferred'. this case deferred is just a nice word for blocked.
This is a catalogue of the District Labour Party and Labour group's record of implementing 'bold socialist programme' order to attract blacks to unhappy resul is that it affords Liberals, even the Tories, the chance to cynically put themselves forward as champions of the black community.
It must surely be clear all observers Militant's only interest in black people is as fertilizer for their own current, as is the case in the Labour Party Young Socialists.
Everyone on the left of the who voted black sections, must now reconsider their judgement in the light of present developments.
whence does careerism come in the party? tokenismo who Who employing traudulently.
Lite interests black people? Who discredits the party in the eyes of the black community! The lamentable comrades of 'WE FOLLOWED all the procedures we waited ycals. But enough is enough! We've got to stick up for our rights. Our patience has run out, the procedures exhausted so we have gone on strike.' This statement the Ford women sewing machinists sums up their total exasperation with their situation.
The women Ford's Dagenham Halewood plant have taken up their case for grading with their skill six times: in every year 1981. They have gone industrial tribunal which refused to act because a supposedly 'non-discriminatory evaluation scheme was in operation. Enough enough.
According to the Financial Times, Ford is hoping that the strike does not mean history is about to repeat itself. When the women went on strike in 1968 over the same claim wave of general industrial the two plants. It also ushered in a wave of other strikes and struggles of women workers across Britain for equal pay, led to a national cular rights campaign (NJACCWER) tributed to the birth of the women s nocrallo iuve ment. Not a small achieveCertainly Ron Todd, chief negotiator 1UWU, uneasy at the 22 November lobby of the national Ford shop stewards meeting and reacted angrily to implicaabead and sign this year's tions that might agreement with the comover the women's pally heads. The pressure on the leadership tense.
At the moment however the company's 7 percent pay offer remains to be voted on and some 8.000 assembly workers are laid off for the third week running as the women continue their round the clock picketing A meeting on luesdas 27 November between the Todd and the company, shop stewards ended in deadlock face company's refusal to budge on this issue even when the idea of going to independent bitration was put.
The pressure on the women to shelve their action is bound to mount as the 5 December deadline for signing the agreement nears with the threat of the withdrawal of the wages There is no Labour government to intervene as in 1968 to make promises of in the Allies The women have only their own ability to stick it out, to win allies and to make it impossible for the union leadership to back down. Thatcher out to smash strikes, not to head them off via cups of tea with the Employment and Productivity Minister Barbara Castle, as in the strike sixteen years ago The Ford women don't see their fight as an equal pay struggle. They consider uncy gol / in 1968. They considered this as a fight for recognition of their skill while agreeing that they have this low skill grading because they are women.
trouble is that earlier governments did an extremely clever job when they introduced their equal pay emislators five years giving figure out around it and persuading everybody that had sorted things out.
precisely by grading and job segregation questions that women are left behind in the wages front, still earning approximately thirds men's wages and with the wage differential widening When it comes to job evaluation involving workers, the worner bosses suddenly give a lot weight to physical strength rather At Fords, management agrees that it requires six months training to produce a fully competent sewing machinist compared on the assembly but low marks on Inland 6 months t8: 12 months f15 Overseas 112 months only)
Europe (17: Air Mail C:+ (Double these rates for multi-reader institions Name Address Please send me as special offer physical demands working conditions. On these critera surgeon would rate lower on skill than a grave dig ger. Of course, what really determines wage rates has little to do with skill and scientifically reputable job evaluation studies but the social weight of the workers and their ability to struggle The Ford women are in if fraught, DOWCLIul position. Their labour vital to the production of cars ana pront lor un company. It is estimated that already. thell has cost Ford over £100m While in lost producuon in some ways, talking of equal pay or its equivalent supercedriously da mas superceded mass unemployment - this strike is important. It is another indicator of the growth of a new women's movemen born from the struggle of working class women such as the miners' wives and of a fighting mood in sections of the class.
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rights THE NATIONAL Joint Action Campaign Committee for Equa Rights (NJACCWER) was the campaign that grew out of the 1968 strike of Ford sewing machinists.
It was launched on 22 October 1968 that year to achieve equal rents for women. Officers includ Summer skill, various MPs and trade union leaders and its secretary-treasurer Fred Blake organiser the Ford sewing machinists' union at the time, the Nationa of Vehicle Builders.
Over 300 people atCentel inaugural meeting at the House of Commons from a wide range of trade unions, organisations, political and civil rights groups. It held one na. tional demonstration. of some 3,000 women drawn mainly from industrial/manual unions first national women's demonstration in almost 30 years!
It collapsed eventually due to the dead hand of Communist Party figures who argued that Equal Pay Bill fulfilled goals of the cam paign.
Its charter included: 1. To demand the removal of sex discrim. ination against women in employment, social and public life. 2. To demand the inclu sion of equal pay for work of equal value in all agreements between employers and trade unions 3. To demand that MPs enforce equal legal rights for women through parliament in 1969.
To demand that the TUC leads ordinates a national ac.
tion campaign for equal pay and opportunities in industry with their decision their 1968 conference.
5. To demand the imgovernment ratification of the ILO Convention 100. Special free book offer! •Take our a tears inland subscription and He will send you free one of these book»: Thatcher and Friends by John Row Over our Dead Bodies -Women Against the Bomb Introductory offer for new readers: Eight issues for just f2!
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discredits party among blacks BARELY TWO MONTHS after the fury of the black section debate at Labour Party conference,
they are in a position to 'show us the way'. They, of course, being primarily the Militant tendency, who did most to articulate opposition to black sections.
Phat one d hour Party the