With six weeks to go, we still need just under another £4,000 if we are to reach the target. So keep the money flowing in; we have had two individual donations of E100 so far this week, but we need more to make the £10,000. The total now (17 January) stands at:
£6,007 Further signatories from the labour movement to the appeal "to help make the newspaper into a weekly and contribute to the £10,000 Fund Drive" are (in a personal capacity): Ken Wallace (Secretary, No. 6 Divisional Council, AUEW-TASS)
David Oldham-gas fitter (GMWU shop steward) If you would like to contribute, please fill in the form below.
-----Fill in this form and sand to: FUND DRIVE, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1. (Cheques should be made out to The Red Mole/. am enclosing £... ............. for the Fund Drive.
NAME, ADDRESS..
I know the following who may also wish to contribute:
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ADDRESS oyers have begun an all-out offensive to regain the losses taken during the building strike. In Birmingham, Pete Carter, a leading UCATT militant, has been kicked off Bryant's Chamberlain Gardens site. On Monday 15th, all workers on the site took strike action against the sacking. Meanwhile, at the W.C.French city centre and office "lump' site in Birmingham, a successful stewards picket stopped lorries coming on site. In London, at the hotel site of Imperial London Contractors, Bedford Way, workers forced a non-union member home. Birmingham Council have been requested to remove their "no lump" clause on building contracts. No firm will tender for the massive Council House programme until such a guarantee. And Pete Carter's ex company, Bryants", is rumoured to be "splitting up" into smaller units, to ease "labour problems".
CHARTER AND THE LUMP All this adds up to a big push by the empl oyers to reintroduce the lump on a grand scale in the industry, hitting first at the centres of militancy. Again, the whole problem of the disorganisation of the trade crops up. Clearly, there is a case here for a rank and file organisation, but up to now 'Charter" has not fitted the bill. At the weekend conference of "Charter' Editorial Board, it was resolved to continue the struggle against the "lump" in the lead up to the March 10th Conference. But no assessment (bar one short editorial) has dealt with Charter's role so far, and the losses Charter has chalked up.
The Communist Party set up a rank-and-file organisation in the building trade to win control of the rank and file, and union leadership. The temporary nature of building work, combined with the workers splitting up into small numbers means that the C.P.'s base in the trade has been small. The size of the trade and the number of employees gives a picture of its importance in British industry. At the last count nearly 100,000 workers were employed in construction. Clearly, the C.P. (and Charter) had the greatest grip in the large cities and biggest sites. However, in the country as a whole there were large numbers of militants outside this layer to catapult the C.P. into the leadership.
For this independent layer, the decisive test came in the strike. The last national strike was in 1963. That was the last time that a national leadership of the trade had the chance to be tried and tested. As far as the new leadership, in Bristol, South Wales, Yorkshire and Lancashire were concerned, the test of Charter was how far did it help with the problem of conducting the national strike. Charter not only failed to take any initiative independent of the trade-union bureaucrats, it never appeared. It speaks volumes for the political priorities of its leadership.
NEW LEADERSHIP, OLD PROBLEMS The result of all this has been a dramatic slump in the support of Charter. Even in the big cities Charter meetings have been cut by half. Paper sales have dropped. Many new militants, in stewards committees or action committees, are suspicious of the paper and its usefulness. On the other hand they are beset with precisely the old problems of the industry: the employers playing cat and mouse through the disorganisation of the trade. At a time when Charter is unpopular, there has never been a greater need to link up the rank and file on the correct demands. We cannot rely on the officials, even given their current left turn. (This is explained by the fact that George Smith, general secretary of UCATT, has told his officials either you win the support of the members or you're out, we're a top-heavy union already.) These people will bend and twist whichever way the wind blows. At the same time as the regional official in Birmingham supports the actions of the stewards in picketing a lump site, UCATT is busily (although quietly) fighting a N.I.R.C. case on union membership! The officials will use anything but the strength of the rank and file to solve their problems!
WHAT NEXT?
One of the best features of the building strike was the way the rank and file got organised in Charter must now issue the call for all shopstewards committees anti action committees to plan local actions against the lump. The Birmingham example is a good one here. Stewards from the various sites are maintaining a picket on a rota basis, of a leading lump in the area. Solidarity and financial support is needed for this struggle. In other areas without an active stewards committee, we must call for action committees to be set up to discuss the best way of struggling agains the lump.
CHARTER: THE WAY FORWARD The Charter conference is planned for March 10th. The leadership of Charter is making a big push to win back the influence it lost in the strike. The message building workers take to that conference must be clear. We cannot win on Charter's present strategy. To build a movement with the aim of pressuring the bureaucrats is simply not enough. (The nonappearance of the Liaison Committee.for the Defence of Trade Unions when it was never more needed demonstrates this.) The real test of a rank and file organisation is whether it fights for independent action regardless of who sits in the General Secretary's chair. But there is another important point. The present offensive by the ruling class against the working class is designed to split away sectior of workers from a class struggle policy. Chart has to keep the movement united by pushing demands and actions in the interests of all building workers. And that means not just the lump, but tackling the whole struggle for a permanent labour force for the industry. OTHER SECTIONS One aspect of the failure of Charter in the strike was that building workers had no way of presenting their case to the rest of the working class. Winning the support of entire working-class is decisive now, as the miners strike showed. Now Charter has to take up the problem of support for other sections of workers engaged in the struggle against the freeze and the Act. We must start now to make sure that all building workers are behind the struggle of the rest of the working class.
all will be over. In our view this is totally