The two recent Building Workers' Charter conferences (one in Birmingham on 10 March, the other in Scotland on 24 March) came at a vital stage in the struggle in the industry. The building workers' strike, which ended last September, was the last successful national strike. Now lessons have to be drawn in preparation for Stage Il of the agreement signed then, which is due to be implemented in June. The non-appearance of Charter's newspaper during the strike has still not been satisfactorily explained. The excuse of being busy locally in the strike points to an extremely low priority for keeping the national organisation going at a time when it was desperately needed for a complete victory in the strike. After the strike, militants were immediately plunged into battle against the employers attempts to reintroduce lump labour on a grand scale. Centres of militancy like Birmingham saw the victimisation of militants like Pete Carter, new lump sites, and big new struggles. The reappearance of the lump, and the eternal nature of the fight against it, has raised once again the question of a permanent solution to the problem.
Finally, at Shrewsbury 24 building workers face charges, including conspiracy in six cases, for their role in the picketing during the strike - six months ago! This issue needs an overwhelming and united working class response. Six hundred workers, from Birmingham building sites, Shotton steelworkers and the Liverpool docks, demonstrated outside the court in Shrewsbury on 15 March. Part of that demonstration was mobilised by But the issues raised by this case need the widest airing possible, as a first step through the national building trade. CONFERENCES Approximately seven hundred and fifty people attended the Charter conference in Birmingham, with a further hundred and sixty delegates at the one in Glasgow. With such a EXTRA TIME FOR WHITELAW Contd From Page One On the three crucial issues it was to deal with -security, relations with the South, and powersharing in the North-it becomes just a new part of the 'carrot and the big stick' policy. This is expressed by its vagueness on these issues.
On security, Britain remains in overall control. The RUC is left intact, the Special Powers Act is to be repealed; the Diplock Commission's recommendations are to be implemented-le. another Special Powers Act is to be brought in.
On the "Irish Dimension", the White Paper proposes that the Six Counties gerrymandered area shall remain part of the United Kingdom as long as the built-in sectarian programmed majority want it. However, the possibility is offered of setting up a Council of Ireland, with a hint that before this happens the Green Tories in the South must retreat from the claim to national unity, and that a major part of the responsibilities of the Council shall be the repression of Republicans North and South.
CARROTS If the rest of the White Paper is vague, the section on power-sharing is elevated to a fine art.
In one part, a mysterious figure called the Head of the Central Secretariat (the new Prime Minister?) appears once, and then vanishes thereafter from the pages of the White Paper.
Like the grand-child being shown the shilling he'11 get if he's a good boy, Faulkner is shown the job he will get if he is a good boy and it is then put back in Whitelaw's waistcoat pocket for fear someone else will see it.
The exact method of election of Heads of Department who will form the Executive is left vague, so that Gerry Fitt can see a glimpse of his promised land. The membership of the new assembly is to increase, to 80, as opposed to Stormont's 50 odd, and in an assembly with less power than Stormont members' salaries will be greater, so that every little rat-bag politician in the Six Counties can dream of the carrots good attendance, it was vital to spell out a response on these issues. Militants should have been able to come away feeling that a plan of action had been hammered out which would enable them to overcome the problems they faced. In that light, far too much of the time was spent in beating chests and giving fine "we must struggle harder" speeches. The only "policy' to come out of the conferences was a policy statement passed, which was presented by the Charter Editorial Board members. This did contain some valuable points. It was agreed, for instance, to campaign for a compression of all the stages of the agreement to he implemented on 6 June (eg. Stage Ill was to come into operation in September, 1973). One-day stoppages are to be called both in support of this (on 6 June) and to coincide with the introduction of Eric Heffer's Bill outlawing the lump (on 28 March).
SPLITTERS?
One thing that was a move in the wrong direction was the way some speakers responded to a leaflet put out by building workers belonging to the International Marxist Group. Again all the ludicrous charges of "splitters' and 'wreckers' were levelled at the group, in both Birmingham and Glasgow. If Communist Party members in the rank and file leadership of Charter feel so threatened whenever criticism is raised, then we will be unable to move forward, learn from our mistakes, and discuss all of the options open to us in the struggle against the lump, low wages, the that await him if he'll help Wille put over the deal.
The race for these seats explains in small part the physical and mental gymnastics of the Orange-ultras in relation to the White Paper. Faulkner, who resigned rather than lose control of security, now accepts an Assembly in which the British Secretary remains as the overall Gauleiter. Paisley, who wanted total integration within the U.K., now flirts with U.D.I. Craig, who wanted U.D.J., now says that the White Paper is pushing them out of the U.K. Hull and Herron, who claim to lead the plebeian Protestants away from the fur-coated brigade of the Unionist Party, now lead their supporters in behind the most fur-coated of them all-Captain Orr. And Orr, who for a year has been angling for leadership of the Orange power-block, is caught, euphemistically speaking, with his pants down, in an impending divorce case, and decides that this is more financially promising than the leadership of this rabble.
The political explanation of all these gymnastics is the agonising dilemma of the choice between the Union with Britain, the only longterm guarantee of the Ascendancy, and the maintenance of the Ascendancy within Whitelaw's constraints.
PROMISES, PROMISES, PROMISES Liberals, Civil Righters, Stalinists, etc., are promised their Bill of Rights alongside the proposal to continue internment and establish new tougher Special Courts.
The mass of the population are promised strong action to tackle crucial social issues such as jobs and housing, provided they learn to behave like Englishmen.
As the Falls Road housewife said to the British paratrooper who threatened to rape her, "promises, promises, promises..."
This vagueness is not accidental, and the explanation for it is simple. The original White Paper was intended to be imposed on the Six Freeze and the Tory Government. At both conferences members of the International Marxist Group spoke on the need to struggle against the lump in a way which can smash it permanently. But they also spoke on the need for building workers, through their trade unions, to build local conferences of trade unionists and other groups committed to a struggle against the Tory Government and its policies.
Clearly, then, the Charter conferences did not meet all the needs of workers in the trade, though they did offer some steps in the right direction. Building workers should use these opportunities to go back to their local areas to campaign on the issues of the claim, the lump, and the Shrewsbury workers. Already in South Yorkshire there are moves to organise a one-day stoppage on 25 April in solidarity with the Shrewsbury workers when they come up in court again. Actions like this are on the order of the day, if the Charter conference is to have any meaning at all. Finally, the Charter Editorial Board is committed to discussing at its first meeting the ways in which a political campaign against the lump for Registration is to be implemented. Stoppages on 28 March and 6 June will be a real step forward, as will a real debate on how to struggle for Registration. But it is a great pity that more time was not spent on these issues in the conference reports of Lou Lewis and Pete Carter (reporting for the Editorial Board). Paul Smith Counties following the defeat of the IRA. The Sunday before the White Paper, in one 12 hour period, there were 37 armed attacks on British troops in Ireland.
The IRA has not been defeated in the time scale laid down for Whitelaw. This White Paper therefore is an attempt to buy time to achieve this task.
It would be wrong to assume from all this though that the promises will not have some effect. The experience of the promised O'Neill reforms of 68, the promised Callaghan reforms, the "Downing Street Declaration" of 69, is that sections of the Catholic population, particularly the Catholic middle class, egged on by the Church and the Green Tories in the South, will play on the fears and war-weariness of the Catholic population to "give the White Paper a chance".
SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT This will have an even greater effect on the potential supporters of the Irish struggle outside the Six Counties. What the solidarity movement in this country faces is a continuing period of swimming against the stream. This therefore increases the importance of work to build the Anti-Internment League sponsored conference on the role of British troops in Ireland, now planned to be held in London's Conway Hall on Saturday May 19th. This will provide the solidarity movement with a central task, which will direct our energies onto the most sensitive flank of imperialism in relation to the Irish war-the increasing disenchantment in Britain with the Irish war and the growing war-weariness of the British population.
Meanwhile in Belfast, party politics are hotting up. After the promises of the Downing Street Declaration of 1969, we had the famous honeymoon period, when Catholics in the North were offering cups of tea to British troops After the White Paper, things have gone even further, with even Republican girls inviting British soldiers to parties.