Unis s a scandalous fundamental principle of workers democracy that given agreement on ine basic issue, all contingents on any march should 1 am an unemployed graduate from Warwick University where the Students Union has a policy of supporting all initiatives against the cuts and unemployment, and is affiliated to the Right to Work Campaign. We also have a more detailed policy which provides an overall strategy for campaigns, and while supporting all initia tives, we argue for our policy to be adopted.
Briefly, our position is that of an action programme to defend all living standards against inflation (sliding scale of wages, social expenditure, etc.) to guarantee jobs for all by work-sharing without loss of pay, linked to nationalisation compensation of the banks and key sections of industry, and for workers control to be fought for of firms threatening redundancies via a campaign to open the books and to implement the demands listed above.
A coherent general strategy is essential, we feel, at a time when the Labour movement is disoriented by the attacks of the Labour Government, and is split along the lines of race, sex, employed/ unemployed, etc.
YOUTH One of the most urgent tasks facing revolutionaries today is to aim the campaigns against unemployment, facishl! and cutbacks at the unemployed youth. This is a very difficult task as most of these kids have never been in a union, and have never been involved in any political activity, but a lot of good work has been done in this direction the Right to Work PHIL DAVENPORT Committees in Coventry and other large towns.
There are, though, several inadequacies in the present campaign which, if not corrected, will lead it up a blind alley.
Firstly, although a rank-and-file move ment is essential at a time when the attacks against the working class are being carried out by its own official leadership, it will degenerate into an irrelevant side issue unless it is directed at the mass organisations of the labour movement unless more effort is made to force left MPs and trade union leaders into action The last Right to Work March clearly failed to do this; it was totally inadequate just to obtain signatures of support from a few MPs, as this merely gave the march some respectability and the MPs a left cover. excellent as it is to involve them actively, they will be unstable allies unless they can be directed towards the mass organisations (by speaking at union meetings, holding factory gate meetings, etc. to explain their case and to force the labour movement into fighting for their jobs)
In many areas Right to Work Committees are beginning this sort of work, but it is always based on the slogan This slogan is hopelessly inade quate, because many men have to work overtime in order to support their families I think that the slogan work-sharing without loss of pay is far better suited to unite employed and unemployed workers in a fight for jobs for all without eroding the living standards of those already employed USEFUL Our propaganda should also take up the question of job creation schemes, fighfing for them to be well paid and unionised and directed to socially useful works. This ha to be linked to demands for an injection of Tunds into a buriaing programme and social expenditure and for this to be protected against inflation by a sliding scale.
Despite the shortcomings produced by the basically apolitical approach of the International Socialists, the campaign is having a certain impact, and I feel that al Trotskyist groups should be devoting far more energy to building the march and to giving the campaign a more purposeful direction along the lines I have mentione above