Socialist Challenge No. 111, 30 August 1979
The scan: sc-n111-aug-30-1979.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
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Page 1 scan of this page
No. 111 30 August 1979 15p
Socialist Challenge
TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND NOW!
END YES, IT IS A WAR. The deaths of 18 British soldiers, and
to a lesser extent those of Lord Mountbatten and his relatives, have spelt out the truth about the Irish situation in the boldest of capital letters.
This truth is something we have been saying for the last ten years: that what is happening in Ireland is not a 'peace-keeping exercise', it is a war. The cause of this war can be easily defined: it is the British presence in Ireland.
The ultimate proof
That the Provisional IRA can kill in one single military engagement 18 British soldiers of the Parachute Regiment is the ultimate proof of the seriousness of this war. Such heavy casualties have not been inflicted on the British army in a single day since the Korean War.
That the IRA has the capacity to inflict such a heavy defeat is the ultimate proof of its strength. This is derived from the support it receives from large sections of the Irish population and the fact that there is even
THE
greater support for the cause of a united Ireland.
We fully understand and appreciate the grief felt by the relatives of the soldiers. There can be no cause for exultation when rank and file soldiers, many of whom are driven to join the army to escape unemployment, are killed.
The real responsibility
But who bears the real responsibility for the deaths? It was British politicians who sent them to Ireland. It was British generals who ordered them to kill and repress Irish opponents of the British presence in Ireland.
The war in Ireland is one which stems from the insistence of the British ruling class that its army stays in the six north-eastern counties of Ireland. The IRA has every right to engage the British army in military conflict for as long as this occupation continues.
It says much for the sense of values of the British establishment that the killing of one old man [who was one of their own] upsets them more than the death of the 18 soldiers in Warrenpoint. But then the British ruling class has always prized its leaders above those it utilises as cannon fodder. Such double standards make it hardly surprising that its presence is unwelcome in Ireland.
Immediate withdrawal
Margaret Thatcher is crying out for revenge - for more blood, more dead. We demand the reverse. We demand an end to this bloody and oppressive war. We insist that there is only one way this will come about: the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Britain from Ireland.
Let the Irish people determine their own future.
SELF DETERMINATION FOR THE IRISH PEOPLE!
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Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street. London NI 2XQ. Editorial: 01-359 8180/9. Distribution/ Advertising: 01-3598371. Wanted: A new left wing in the unions
OUR POLICIES
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders
of the Labour Party and the trade
unions offer solutions that are in
the interests not or we workers
but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that
the iwa vital tasks
revolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based class
struggle tendencies in opposition
class-collaborationism in the
labour movement. These should
non-exclusive
ing a wide range of political views.
• To begin lo fight for the unitied
democratic revolutionary socialist
organisalon wnica can, throuch
application of united front
rachcs, oegin 10 ne seen
alternative by thousands
workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be
based on the understanding that:
The sees to unite the fight of
with that of other oppressed layers of society — women, black people,
gays struggling for liberation. This socialism can only
be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with necessary icans the power of the capitalist state.
Our socialism
infinitely more democrati
what exists in Britain loday. with full rights for political parties and currents that do not take up arms against the socialist state. Ihe Stalinist models of "socialism' the LSSK and Fastern turooe have discredited socialism in the exes of millions of
the He are opposed to them and will offer full support fighting for socialist democracy.
The inferests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable vil a world scale, Capitalism has not inly created a
has created politics. Thus we fight for working Class unity international scale. This unity will in the long run he decisive in defeating the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dietatorships they verlain in Latin America, Africa and Asia
in Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal British troops from Ireland and letting the frish people determine their sun future.
The Communis parties in -Kurope are in crisis. Neither The 'haracommunist the pro-Moron wings have ans meaningtul
bally merthrow of the rapitalist stale. are resolutionary sectals parties
Bedesrary Than belore. Conditions mose laporalde than over the preceding three decades. But such part" can only build rejecting sectarianisin and sering
but as a sital necessics. This means д do organese acon an
I one agree with these principles
Thee insetted
supporters us sour area, till in the fore dos and send it to us.
:111 interested
• sold lake additional Daterature dare allegins dip for desser ensle •here not anabel
Name...
EDITORIAL confronting
Tory
years of 'hard Labour', character, power.
and
action.
of spill Cover into government itself.
they voted Tory!
socialism
Heath government.
bosses
their and force them into leading action.
all
be
all
Oliver New writes:
world. EVEN
all those
tiring work. So
it will soon be back at work.
world
• the
world
courts and the National Front.
Оп 10 September,
both prisoners demonstrating against racism. will
80 people to be imprisoned unless
people.
movement, including that it has yet to wake up to the full significance of what Southall months On defending the democratic rights of
ever
are
Mort
fascists, the police attacked a whole community. and children. hospitalized Blair Peach was killed. One Asian had to have his testicles removed after the SPG had finished with him.
The aim, admitted, was to keep black people
30 Argust 1979 Page 2
THE WORKING class faces the challenge of the
with organisational strength intact. This is revealed not only by the way in which workers responded to attacks on their living standards during the five
but also by the struggles that haye been launched since the Tories returned to
The enthusiasm shown by 2 million engineering workers for strike action for the national claim, and the decision by workers in Scottish shipyards to fight closures by refusing to release completed ships, show the sort of feeling that exists for militant
Moreover, there's an increasing tendency for ooposition to individual attacks bv the lories to
general opposition to Few if any workers in industnal heartlands are today prepared to admil
A determined lead by the union leaders could build the sort of movement that destroyed
Ut that there can be little doubt. A massive campaign is required to build a movement among rank and file trade unionists which can really put the heat on the union leaders
the show trials
magistrates have holidays. black After all sending people to prison is Southall.
Barnet Magistrates Court is in recess at the moment. But
After a refreshing holiday is will mass bickel resume work with the most blatant showtrials in recent British history. It
examole co-operation between the police, the
ten Southall be on trial for The We defence committee expects a total of
there is a massive labour movement protest against the frame-up of 342
It is a sad reflection on the labour
its wing
happened in 23 April, almost six the pretext of They beat up old people, • Dozen WeLC Asian properly
as McNee indirectly a month
and
puffing about this being
These people the the
future.
the right-wing bureaucrats
they will
Defend the 342, stop
off the streets. To demoralise the
communities silastilig This attack • Is being continued in the courts
The Southall Campaign Committee and People Unite have called a
Not Barne' Magistrates Court on Monday, 10 September. The nearest tube is High Barnet and the picket starts. at 9.30am. We need a massive protest. The Southall show trials are not only a test for the labour movement - they are also a test for the British left and the Anti Nazi League.
must there. Defend Southall 342. Stop the show trials. Kuldip, one of the 342, writes: ON 23 April, 342 people were arrested and Blair Peach was killed. So far the
community has not been mobilised to launch реоріе counter-offensive. A few formed an action committee to help the defendants. But they failed. After
the attendance al the
The right-wing union leaders will resist building a real movement; so will their counterparts in the Labour Party leadership. For all their huffing and
the most reactionary government since the war, they have called on the trade union movement to recognise Thatcher & Co as the democratically elected government and to be prepared to negotiate with it accordingly.
are more concerned with the sovereignty of a so-called democratically elected parliamentary government than with the democratic
byerwicHulg majority the population: of women whose abortion rights are under attack; of black workers threatened by the Nationalities Bill; of trade unionists under attack from the Prior proposals; of all workers whose living standards, jobs and services are to come under the Thatcher axe; and of the people of Ireland and southern Africa who continue to be denied the democratic right to determine their own
If workers had taken the same position as these
over the vears. then we would never have established the rights we have today, Inese rents were won trougn struggle and
The defended through struggle. The position of the union bureaucrats — of negotiation and collaboration with Thatcher; of only being
meetings declined.
The last meeting was attended by only two people. According to Vishnu Sharma, President Indian Workers might have been the last meeting of the Action Committee.
Who will get different groups will probably blame each other. So whose task is it? The IWA members elections. Is this the only function of the IWA? To fight elections once year. Who will organise the struggle?
Who will take responsibility?
It should be the job of the IWA They should use the IWA as a tool and organise something behaving like power hungry politicians. It is their responsibility to unite the community behind the Southall 342. We want action instead mutual recriminations. For we will be the victims of the
policies
cost-of-living increases;
against them.
last few years
committee. throuchout the
leit wing around fighting policies. organisation.
The Indian
of the Southall Association
unity and action.
the blame? The
are busy fighting
AS readers
This
British
period, or if
call of September nearly CYCL
fund-raising
B. Drummond N. Levallois Southampton IMG
Steve Rose Camden IMG R.Roffey N. Owen Reading IMG WEEK'STOTAL OVERALLTOTAL
instead
Black of
prepared to build mass action to strengthen their hand at the negotiating table — is an obstacle to building the sort of movement that can defend our hard-won rights and destroy the Tory government.
Moreover, they showed in their support for Callaghan's incomes policy, in their signing of the Concordat, in their endorsement of the last Labour government's anti-working class programme, that they have no intention of promoting the sort of
socialist policies - that can provide workers with lasting gains from their struggles.
Measures such as protecting wages, benefits, and services from inflation through automatic
nationalising without compensation and under workers' control all firms declaring redundancies; measures which positively discriminate in favour of women and black people - these cannot be won by collaborating with the bosses and the Tories, but only by mobilising action
Forging a new leadership committed to such a class struggle perspective is a vital task. Over the
the left has not been up to it. This should not be à cause for demoralisation but a spur to action. In every union, in every shop stewards must set about organising a democratic and united
community collected £20,000 for a former Indian Prime Minister. Can't they do something for their brothers and sisters. We need
OUR FUND DRIVE will observe, we have returned to 16 pages with this issue. enabled Nicaragua (where we were the only paper special •comesponda, ano lue repression in Iran in some detail But don't get complacent. If our sales do not increase in the autumn the Fund Drive slumps "gall, " will le lack to le pages So help us increase our sales and subscriptions lo make sure tha E WE continue to provide you with regular and up-to-date coverage from eyery corner of the world.
Alongside our drive for more sales, our Fund Drive appeal is still • going strong, Jhe aim 1s 120.000 by the enc •and already we have £14,000 During September group and . IVe branch is being asked to organise a Challenge, and there will also be a fund appeal at the Trotsky centenary rally on 21 September in London.
Our thanks this week to: £10.00 0.50 120.00 5.00 9.20 0.50 5.00 £205.20 £13,682.75
Page 3 scan of this page
The Corrie way back to illegal abortions
services on request.' hears the sound of our fury.
enlightened medical authorities, erally interpreting the 1967 Abortion Act, has much more to lose than most other regions if Corrie's Bill becomes
certainly produce a grim harvest of unnecessary suffering lives, permanently impaired health, young women dead. Yet, most of the North-east's Members of Parliament (all males, incidentally) oblivious to these hazards. majority of them voted for the Corrie Bill. Medical
The proposed Act specifically threatens working women. question it raises is not whether there will be abortions, but under what circumstances thev will be carried out Will be proper conditions, where the risks are less than those of having a baby, or will it be under primitive conditions, carried out by an individual with no medical training whatsoever?
lo le rich and privileged, the answer is quite simple: money speaks the langua if necessary, expensive nursing trips abroad. It is the less well-off women who will be thrown into the clumsy hands backstreet abortionist.
Yearsago, my mother had an illegal abortion and almost died as a result. Even so, she never decision. Later, she told me it had been necessary to keep the InCE ASO will une extra linancial burden, she would have been unable to give her children a good start in life. Gambled
How many other women, mother, have gambled with death for the sake of others is impossible to say. Estimates Chale 1967 Act, 100,000 women a year had illegal operations.
Of besides backstreet surgery, the sale of chemical
was widespread. stances used varied from mixtures including copper, quinine, to even gin and gunpowder.
Newspapers carried adverts for
Counter 'Lifé'
Wandsworth, SW London.
and quick abortions.
and friends.
1 September, 2:30pm, Wandsworth
'How many women,
like my mother,
have gambled with
A MOTION from the Tobacco Workers' Union to the | TUC next week calls on the trade union movement to campaign against 'any measures which seek to deny women their right to free contraceptive and abortion
The TUC has already called a demonstration against the Corrie anti-abortion Bill. Here RAY CHALLINOR looks at what is at risk for women in the North-east, and a model resolution suggests how we can ensure Corrie
WnICh
wrecked lead base. One Newcastle doctor was saving that he inspected the gums of women who had aborted, a thin blue line round the gums was the tell-tale sign of the
tne Newcastle woman who had aborted
lead pills. For seven days afterwards she suffered severe headaches vomiting; a month later her hands and legs were paralysed; and she remained very ill for a further five months. medical classified as one of the fortunate ones.
Thankfully
push up the death rate among women.
relials a CHEETON However, let there be no doubt, to the degree women are prevented from having recourse to existing medical procedures, the Act will inevitably
family government reveal the full horror of
Eu Callici tnere induced abortions each year in India
like my
height of the vietnamese less than that of an Indian woman
But Corrie and his supporters do not seem to be unduly disturbed; they say they are concerned about the fate of the foetus. But is this really true?
Are they the caring, sionate people they pose as being?'
This Saturday, 1 September, the anti-abortion outfit Life is marching in
Its objective? To protest against the setting up of an abortion
day-care unit, which could provide thousands of women with free, safe,
Join the counter-demonstration — 2.30pm, South London Hospital
for Women. Tube: Clapham South. Be there, and bring your banners
urges action to discover why this is.
Needlessly
exist, the chance is 90 per cent. 3.8
compas-
death'
solicitude for the unborn child but do so little to campaign against the real
1n
newspapers. The Evening Chronicle,
the country for stillborn births and deaths among babies less than a week old. And a report published today Struggle
The 56 page dossier compiled b the Comprehensive Community Pro body looking ento lop oing investigation of the mystery deaths.
Clearly, the prevalence of poverty,
important factor, but a few days later Dr. Edmond Hay, a senior lecturer at Newcastle University in child health,
June 1978, he declared that 'a baby born eight weeks premature has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving to be a
another becomes permanently braindamaged every 10 days because of Despite
Move it, pass it
WITH the TIC having called the 28 October demonstration against the
Corrie Bill, there is now every opportunity to build mass Labour
movement support for the demonstration.
With many trade union branches and trades councils soon returning
from their August break now is the time to submit resolutions building
and supporting 28 October. The following model resolution is suggested:
"This branch notes that the anti-ahortion Bill sponsored by John Corrie MIP is part of the systematic attack by the Tory government on women's democratic rights in that it further restricts the right of women
to control their own bodies.
"This branch therefore resolves:
I. To support the 28 October demonstration in London called by the TI: C in opposition to the Corrie Bill:
To call on the national executive to support the demonstration and in coniunction with the demonstration and to press the TL'C to organise widespread publicity for
the demonstration;
To call on the national executive to mandate its delegates to the
Labour Party conference lo oppose the 'free vote' in Parliament on the
Corrie Bill and to insist that Labour MPs vote in accordance with Labour
Party policy, which is for free abortion on demand:
4. Insponsor the Campaign Against the C'orrie Bill. in order to build
the biggest opposition to this proposed legislation, and to affiliate to the
National Abortion Campaign, which is fighting for a woman's right to
choose. with all the necessary tacilities this implies.'
Both campaigns are located at: 374 Gray's Inn Road, London WC"1.
Yet, supporters of the Corrie Bill | in the North-east. On the whole, they stay strangely mute about thisissue. were Corrie, as a Tory MP, even supports wives public expenditure cuts in the Health Service that will worsen the situation.
abortionists has the faint echo of a by-gone age. Even the name of their
League of National Life, the struggle against the dissemination of contraceptive advice in the 1920s
birth control, visited Gateshead, she had abuse showered upon her. They accused her of being anti-Christian, immoral and undermining family life.
They said she foisted her dangerous
local clergy, overturned the caravan official
policy. equipment. A local Mrs Grundy tore
grams. One shows the male organ in a
controllers continued their campaign
TUC, to organise transport to the
received Working-class did not want their health
undermined by the annual pregnanc
or the difficulty of making ends me by having extra mouths to feed.
• The Workers' Birth Control Group persuaded Ernest Thurtle to sponsor a
Private Member's Bill. Then it begar to badger MPs who did not support the bill, bringing pressure to bear at grassroots level.
When the Corrie Bill came before Parliament, 68 Labour MPs voted for restoring business to the backstree abortionist, 84 voted against it, and 100 did not vote at all.
Reminded
In the North-east, there are a predominance of Labour MPs. These need to be reminded not only of the dangers 10] working-class women inherent in the Corrie Bill, but also of
Labour Party and TUC
Let us see that those who persist in supporting Corrie are subjected to a rumpus in the tradition of the Workers' Birth Control Group: Only
this way can we insure this diabolical piece of legislation, knitting-needles and all, is kept off the statute book.
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 3
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PICKETS v PRIOR LAW For a foretaste of Tory rule, meet the Sheriff of Nottingham
of new technology.
THE DISPUTE which has left 28 NUJ members at Nottingham out of work since December brewing since the late bus. The Issues involved are so serious, attacking the foundations of trade union organisation, that it hastaken the NUJ and the print unions almost a decade to get to grips with them.
T. Bailey Forman (TBF) is one of the few surviving family-owned newspaper publishers
Britain. In the replace outdated equipment computer technology. company's steam-age relations survived — and in the hands of managing director Christopher Pole-Carew, the Forman family's hired 'hitman', they became considerably worse.
In 1967 the Nottingham Evening Post became the first UK paper instal a general purpose computer for setting editorial text and adverts.
The introduction of the computer using a system known character recognition met opposition from the NGA because of its potential
replace skilled unskilled typists. At appears, TBF took decision to take on the unions and break them, so that it could introduce new technology entirely on its own terms.
The company converted fully to photo-composition in 1973 and in June of that year its chance came to
the unions over process for making the plates which the newspaper is printed.
Six days before the SLADE were aue agreement on operating this process
— it was not being used anywhere else in Britain al management sacked print workers in SLADE who refused to handle it in advance of national talks. hundred staff were eventually locked out, the first time in the industry's history that all five unions have taken united action.
The NGA-SLADE agreement was made within the first week, but the dispute lasica anomici. because of the company's insistence
members loyal to them should not be disciplined. The unions successfully insisted on their right to discipline members, according to the respective rule
member was fined f25. He paid up
and is still an active elsewhere. The rest were expelled, and
not bother
readmission, which at
carried a maximum fee of £30 -
small price for six weeks"
breaking.
Claiming that
victimised members, the
recognition.
unions had lost their 100
membership, they could not press the
company to change its attitude.
The dispute was used by TBr as an
excuse for closing the morning paper,
the Guardian-journal, and resulted in
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979
'Nottingham Evening Post'
MANAGEMENT of the Nottingham Evening Post has taken its approach to the unions straight out of the Tories' copybook, crushing journalists' and printworkers' organisation alongside the introduction
The story of that defeat, and of the Grunwick-style mass pickets that are now seeking to reinstate 28 sacked journalists — the next is on Saturday — is told here by ROBIN ANDERSON; a member of the journalists' chapel at the Evening Post and its former father.
has been NUJ, have been
agreements.
independent, 60s it began to WIEN But the industrial
Hardy as optical
with that stage, conscious from
NGA and finalise an
Cartoon: RAY DRURY
Three five weeks
Repeated
factor One NUJ disobedience union member technology unimpeded. apply for In December 1976, that time first-ever story strike journalists.
unions had steadily Since all editorial departments per cent 1 wavel transferred to commercial printing which operated in liaison non-union plant.
Page 4
drew
148 redundancies. It was the second work. round of job-axing in 18 months. The first, at the end of 1971, cost 95 jobs.
NGA SLADE
dispute with the company ever since, over recognition and persistent breaching of national
closed management that employees who took industrial action would be sacked were a major
the NUJ chapel's of several national instructions to take action:
Meanwhile TBF introduced its new
the company tion.
made history by publishing Britain's
LU OC "set' by Electronic editing, with
staff using visual display units instead
of typewriters and copy paper, was
introduced into most
Many printers no longer needed production were posse work subsidiaries, with a
The only official meeting between unions and management took place in Nottingham in September 1977 when Pole-Carew repeated his views that trade unions had no role to play in his company. unions, SLADE, and NUJ in particular, then
common course industrial action which included a boycott on all TBF commercial print
This was introduced last year by the NGA and SLADE.
Within a matter of weeks the company had lost business worth well over f1m a year, and failed in its bid to obtain a High Court injunction to. have the boycott lifted.
The following year, 1978, TBF
down commercia subsidiaries and. made 5% redundant, including the last of the 1973 SLADE members.
That December over
provincial journalists took part in the NUJ's first-ever indefinite national strike. Twenty-eight members at the Evening. Post detied management sacking threats, pledged their support
their profession and to thousands journalists scandalously low wages, by voting to take part in the strike.
Despite being a member of the Newspaper Society, the employers victimisations, TBF took unilateral action and sacked the 28, alleging breach of contract. At the end of the
Christopher Pole-Carew (left) managing director of the Nottingham Evening Post.
As High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, he takes an impartial view of the kind of police * tactics (right) used against the mass pickets of the Post.
The next picket is on Saturday.
national action which won members a 14.5 per cent rise, Nottingham 28 reported for work but were physically prevented from even entering the building. The company has consistently refused to meet union officials and has rejected suggestion of mediation or concilia-
So intense is managing director Pole-Carew's opposition to us that when a TV programme was being
made about the dispute he refused to
be in the samestudio as NUJ officials.
When pickets held a sit-in paper's offices earler this year to
demand talks, Pole-Carew and a
of thugs kicked and punched them out of the building.
Pursuing their own recognition campaign, the NGA and
began to boycott the Evening Post's
major advertisers response was quick. Lord Denning granted an injunction suspending the boycott, and when unsuccessfully appealed against this, NGA, it had to fork out costs estimated at
£80,000 The Evening Post has published throughout the mainly to journalists who have beer expelled from the NUJ for breaking. The union has been pledged executive to the biggest-ever campaign reinstatement and union gecognition.
printers
8,000
the paid
This is taking place on several fronts. There have been several mass pickets, with a thousand attending on 16 June, including a strong contingent of printworkers as well as some 30 young Nottinghamshire miners. To a triumphant chorus of The workers united will never managed to turn back one of the delivery vans, but others were moved by a heavy police contingent.
Among those arrested
picket hise NUJ president, who was fined f250 for
the obstruction! It is pure coincidence
that Pole-Carew is the present High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, and most unlikely that he bought the police 20 gallons of beer for their efforts on the
all 16 June picket.
The isolation materials, and spares is objective, because of the non-union lines of supply which between 1973-78, selves for the inevitable dispute. in the
weekly, the Nottingham News, which has built up a healthy circulation of around 14,000.
At a seven-hour dispute held by the NUJ executive two SLADE weeks ago, it was decided that all
chapels should
in February. The
the NGA
Amended that
Newspaper
dispute thanks
strike negotiations 'NUJ's newspaper field. to secure the Nottingham defeated',
con in been the NUJ
September is Recreation of supplies, another but this hasn't been easy
management set up
preparing them-
The 28 have launched their own
debate on the
hold mandatory
meetings to discuss financial support,
disruptive meetings, and fixed-term and indefinite strikes 1o sece couries has als
executive has also recomthere should. be no negotiations with the Society until it either makes TBF comply with the terms of the last settlement or expels it. This would mean local instead of national
in the provincial
The executive pledged support to
News workers' co-operative, and said it would use its good offices to raise the capital to make the paper commercially viable But there was much criticism of the paper's lack of industrial and political coverage, not least the fact that it had not mentioned the 16 June picket.
Securing those 28 NUJ jobs at TBF will be a long, hard slog, but it's a fight to preserve the right of workers to strike without fear of being sacked
the most tundamenta of trade union principles. No union can afford to see T. Bailey Forman win. Be with us this Saturday.
*Assembly point for pickets on 1
Nottingham's Forest Ground off Mansfield Road at Ipm, for a march to the mass picket outside the Forman Street offices of the Evening Post, to 'greet' the Saturday editions.
More than 50 coaches, organised by the NUJ, NGA, AUEW, SLADE, and NUM branches, will be heading for Nottingham.
For details ring the father or
mother of the chapel on your loca newspaper, or the NUJ 01-278 7916. London coaches leane 4o 8k M. Most Kings Cross Station, at sam. coaches are paid for by the unions, so there is a minimal charge to pickets.
Page 5 scan of this page
- ROUND ONE
To them it's secondary picketing,
By Bob Murphy
IN A television interview shortly after meeting Employment Secretary James Prior last week, Len Murray spelt out his opposition to the Tory proposais on union reform. improve industrial relations? That's what I want answered,' Murray challenged in his most militant-sounding mood for years.
Then came the rub. 'We had four years of
relations even if last winter was a bad one? Murray argued.
In other words, the TUC general secretary agrees with the Tory
'good' and relations. Where he differs is on how to achieve the former restrictions. 'We want a voluntary approach,' he concluded.
The voluntary approach envisaged by the union leaders is summed up in their so-called Concordat with the last government, and in the picketing code drawn up by Moss Evans during the lorry drivers' strike at the beginning of the year. At the centre of tais approach is a frenzied opposition to both mass picketing.
Weknow why the employers and the Tories don't like it. Effective picketing is one of the most powertul tools in our industrial grmoury. It was mass, flying 'secondary' pickets which played a crucial part in the miners' victory over Heath's 7 per cent norm in 1972. Vital role
Secondary picketing played a vital role in the lorry drivers' victory. By effective picketing of firms not 'immediately' dispute, the drivers forced the bosses to accede to their demands. Prior and Thatcher want to
mass and because they know that these can win.
Of course, the TUC leaders don't openly say this. They could never hope to gain the support of their members for propõsals which were explicitly designed to weaken the unions' capacity to defend their members' working conditions and living standards. position. The union leaders are committed to operating within the system; to fighting for retorms throuch nepotiation ano colaboration with the democratically-elected government of the day.
For the union leaders, industrial action and mass mobilisation of workers are the last resort to secure a better deal around the negotiating table. Union bureaucrats measures which directly threaten capitalism
Photo: BOB MURPHY
Up the injunction!
COUL
cil to nhase out its direct
'How will they
under Labour,
government on what
'bad"
Murray is opposed to legal
and 'secondary' involved in the
"secondary' picketing
dispute.
• is their fundamental the
about
are opposed to
AD
to us it's vital
because after all, 'the gaffer would never agree to them'. The same democratic political institutions, like Parlia-
But, say the Tories, we want to curb union power precisely because it leads to mob rule, to violence, and to weakening the authority of Parliament. To this argument, leaders have no answer pecause..
That's why at Grunwick, the APEX leaders and the TUC General Council chose the option of negotiating with the Scarman established by Parliament against building the mass picket.
This approach is riddled with flaws, and nothing exposes them better than the Grunwick
Suits them
The first thing that needs to be said is that
Grunwick strike was defeated, despite legislation which supposedly guaranteed the right of workers to join trade unions. George Ward and the High Court were less concerned
the authority this parliamentary legislation than were the trade union leaders.
In fact, this is always true. The employers will use the authority of Parliament so long as it suits them. Once it threatens their interests they will defy it like the steel bosses did when the
cam-
AS a
goes for the system's
established to
the bosses
the union™ Parliament itself.
they agree.
tribunal
collaborating
to failure.
successtur.
nothing pickets, lor listance
piece of basis of workers'
anarchy
comes Irom admit that on
into action when pickets| are actually under attack.'
Among the pickets were a number of UCATT members who were. disgusted with the antics of in their general secretary, Les Woods.
Despite formal backing for the members dispute from both the union's regional council and its national executive, Woods retreated in the wake of the court decision, instructing UCATT members not to join the picket line. Angry
The UCATT convenor of the local Fairweather's site, Dave Williams, decidedly angry about the CACCuLIve
Labour government tried to nationalise the steel industry in 1951: the bosses simply broke
and boycotted open their books and carry through the nationalisation. If the going really gets tough — as it did in Chile in 1973 - then
are prepared . 10
For the ruling class, Parliament is there to serve its interests and provide the 'democratic' channels to secure the support of the majority of the population for this. A strategy based on acknowledging parliamentary sovereignty and
with the employers government within this framework is doomed
Only a strategy based on struggling against them for the interests of workers
The idea that this is anarchy, mob rule, or a policy of violence is quite false.
mob-like about the lorry
orderly. They decided what could and what could not go through the picket lines on the
needs. as opposed to the which prevails over production and distribution determined by profit.
As for violence, anyone who has attended a mass picket knows full well where the violence
the police. The police openly 7 November 1977 the Special
La fight within the union to | bigger Turnifi implement official policy.'
John Barlow is himself a victim of the offensive works
building trade, having been locked out by Wimpey. really Ruthless Another victim was also on the picket line. Ray Mills, sacked convenor of the Kambala Road site, with says: "It is not coincidental that I was sacked and then two weeks later Lou Lewis was taken to court. "The council is ruthlessly attacking all those, like myself, who have been active in defence of direct works.
Wandsworth council
appears to be intent on going through with its plans. Rumours in the columns of the local press suggest that the council is considering taking out a second injunction, this time against officers of the trades council.
Upper
Boycott
tube).
With the Croudace site not working because of a boycott on cement by Transport Union drivers, port, council IS putting LUCAS LIC Turriff's to get a move on with the contract. 'Flying pickets to other | 9577.
which
people with broken bones overthrow
miners in 1972. could take that on. and
collaborationist strategy
can be
class struggle
There was tomorrow.
drivers' extremely immunity over
lorry drivers who
for damages.
of these commitments.'
sites are | being considered to step up our pressure,' says direct
acting convenor Frank Sheridan
He dismisses the offer made by the council or redundancies. 'You can't
call it an offer,'
Frank Sheridan explains.
"There's to be no change in the redundancy
plans, just a 50p per weel
fall-back bonus for thos
no work, a £10 attendance allowance 1 you've been especially good and the "privilege" of getting paid for not having to work the whole of your notice if you accept redundancy!
'We need as much support as we can get if we're to turn around the attacks from the Tories', he adds.
Attend the picket, daily at 7.30 a.m. Bellamy House, Garratt Road (Tooting Broadway tube), and at the Croudace site,
Tooting Park (Tooting Bee or Balham
*Messages of
SUL finance, details:
Battersea and Wands. worth Trades Council, 19 Croxteth House Union Road, sw8. Tel 01-720
Patrol Group violently smashed up a picket line
still nengine about after infamous bus had taken the scabs to work through another entrance. The pickets didn't know this, the cops did. The result was 30
What the bosses and the union bureaucrat. will not admit is that the larger the picket, the tess likelihood there is of violence. There was no violence at Saltley when 10,000 engineers struck and marched to the picket line in support of the
The cops didn't think they
That sort of solidarity is directly threatened by the Prior proposals, which must be fought tooth and nail. But they can't be fought by the
of the trade union leaders. Exercising our rights today through
methods is the only way of defence of those rights
*Will the courts now remove trade union
'secondary" picketing? Four pickelet a larke North Yorkshire factory during the strike in January, forcing it to close for four days, are being sued
The personnel manager of the York Trailer company says: "The firm lost production which will run into many thousand of pounds. We shall be looking for compensation for the loss
Code of Practice
leaflets available from Rank and File Centre, 265a, Seven Sisters Road, London N4 75p per hundred Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
Ford management prepares for wages battle Welcome back.... you're laid off
Unemployment-time to fight back
By a Ford worker HOW WOULD you like to return to work after your holidays and be laid off without paytwo hours later? If you would, then 'get down to Ford' warehnall enjoy benefit omitted Company's commercials, but enjoyed
Thisis just what happened to 1,600 workers on unte Paint.
Assembly Plant nightshift on Monday 20 August.
Management's excuse for the lay-off — a clear case of the bosses' "secondary picketing tactics the decision of 97 paint shop workers to continue strike action in support of a tellow worker sacked by alleged 'gross misconduct involving violence on a police officer, months before his actual trial takes place.
Tiny
It was a tiny incident that gave rise to the dispute but it gives a good indication of why Ford reputation of being one of the most vicious and successill managemenls in British industry.
It also demonstrates what a joke Tory proposals for union reform are when 99 per cent of disputes are provoked
The management in the PTA plant were trying hard to engineer a dispute for month before the shutdown at the end of July. It only takes a handful of men to stop work and the long lines halt and a lay-off is possible.
If management is feeling really vicious it can also lay off a thousand or more workers on the corresponding shift in the Body Plant.
Booths
The reason management wanted the lay-off is because the schedule for stocking up and re-tooling for the new design Cortina is way behind. are hitches all over the line and even now only one of the three automated paint spray booths is in operation.
Rather than the company paying By Jude Woodward THE TORIES are axing of 10,000 jobs in British shipbuilding, which would add still more workers to the 1.. million already unemployed. The slightly more notimistic unemo ovment feures produced by the government recently will not last for long if closures on this scale are allowed to go ahead.
And shipbuilding is just the most recent to be hit. Thousands of jobs have already gone from British The spending cuts planned for the coming year will chop large numbers of jobs from the public sector.
There is no doubt that unemployment is a serious issue, both for those in and out of work, that's why lots of people will be on the Right to Work march this weekend. It's time to start fighting back. But countering unemployment is not as easy as all that, you've little power, in work it's easy to forget the whole issue.
The TUC and individual trades unions all
with all the weight that the trade movement has at its disposal; could begin to defeat unemployment. One such policy is for a 35-hour week. A reduction of the working week by five hours for each worker would create new job vacancies and ensure that available work was more equitably shared around.
Most of the trade unions incode a demand for a 35-hour week in their wage claims each year, our luca orop te demano as soon as les get round the negotiating table. The Right to Work march will end with a lobby of the TUC in Blackpool. It should demand that the TUC organises a fight among its member unions for
The problem is, of course, that this won't happen. Each year the TUC passes quite good paper policies, promising action quite often, Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 6
this fringe from the
Trim and
was
three enjoys the
so-called trade
by manage-
workers pay by annual casual labour while problems are ironed out.
police, 1n
over lay-offs
into the plants.
Damage to cars.
There
three cars. planning to approve the
public because out of work
which, if they were fought for
union tney
for its own bungling it is making the
treating them its production
The incident which gave rise to the number dispute is of concern to every trade
On the nightshift on 11 July the
an unprecedented move, were called into the PTA. Even at the time of the Ford riot and occupation
two years ago attempt was made to call the police
especially paint surfaces, is a working hazard in the PTA. Rarelv is anv notice taken of it.
But this time the police were quickly called to investigate alleged damageto
ONE LAW FOR LEN...
but then it does nothing. So it's not enough for the Right to Work to lobby the TUC, it has to carry on campaigning all the year round to get the unions and trades councils to put up a fight against unemployment.
In particular, the labour movement has to take responsibility for the unemployed. In the *30s the unions refused to fight unemployment; had been too thoroughly themselves to do much about it. As a result the unemployed had organise independently in an Unemployed Moyement.
Today the trade union movement is not in that situation. It is quite capable of organising the unemployed and leading the fight against unemployment. The Right to Work campaign has to fight to try to make them do it. It has to
That, to borrow a phrase, is when the shit hit the fan. Workers in the
resisted police attempts remove one man. More police called. It would seem that a large
of panda patrols London have so little to do at night that between 20 and 30 were able to arrive in no time at all.
However, something known 'the balance of forces' meant there were no arrests.
But the investigation continued. As a result, one man was charged with criminal damage, a shop steward with assault on police (which company admits is a lie), and a third man with assault on police. This is the person the company also sacked.
After wasting weeks in procedure
fight
cannot get jobs.
Those
defeated
themselves Workers' heart of the
interests.
of
trying to get this decision reversed, the paint shop walked out on the eve of to the summer shutdown. To guarantee that they could implement a lay-off immediately on the return to work, East gave notice by sending out letters to all 'B • shift employees before the end of the holidays. leaflet as Workers Group explained the significance of these events: "What is at stake here is not only "double justice" of the worst kind but, management to use the police to settle internal plant disputes. 'Is Ford now intending to staff the personnel departments with the local CID? We must ensure that the unions TRAD get the unions to set unemployed-worker sections for any of their members who are made redundant or
have had particularly the youth, should fight for local trades councils to establish unemployed youth committees to take up the fight against youth
This would lay the basis to ensure that the fight against unemployment is taken to the
organised labour movement.
Unemployed workers would be able to fight within the unions for policies to defend their
Many trade unions have taken the attitude
voluntary redundancies
plants again.
Police
work management
when
The
Ford
strike,
figure. when the necessary
Even branches
put out by the Ford (the Combine)
Catch 22!
decision by
hour week, taking
their jobs.
UNION
CON
-ONE LAW FOR US
up natural wastage,
WYLU
jobs,
can pursue all the year round campaign for them.
Work march
organised by Saturday 76B from: and 021-643 9209.
insist that no police are used inside the
Although there was a return to Thursday night after agreed to change the sacking to a suspension and pay the man until his trial in December, the question of the police remains one of oustanding concern.
The lay-off also came at a time the preliminary sparring starting about this year's Ford claim, due to be submitted on 24 September. aim of management in provoking small strikes and lay-offs is to weaken. the collective strength of workers which was demon strated in last year's nine-week pay which buried the Labour government's 5 per cent wage limit. This year there is no official limit and the officials are talking of a "substantial increase'. Of course this is to avoid committing themselves to a
Unanimous The Ford Workers Group (the Combine) is suggesting that figure should be £125. But unlike last year, the Coventry conference of shop stewards produced a high claim and forced it on the officials, the senior stewards and full-timers are much more in control.
Despite the unanimous position of the Body Plant shop stewards in favour of a Coventry conference this discussion in the union Dagenham has been blocked on the grounds that the claim is an inter-union one and therefore only inter-union bodies, i.e. the Joint Works Committees, can discuss it
On the positive side, the officials are making a cost of living agreement one of the main points in the claim. It this is linked to a serious fight for a 35 Ford workers will be COLCON towards defending their standard of living and 1978 which mean present members do not unwillingly lose their jobs, but that jobs are wasted (to use a term coined by the Mafia), which has a similar effect on those in the dole queues. This is the kind of attitude that unemployed-worker sections could combat.
After the march we need a Right to Work conference to discuss the kinds of policies we
and how to I nese are the kinds things we will be arguing for on the Right to
*Come to the Young Workers' Conference
Revolution. Birmingham, 15 September, llam to бpm. Details Digbeth, Birmingham 5. Tel:
Page 7 scan of this page
Left wing emerges in SNP
By George Kerevan WHO said this? '...we must go on all-out attack against the government's policies. For instance, we should give a lead to our local councillors not to implement Tory impoverish the lives of our people... Il that means a dozen Clay Cross councils across the
and government, good and well.'
Tony Benn? Hardly, his speeches are always more ambiguous. The Challenge? No, but it might have been. It was in fact Margo MacDonald, Senior Vice President of the SNP, in an interview in the Daily Record.
MacDonald is a member of the formed SNP left-wing tendency Group. The 79 Group calls for an independent Scottish socialist republic control. Collapse
The appearance in the SNP for the first time of an organised, public left comes in the wake of the collapse of devolution and the Tory election victory.
SNP lost nine of its eleven MPs but retained a solid 17 per cent of the vote. represents a section of the SNP leadership who have drawn the pertinent conclusions.
Says MacDonald: 'Let's face it, the May election drew lines clearly — we all know where we stand now. First, the support for devolution came from the working class — the middle class Nationalists and the Tory converts vanished into the "No" voting booths. Second, Scotland voted overwhelmingly Labour.'
The response of the 79 Group has been a left turn: "There is only one class in Scotland which will go for independence, working class — independence, like every other By Valerie Coultas
REMEMBER the election promises of the Tories about freedom of choice in education? Well, last Rhodes Boyson, the charge of higher and education, decided that the freedom ot thousands of A-leve students to attend university should dentell
The University Grants Committee has written to universities saying that they should cut undergraduate entries in 1980 by six per cent.
Boyson justified this decision by referring the British education system as expensive in the world' "There is no right of 18-year-olds to read whatever subjects they want at whatever cost with a guarantee of a job at the end. That mad dream has come to an end. In a free society it's just not possible.' Qualified
This 'mad dream', however. once subscribed to hy no less a tigure than Lord Robbins, who chaired the Royal Commission Education in the 1960s. Ensuring the availability of higher education to all those *suitably qualified'
policies which will the
fired welng former
editor of Socialist
newiy the 79
under workers'
At the general election the
The 79 Group academic.
and that is the
Educashun isn't working!
'Say what you like, these new schools don't stand up to classroom violence like the old Victorian ones.'
and Tory defended.
week Dr university dictates? further
be popular subjects studies, tory and the social sciences.
Fire
higher *the most He declared: thev
Oxford and Cambridge.
ULEYCINILY
was
the last few years.
Higher
social advance, can only be won in the class war, MacDonald argues.
The 79 Group has probably no more than 250. It is very much the creation of a stratum in the leadership based on intellectuals who are populist strategy outtank labour in massively proletarian Scotland. These include Steven Maxwell, SNP publicity director and fellow of the "Royal MARGO MacDONALD: eyes left International Affairs. one-time Labour Party leftist turned prominent
The emergence of the 79 contradictory development. Demagogy about Clay Cross and class war could undoubtedly mobilise mass working class action against the Tories. Kennedy is capable of taking to the streets, and indeed led an illegal march down Robbins principle that both Labour
politicians the day
What will these cuts mean if the
heads agree to the new Immediately, 5,000 fewer places will be available next year. The government is urging that the cuts be
The tightest squeeze is going to be felt in the most
law, business accountancy, English,
Social science subjects will come under particularly heavy fire because
considered. have less relevance to economic performance.
In addition the new universities will have to cut more places than those training grounds for the ruling class,
All school students will be forced to attain higher grades to gain a place
Women will suffer especially because there has been a big
of female applications to attend colleges over
But above all the effect of these proposals will be to further exclude working class students from going to university. Public school students will
membership of take fright.
seeking
Institute of
Defection
Indeed,
from the SNP 1o
is the largest with
Ambitious And Gavin Kennedy,
the SNP hierarchy, traditional
Group is a democrats
Stirling Donald Stewart, (mayor) be pushed by their specialist teachers in their smaler classrooms to attain the higher grades needed. Working class kids in the urban centres, schools that are being run down because of the savage cuts in public spending, will now find it even harder to get à place.
The proposals will also redundancies for academic non-academic staff.
The Tories have revealed the true meaning of their promises education field. Freedom for the rich
NEXT WEEK
*TUC debate
its way? *Major movement *White Rhodesia — the final days?
of a copy, subscribe now. Details page 16.
Princes Street in Edinburgh to protest at the shelving of devolution. But it remains to be seen how far the 79 Group leaders go before they
One is not hopeful of people like Maxwell who can say: 'It is probable that an independent Scotland would consider that a balance of Scottish interests required her to continue her present communications and reconnaissance roles in the Western defence system.
left-sounding phrases could not only outflank Labour but be used to contain genuine rank and file radicalisation of the SNP. Already this year has seen a small defection
help create Republican Socialist League. Though tiny with perhaps only thirty members — the SRSL
_explcHa grouping to appear since 1968. It plans to produce a Scottish left-wing newspaper.
The activities of the 79 Group have been channelled into. running in the elections for senior party posts at the SNP conference, which opens on 13 September. This indicates both the Group's fear of expulsion and a preoccupation
, bureaucratic infighting rather leine attempt to mobilise the party rank and
They are opposing the dominant faction in
which is based on the small town petty-bourgeois and leaven of machine-politics ex-MPs. Party president and geriatric Dr. Robert Melntyre is a graduate of
council Westminster a former Lord of Stornoway, is to have an even greater chance to send their offspring to university, freedom for the poor to compete for a place at in college against even greater odds The leaders of the National Union of Students, School Students, and trade unionists involved have a clear responsibility to mean explain the class nature of this attack and and fight it with all the resources at their disposal. If they do not, the Tory principle that education is a privilege in the and not right established. 'It's an exclusive little Comprehensive for the children of Ministers.
*Can Khomeini be halted? — on-the-spot report from Iran * A mass daily newspaper for the workers' movement. Is it on
editorial statement on building an anti-war
All in your 16-page Socialist Challenge next week. To be sure
SC
foretront homosexuality in Scotland.
Scottish Denthin Henderson, Arch Douglas
Scottish independence.
Tories.
were its most ardent supporters. The most conference is a victory for
current of some sort will emerge.
ambitious,
leader Provost the struggle for s united front
classic Thatcher government.
advance.
the National Union of
NUPE; 23 September -phone 01-359 8371.
will be clearly
first 7.45pm in capacily). campaign).
intringement Cierman German Embass Repression
WANDSWORTH
irso wareless is desperately international activity can spare. Books fo
POLITICAL
SUJIC CrocrIcuce day, 50p evening only
petty-bourgeois reactionary. He voted for the reintroduction of hanging and has been in the
opposing legalisation
These forces have begun to retreat back to their pre-devolution position of independence-
right-wing demagogue the ex-MP for Aberdeenshire East, is chief proponent of this view. For fundamentalists such as he, the SNP must present the facade of being a multi-class, non-ideological party open to all who want
In practice, of course, this is nothing but a
_abstaining in the fight against the However, retreating behind a 'hard' line on independence, the right wing will be able to blame the devolution fiasco on the left who
outcome at the SNP the right wing.
Nevertheless, the objective political situation in Scotland will ensure that a left nationalist
For revolutionary Marxists, especially those who thought that they conld now forget abon! the national question, the necessity to avoid a sectarian stance to the young workers sttracter to this current will be of prime importance in
against
WHAT'S LEFT
Fnasy berore podica0on. All payents
campaigns against hospital and
IMG TKADE UNION traction meetings: 8 • NUT, NATFHE: 9 Septembe ASTMS; 30 Septemb -NALGO, CPSA. For details write to Centre o
HULL UNIVERSITY FI Society and Socialist analente supporters oresent ae ratriot dame UNTH Fri 19 Oct.
Hall, Hull Universit Cottingham Rd, Hull. Tickets (75p) from any S seller, Socialist Books, or ring Angie 441822
'NO CUTS in the Health Service' 30pm, North Peckham Ther Sed Kent , London SEI Speakers: David Townsend (suspended AHA personal Janet Maguire (ASTMS, sec.
FREE Annette Bahner! Young SPD meme arrested in cast berlin tor enquiring into democratic rights Fast Lobby and demonstration East national Cam lign lion. - Ipm Organised by International
RAR Leopards , disco Thur 6 Sept St Anne's Hall. Venn St. SW4. £l
SOCIALIST feminist and child urgent) › months. Phone Oldham 692 1462
needed vital field
co Socialise Challenge, PO Box 50, London NI
PRINTSHOP . London, needs would be useful ass et. Applicants must havenad design . Printshop experieno desien a nouen crans. gIvel. Aoblication! to: lallente crrint. ro Boxou. London NIr
IRELAND: The Issues at Stake. Revolutionary Maysenous Sept . The City University, St John Street EC1. Speakers: Frank Richards. Phil Murohi 'Patriot Game' film. Entrance £1 al
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
"The insurrection is over but
WHAT has the overthrow 'All us old women are ready to fight'
'Half our
population
is starving'
LEA GUIDO DE LOPEZ is the Minister for Social Welfare in the new government. Lea is a Sandinista who previously spent some time in Switzerland, where she was a member of the Revolutionary Marxist League, Swiss section of the Fourth International. She described to us some of the problems of running a brand new ministry.
UNDER the dictatorship provision whatsoever for the welfare of the people, not even at a primitive level. The corruption at every level of the state ensured that the people were forgotten.
So as far as social welfare is concerned this is
completely new ministry. dictatorship there was no policy for protecting children, youth, WUBICI Absolutely nothing. ministry, the comrades said to me: "You're the minister'.
Series of frauds
So we have begun to work and define what should be the functions of this department as well as investigating how the money was spent on the few programmes that existed under the dictatorship. series of frauds. Military plans to assassinate opponents, bribes paid to certain trade union leaders, and so on. We have even discovered a racket whereby the dictatorship sold children abroad.
What are our problems? enormous expectations in relation should be socially planned. They want a sharp rise in their standard of living and it is obvious that from our point of view this social plan is the area in which we can carry out a number of fundamental reforms demands being raised concerning health, education, welfare, etc.
of Somoza meant to the
workers? I spoke to a
50-year old woman who
works in a match factory.
Do the workers understand what a nationalisation is!
Yes, the boss has left.
Do the workers understand the meaning of the nationalisation — that the factory no longer belongs to the boss, but is owned by the state?
Right. We are working with enthusiasm and more willingv because now we nave a free Nicaragua, where we can say anything we want. We are all willing to build. If they can't pay us now, then we'll wait to get paid, because some day we're going to get paid.
Who benefits from your efforts?
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 8
nổ
there was
Under the
and the elderly.
When I took over this Here we have uncovered a whole
People have what
meet the basic by the people
The new government that
we have. We're ready to
make a sacrifice in order to
build a free country. I'm
50 years old and I've only
seer Somoza In
What they paid was
pathetic, everything
outrageously expensive.
We could barely eat.
And what do you expect
from the government to-
day?
We expect the best.
Everything now is better.
Even one month and one
everything is
going fine.
And how do you see things
going since the Somoza? Everything is fine. Perfect-
ly fine. Somoza used to say
In fact we have suggested to the government that the name be changed to the Ministry of Development and Social Welfare. Our vision of this ministry is not one of social benefits, but rather one which together with other ministries oversees social development in a planned way.
The government's policy in the social sector needs to be part of a perspective of combining various social services with the communities, so that gradually some of these services will totally administered by the people. That's our conception.
Committees
When we speak of supporting community organisations mean those spontaneously during the struggle, civil defence committees, which are now called Sandinista defence committees. created massively in the working class, and rural areas. So we think that these rank and file committees can deal problems In Iner area of services, stration, etc.
everything was going well, but it was a lie. They would show photographs the days when my grandmother was born. Now things different.
Things are calm, and we can all work in peace
You didn't have a trade union before. Were there people who tried to form a union?
A lot of people tried. But what happened that when people had meetings and elected representatives to try to form the and anion regritein they would everything that
immediately take punitive measures, and fire them.
In order to get rid of them the company would pay a lawyer whatever the lawyer charged because the boss would say that he'd rather pay lawyer than a worker.
They tried a lot of times, but could not involved — not because we
Clive Turnbull reports from Nicaragua
appointed anyone to
stores in the
that we have.
be which arose
like government
These were
and and
with a number of to be defined.
adminiwere afraid, but because and keep a home? we knew that if we didn't work here we wouldn't find work anywhere else. So we went through many hard times in this place.
And today this govern-
ment is concerned with giving people work?
Absolutely. In fact every-
body has work now.
What is happening with
the union?
We are organising the
union. But since there are
Ially groups, don't
want to join the first one
that comes along.
We are in the process of
discussing which one is in
We have
our best mler ess
to go to the Casa del
Obrero (Workers House)
to get ourselves organised
and decide which one is
best for us.
How do WULLCU
workers manage to work,
take care of your children
a state of permanent mobilisation.
Where they do not exist we could create these
organisations, or combine them with the defence committees to carry out a series of social welfare programmes. ministry is the one most suited to have this contact with the masses.
Community action
In the ministry we have a section which we call community action, and which is in charge of this planning. We hope this will be a link to the mass organisations and help to develop s series of programmes of this type.
For example, at this time we have
be in charge of distribution of food. What we have created is an infrastructure for distribution —
different towns arranged with the FSLN in the different towns for them to conduct a census so that on the basis of these criteria they can distribute the little food
In addition I have defined the sectors with priority for the ministry, such women, the unemployed, etc. So we plan to develop a series of specific programmes aimed at them in addition to the community work.
Few resources
In relation to children we want to develop a
policy for the protection children, and to do the same with youth and for the advancement of women, a series of political
cultural measures. This unexplored area, and so this is a policy that has
Our problem is that we have a lot of plans and few material resources to carry them out.
Well, we used to leave the children with a neighbour and many women had to pay for someone to care for their children. Many of us have no family, or have only a mother who is very old, and we have to leave our children there.
But now one of the things we hope for, which the government has offered, child care centres.
They offered to set up child care here?
Right, a place where we can leave our chilären so that we can come to work - a piace where they wil give them proper meals, medicine and so on.
This has been projected!
Yes, this is a new plan which will be implemented, because for us workers it's a reliet to know that our children are
SEVERAL weeks after the insurrection which overthrew
Somoza, the country is in the throes of a revolutionary
upheaval. A state of dual power exists, but with this
difference: the bourgeoisie has no repressive state
apparatus atits disposal. The masses remain armed and in
The future of the Nicaraguan revolution depends on
the political evolution of the left wing of the Sandinistas
Our
Small Political problem not the
grocery
An important
children badly needed at this time.
pressure we have exerted on an
I would of interview to
their solidarity
concretely at
our country.
Scared for. • Before we had none of this even our youngest children, the 11-year-olds, were harassed the National Guard. We were constantly worried. and often when we got home they would tell us: your child has been arrested.
We would ask why, and they would tell us that they were suspected of being Sandinistas. rible to live this way.
Everyone was terrified?
Yes, it was really horrible Now we are all at ease Now even the old women, are ready to pick up because Somoza left us in a terrible state, starving to death.
He'd better not think of ever coming back, because we're not going to let him.
In Nicaragua all of us old women are ready to fight.
Our country has been destroyed by a war. The people fought against the dictatorship and there have been enormous losses. Our social and economic inheritance is burdensome.
In addition to the overall plan and general
of our ministry, emergency plan: to confront the problem of hunger that we face right now. More than a million people are suffering from starvation.
businesses and commerce nave beer
Here in Managua, the country's main city, this is not just an economic problem — It iş 8 political problem which we have to try to solve as soon as possible. Obviously the fact that 50 per cent of the population suffers from starvation is a gigantic problem for any country.
element is international solidarity. This is a vital question for us, and we have been werking with international agencies and governments to obtain the aid that is so
At this point international aid has not been &s massive as we had hoped. It has improved in this last week due to the calls we made and the scale. But it is not enough to fulfil the present demands. We need between 300-400 metric tons of food daily to be able to solve these problems.
like to take • advantage of this appeal 10 particularty the political organisations, to show
with this situation •1r4:1 Nicaraguan people face. To solve this problem and to develop a solidarity movement means
this time to explain revolutionary process currently taking place in
SOME of the student 2,400-strong teachers'
Nicaragua, who are so manoeuvres of those
Page 9 scan of this page
he revolution has just begun"
bourgeoisie.
Socialist Challenge. BETTY is a leader of a 'barrio' (neighbourhood) committee in Managua and a militant of the FSLN. The barrio committees are organised throughout the country, constitute the major link berween the masses and the Sandinista High Command. interview was carried out in the Casa Sandinista (Sandinista House) of the Monsenor Lezcano barrio.
Can you explain to committees, were formed and what has been their role!
The defence committees were formed before the insurrection when we saw organise the eventuality of civil war. It was a question of
sether so that tray held espond in an
sector so organised way when the war broke out
The question of protecting the fighters was almost always posed medicines, etc. At the same time we showed people how to prepare shelters against the bombings and shelling, in accordance with the general guidelines that came from Geneva.
Soon the need arose committees within the civil defence committees
supply committees, health committees to deal with the problem of getting medicine and medical care for the fighters, and self-defence and vigilance committees military groups or Somocistas that might be on the loose.
With the victory of the insurrection, the civil defence committees become secondary.
and their ability to defeat imperialism and the native CLIVE TURNBULL has just returned from Managua. He interviewed a government minister, a matchworker and the leader of a neighbourhood committee for
impressions of developments in post-Somoza Nicaragua.
Grassroots power
and
This
how the barrio
the need to people to prepare them for the
respond
they needed food,
to have separate
detect рага-
We Rigoberto Lopez Perez secondary school who demonstrated outside a , to 'ask them to bring the revolutionary cultural message to the children of in need of it today...an educated people will never accept defeat by the ly on taking in people through the poor quality of education'.
Next week he writes his own have begun the task of organising ourselves to defend our Sandinista revolution, and they have become Sandinista defence committees.
People from different, barrios arrive every day at the Casa Sandinista de Ricardo Morales Avile to ask us to help them get organised into Sandinista defence committees. houses the committee which is in charge of the mass organisations everything popular organisations like the neighbourhood committees, the Sandinista rederation (CST), the Sandinista organisations, and other such organisations.
block by block basis -we have initiated these organisations with the people themselves, integrating every person in a given block. Then we elect a representative for each block.
We also elect a supplies representative to distribute the foodstuffs or solidarity packages that we receive from abroad. And we have a person to be in charge of health, who promotes discussions and prepares a store of medical supplies in their area.
We further elect a representative of the propaganda committee to inform the people and make a political analysis of the present conjuncture, so that the people will understand what we are doing and where we are heading -that is, to give them a political understanding.
'This Casa Sandinista we are in has as one of its main functions the promotion of political discussions, popular propaganda, initiation of educational campaigns. moment we are carrying out a around the project of national reconstruction
Blowing Marxist
International.
PST, a
publicly comrades
sheet of this
canal ready publicly
Trades
aguan revornon However
hee sion
Ketormn. 'the
This building This related to
trade union youth
four blocks at a time - neediest the
our revolution. and the . At the discussion
Simon Bolivar Brigade
of the simon members those who seek to accele
Simon Bolivar rate the evolution of the expelled Nicaraguan relic.
Jaime member of issued by the International arian Tendency'
Group, Sandinista Front. This tendance Nicaraguan
THE decision to despatch dictatorship and imperi the Simon Bolivar Brigade
Nicaragua was not ism. nas together with the armed body of the Fourth Inter struggle nanola. I was all Julia construc • 131033
InE colomolar symparnising ol- and tre peasanley.
despite the
concerned foreign volunteers posed a the hasis of more detaed serious oroolell information the balance- revolutionary
that enjoys mass support.
We deportanon or mese com and Iraternall) rades, whatever with the Sandinista com they
the and made. Differences in the of the NicarworKers moverten Callol pe solved in inis way. we have n in conderrining rọ accept the ritual denunsay laine made las, tatement ciation past as a pretext and alibi which has me Miner or deranan
WID aenouncer extreme y Trotskyists and all enterprises.
so that the people will know what the junta is doing, what the FSLN leadership is doing, and that we are working to fulfil their needs.
We understand that right now our task is one - of meeting demands, of working out concrete plans to meet the needs of the population.
means, for Instance, solving problem of water for those areas where the pipes were destroyed during the war. It means solving the problem of public lighting, which was rendered useless during the war. It means finding a way to distribute equally amongst the
goods like the solidarity packages that we are receiving.
It also means initiating a health programme, especially a preventive health programme to avoid the spread of epidemics which could be an obstacle for the revolutionary movement.
We are on a campaign footing to carry out this revolution in an organised way, block by block, barrio by barrio, province by province, city by city, until we have a single organisation which is the one that will ensure the triumph of
Our office personnel are here on a volunteer basis. No-one is paid.
How do they manage to survive?
People are beginning to go back to their jobs as the economic situation is slowly resolved, and those who work six eight nouls d dedicate the rest of their time to working here. Have there been elections in each block and each barrio to elect representatives?
Wheelock is *Proletof
revolution, against
Dul azalls canilar
detender
necessity organisat-
It is not very convincing
political dif Terences, to believe that 50
peacersolD
support the political have
In any event, we refuse
served the teachers'
Yes, this was done democratically.
How often do these councils meet?
the area committees twice a week. the coordinated?
food Casa Sandinista. fumigate all the contamination
What about the militias?
They are day
organisations.
IT WAS not just secondary schools who demonstrated outside the
meeting, students as well! The demonstration was organised by the Revolutionary Student Front (FER).
The barrio committees meet once a week, and
How is the work of the barrio committees
The central headquarters at the Casa Sandinista de Ricardo Morales Avile coordinates the work of the barrio committees, and we in turn bring the issues raised in the barrio committees to the
What is the relationship between the barrio committees, the junta and the goversment?
The barrio committees are carrying out the reconstruction projects that the junta has put forward. For instance, it tells us that we need to
empty buldings to breveni The barrio committees carry out the work that the junta needs done on the basis of the reconstruction projects.
We have militias in each barrio to protect us and to solve problems of a military nature.
independent from barrio committees. In other words, while we are in charge of the political organisation, the mass organisation, the militias are tied directly to the army. But we depend on the popular mass in the National Theatre but elementary school
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
KHOMEINI DECLARES WAR ON NATIONAL MINORITIES
AS we go to press a secret trial is taking place in
the oil town of Ahwaz in Southern Iran. On
trial are 14 members of the Iranian Socialist
Workers Party, the Iranian section of the Burth
International.
Their crime: supporting
Iran's nationalities,
Arabs and the Azerbaijanis.
lawyers have been permitted to attend the trial,
and according to
public prosecutor
CHICECC
HOJABR KHOSRAVI was also arrested
with the other comrades, but later released. He
is a member of the Central Committee of the
SWP. Hojabr explained to Socialist Challenge
the background to the attacks being directed
against the Iranian Trotskyists:
"They accuse us of being everything under the
sun. Agents of imperialism, and so on. But
what is the real reason behind the attack on the
The following comments were made by Fred Halliday at a press conference called to publicise the plight of the 14 SWP militants. 6f two weeks in iran 1 spent meetings, publish
critical DOOKS, newspapers, to move
This was the
being books
were
by the
SaW the major
gan being closed by
I SaW left-wing against being attacked right-wing
Saves,
Radio
The first point to stress Is unal wis is somelllng which systematically encouraged by the government. The
radio, the pro-government press and the speeches of government leaders, foremost among them the Ayatollah Khomeini, have deliberalely encouraged this reaction.
These are not the actions of irresponsible untypical groups. Whether it is committees consisting of well-paid government employees of right-wing hoodlums who attack people streets, they are acting on
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 10
AND LEFT
the demands of that the Kurds, No defence
reports from Tehran the has demanded the death
major
Repression initiated by Khomeini
OUT OF
IRDISTAN
part of a broad campaign Khomeini/Bazargan regime. next week to gain further support.
dropped, and Bernadette McAliskey
stopped.
the direct orders of the goverumell.
This became very clear to me when interviewing government ministers.
One of the most powerful people regime, Foreign Minister Yazdi, repeated word by word the kind of slanders against opponents being uttered in the more hysterical press articles and on the demonstrations the streets. It was clear that a decision had keen taken, sometime in the beginning of August, to crush all oppesition.
burth International in Iran? It is obviously not we are capable today hundreds of thousands of people against the regime on the streets. It is because of our ideas and some of our political initiatives since the fall of the Shah. •We can say with pride that it was our women comrades who took the initiative for the first demonstration against the oppressive laws those women. Fom the very first day we were able to project our politics publicly we defended the rights of the national minorities. It is this, our political ideas and our ability to communicate these through our press to tens and tens thousands obscurantists.
ROOPS
A 300-STRONG picket outside the Iranian Embassy in London last Saturday demanded 'Troops out of Kurdistan! Socialists out of jail!' as
against the repression
Labour movement support for the release of the HKS 14 has included a telegram from Alex Kitson, deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union and chairperson of the Labour Party's international committee. TUC delegates from the Civil and Public Services Association delivered a letter to the embassy last week protesting the repression against the Kurdish people and calling for the release of the HKS 14. This letter will be circulated at the TUC Congress
Amnesty International has cabled Prime Minister Bazargan and the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the death sentence threat to be
has also authorities demanding that the trial be halted and the repression
People who were opponents of the government had been victims of repression before that the people from the Socialist Workers Party had been arrested in June - but this did not become generalised until the beginning of August.
They are quite willing to accuse their opponents of being agents of the CIA, agents of Israel, etc. When I asked Yazdi for evidence of this he went to his desk and produced a set of files which he waved at me.
These WCEE SAVAK
14 socialists face execution
of mobiising
our leaflets in
the streets socially directed against
arrested. of
upset the
STUDENIE
•of the cabled the Iranian
SW7.
files on various oppositionists, which he said proved these people were agents of Israel/CIA. The idea that SAVAK files were truthful, that he should be using these same files which were used by the Shah's secret police, was astounding.
The climate of hysteria which Khomeini has added 1o in speeches of the last few days is one which is directed against all opponents of this regime. One of the tragic aspects of this is that many of the people who are being imprisoned
"To give you the most recent examples.
During the recent fake elections to the 'Experts Council we were not even allowed to distribute
La number or cities outside Tehran. In Isfahan our party headquarters were attacked by thugs. One of our comrades who was selling newspapers was abducted from
and tortured. This torture publicised a few days later in the national press.
'The arrests which took place in Ahwaz in Khuzestan were related directly to our defence of the nationalities. The local headquarters of the SWP was attacked and nine comrades were
Seven comrades were sent Tehran in order to defend those nine. they were distributing leaflets in the streets they were arrested and put in jail. Two of us,
Telegrams and letters protesting the arrests have come from a wide
range of socialist groups, including the International Marxist Group,
the Socialist Workers Party, the International Communist League,
the Workers Socialist League, and others. The Communist Party issued
a statement calling for the British labour movement to raise its voice
against repression: "It should call for the release of the 14 arrested
members of the Socialist Workers Party, the lifting of the ban on the
democratic newspapers, the return of premises to the democratic
parties, an end to the persecution of the Kurdish Democratic Party, and
an end to the repression.'
An ad-hoc committee to defend democratic rights in Iran has been
established and will be organising meetings featuring Kurdish and HKS
speakers in the coming weeks.
PICKET THEIRANIAN EMBASSY THIS WEEKEND. Saturday
1 September, 12-1pm, Iranian Embassy, 16 Princes Gate, London
For chased underground ae the SAlt who sacrificed so much in the struggle against the Shah - people i met who had spent eight, nine years of their lives in jail being tortured by SAVAK are LOY having to go underground again.
1here is no in which people who have been arrested committees of Khomeini have got even the most minimal legal rights. The idea that Islamic law has got proper
prison. sent LWO
charges the Arabs with
defending foreign agents! was
that lawyers could attend. refused. have called for their execution. 'We appeal from democratic rights, While opposed the
which is taking place in Iran.' procedures is quite simply a lie.
Lawyers access to these people. know a lawyer who went to LIV see the public UEDSCLULUI prosecuting the SWP militants. He wasn't given any information. denied access to his clients and information about what the charges were.
Once the trials start they are carried without defence counsel, and without evidence. Then there are
including myself, were freed because they could pin nothing on us whatsoever. The rest are in
independent lawyers Khuzeslan to discover what the charges were against the 14. They were told that they were
defending the Arab population of Khuzestan. And since Khomeini
arms from that
'The trials are held in complete secret. We have asked that they make it a public trial so
But they have We have heard that the prosecutors
those who detend especially those who Shah's regime, to join us in struggling against the new wave of repression
the summary executio This taking pla throughout Iran and
rhetoric about the Islan revolution.
Language The particular reas why the members of 1 SWP were arrested was 1 questien of the natio minorities who in dentally comprise half population of Iran. Unc the Shah they were deni simple rights even right to be taught in th own language - and sin the Shah's overthrow th been making mands which by standards are very reaso able wanted degree of regional auto omy, administrative co trol, control over the lor police, etc.
Of all the depressi things I saw in Iran there nothing more depressi than the fact that government ministers. orricial press snowed comprehension as to wh these people wanted. Th accused of bei agents of foreign powe of feudal powers. Tragic It is because of ti that there is now
areas and in the Arab ar where these people al t demanding minin rights and those who: supporting these deman like the SWP are bei get shot at, arrested killed It is ironic that government talks so mu about the rights of 1 people Eritrea Palestine, but they de ethnic rights to peo inside their own countr Tragically Khome still has considera support in the areas of Iran inhabited out Persian speaking peop I don't think he is going to fall
Page 11 scan of this page
THE front page of the now banned opposition newspaper Ahanger flaunts a cartoon showing Khalkali the chief judge of the Islamic Court, in the guise of the notoriousSavak forturer Teherani. The
OF ALL the problems Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, perhaps the most pressing and the one that could break his position stagnation of the economy.
Things were going the revolutionary upheaval and months of strikes and disruption have made matters worse. Now. a quarter 11-million
unemployed, inflation is running at over 30 per cent, and shortages in
I saw the crowds fighting outside a shop in Ramsar on the Caspian coast to get access to a shop selling soap powder, and the merchants of the bazaar who played such a role in putting Ayatollah Khomeini power beginning about me government s mernciency.
The sector least affected by inces nas been agriculture. villagers — who still make up half of Iran's 36-million strong population
were at first reluctant to supporl Ayatollah Khomeini, because feared he would reverse the Shah's land reform programme. Agriculture
Only in the last weeks of the Shah's rule did groups of younger men, often Hulelalle students coming back from the towns, actually voice open opposition. In the end, it was the local akhunds or religious officials who stepped in to take the place of the officials in whose hands village power had previously rested.
Agricultural output lagging far behind demand in recent 'years, but as a result of the lifting of
come begun 5,55
flas prisoners are an oil worker, SWP member, national minorities and a Fedayeen.
facing
is the
badly before
began,
left tale in
strong technicaseyces De being maintained.
because of
into machinery. complain However the
agricultural sector the The
al. building sites. they
revolutionary many firms are continuing
and many ceased operating entirely. workers Anti-Khomeini
running high
had been there for the summer.
The regime
Economic crisis deepens
price controls it is believed that this year's harvest will be considerably higher and farmers are said to be bringing back into cultivation land
years. debatable whether this will last, as the
provided by the of government in the past are no longer
Oil output is down by one third to around 4 million barrels a day, but
increased OPEC -prices revenue is up to around $25 billion and a considerable amount of this is believed to be lying unspent because of the paralysis of the governmental
rest of the nonis faring badly.
Construction, which used to employ about one million people, is almost at a standstill and all around Tehran one
see ladle cranes on abandoned
believed be operating at about 40 per cent of pre-
levels, and although pay their employees despite the lack of production, unemployment is rising,
service industries have
sentiment the northern provinces of the country along the they Caspian coast where, as i saw myselt, the tourist industry has collapsed, as a resuit of the ban on mixed bathing high, and the shortage of money in the pockets of those who used to come
makes considerable show of the fact that it is going to help
the deprived, the mostazifin who were neglected by the Shah. So far, this has not gone beyond the rhetoric characteristic of the Third demagogic regimes.
According to the economics editor
the pro-government Islamic Republic, the only concrete measure taken has been to provide electricity of under 100 kilowatts free of charge, and to make loans for housing construction available on a system whereby the government loans
what purchaser can put down.
Vacuous
Beyond that, official spokesmen engage in vacuous talk about a new *Islamic Economics' based on religious concept of touhid or unity, but as the economics correspondent made clear, the ideal of a classless society is one towards which Iran has not yet begun to move. It is being used more to enjoin unity and non-conflict between existing classes rather than to restructure the social system inherited from the Shah.
Ayatollah Khomeini's appeals to the workers indicate, however, that he knows they could undermine him as
broke the Shah, and taking no chances in the oil fields. Wages there, already
have been doubled since the revolution, and although this supposed to be Ramadhan, Muslims fast during the day, canteens in the oil fields continue to serve lunch.
By FRED HALLIDAY
sprang up during the revolution itself have continued to operate, but they World have fallen increasingly
influence of the local akhunds or of the pro-Khomeini paper, committees, and no wider trade union
organisations, factories, have operation.
whom asked Khomeini might well sum up what a would-be lot of such
thinking. Pointing to the portrait of the Shah on a banknote he said:
Shah brought picture on it. If Khomeini can do the same, he will survive, otherwise he will have to go.'
the
more overt resistance is that of social behaviour, where meini and his followers are trying to impose a new religious model.
Alcohol, produced
Iran since long before it became a Muslim country, is now prohibited and what drink there is can only be bought on the black market. banned from the radio and TV, their songs are still sold in cassette form on
the the streets, and after the first week of
Ramadhan people in parts of Tehran were eating, drinking and smoking in public.
In my own when people on the street and in collective
the taxis, I found that although most
Iranians strongly in God and Islam, they do
result attempts Many workers' committees that
country.
under the
revolutionary and uniting different constitutional yet come into
The observation of one fisherman
about Ayatollah
people are anxiously broke
The us money with his
Press An area of equal concern and of
Ayatollah Kho- tors Ayatollah
and drunk in
Although women singers are now
later this year.
Women conversations with all unemployment believe women.
not like the akhunds. Indeed, as a
of Ayatollah Khomeini's set back the clock, anti-clericalism is growing in the
Those most affected by the Islamic injunctions are members of minority religious sects and women. Although Christians (mainly Armenians), Jews
coroastrians guarantees, all teel are feel uncomfortable in the new Islamic Republic and they have all been hit economically because they are mainly trading communities.
The Bahai, a heretical sect who
from Iranian isiam in the mid-19th century, are not given such recognition, and their main temple in the centre of Tehran has been turned into an Islamic educational centre.
Women face discrimination in a number of spheres. The demonstra-
last March prevented Khomeini's government from making the Muslim headscarf, the hejab, or the black cloak, the chador, compulsory there and then Women in the centre and north of Tehran as well as in some provincial towns still dress freely, but they are always liable to harassment by gangs of young men, and there is a real possibility that Ayatollah Khomeini will try to enforce the hejab after the Islamic constitution comes into force
judges have been removed, women's sports have been
but banned, and the producer by the recession is falling unequall on
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
The shame on your doorstep'
By Geoff Bell
IN 1965, Brother Leonard of the National Union of Railwaymen told the Trades Union Congress:
I would like to point out that in lone part off the United Kingdom there is a very large majority which is treated second class although the United Kingdom has signed the European Social Charter
the North-east for a job and to get it on merit does Ireland right not apply. I am asking the general council to use its influence with the present Labour government...to see that this very, very low henaviour is stamped out.
The president of the TUC replied to this speech by saying, note what you have said
The TUC has been North of Ireland ever since. four congresses since 1966197,1, 1976, 1977 and 1978 -there been resolutions on Ireland. References have been made in various general council reports, but inactivity and disinterest are the best way of describing the attitude of the leaders of the British trade union movement towards Ireland. Invaded
Only rarely have delegates heard the reality of situation in the Six Counties.
delegate National Union of Seamen congress in 1971: 'Can you imagine the situation Britain had : invaded by the Germans and we had later kicked them out of Britain with the exception of the six counties in the South-west. corner...this position in Northern Ireland.
'What would be the position if TERRY CARLIN is the Northern Ireland Officer of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. As such he is the leading trade union bureaucrat in the North of Ireland.
But this is not all Carlin does. He is also a member of the Police Authority of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Carlin sits on the controlling body of this infamous police force as a nominee of the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which more or less has 'home rule' when it comes to trade union affairs in the North of Ireland.
Nominee
Its political positions reflect the Loyalist philo. sophy of the majority of trade unionists in the Six Counties. Hence the NIC's willingness te lend respect-
the RUC by having a nominee on the police authority.
attack on this collaboration was launched at last month's annual congress of the ICTU by Barry Sullivan, a delegate from the National Union of Public Employees who condemned Carlin's role in the police authority.
He described the Socialist Challenge . 30 August 1979 Page 12
trouble would follow,
What kind of troops?
citizens,
shame Is ol The NUS
counties
apply part of the Irish
Vol lis way to delly.
type Guarantee
In 1970 the "We shall
'take action to 'noting' the
At only years
- those in
United Kingdom'..
present the British government on the North of Ireland. In year internment
impression of
congress exaggerated one'
the Once from the applauded and
told Workers been said in the that year: peace
of peace.'
The union leader who
controls the RUC
Terry authority's role as 'whitewash agency for the RUC tortures, and
English people were denied the right to work, the right to live? Naturally
start. What would İreland? Troops would be flown in. followed in Northern
We can talk about Vietnam or South Africa, but everybody bows their head when you mention Northern Ireland because the
your doorstep. delegate ended his speech by demanding 'get the British troops back'. But the suggestion that brialn and is roops ale In ally waj
problem' suggestion that the TUC has gone out
general council's report called on 'all concerned' to
promole a reculll lo order in Northern Ireland,' while two
later the report went Loyalist and called on the British government to 'provide a guarantee that Northern Ireland would remain a part of the
As a variation on this Loyalist theme, the TUC has been happy to
Is view 1971, the same was introduced, TUC press statement insisted that "the
widespread violence and civil disorder...is a considerably
Then in 1976 the TUC leaders joined the reactionary chorus who
over-estimated the Peace People. Transport and General
Union leader Jack Jones general international report for 'We welcome the women's marches throughout Ireland which demonstrated the overwhelming yearning for a return to the ways
In all this — the defence of the WARNING this man works
with the RUC
Carlin report him to your local trade union
warned that Carlin's membership 'was only giving credibility to the
Council,
Gardens, Benwell, Newcastle 4. partition of Ireland, the need for a return to 'order', the underplaying of the struggle taking place in the streets - the TUC was speaking with the
that of whichever British government happened to be in office at the time. Common to them all was a misrepresentation of what was actually going on - an ignoring of the national question and the Irish national struggle.
Instead, the TUC insisted, all that was required was a few reforms.
council report commended 'a Bill of Rights as one method of achieving a guarantee of full civil and other rights to the people of Northern Ireland': Ills Vicw was applauded by Belfast delegate Andy Barr, who maintained that 'the Bill of Rights is the key question'. State Hum See Arkins! RUC and Secretary Sullivan went on to tell delegates that it was time the trade union movement stopped avoiding responsibilities and looked at the whole situation in the Six Counties. He said the ICTU should withdraw Carlin from the police authority.
Ignored
The response ICTU executive was to say that conference had authority on these matters, which to Northern Ireland mittee to consider.
Carlin himself ted to delegates that the
LULLICH - one which had called for a public enquiry into Maguire. shop steward of the white
Engineering Workers who was found hanged in an RUC police cell just over a
The failure of Carlin and the rest of Northern Tre and mittee to follow resolution hardly prising- After all, police authority Carlin himself come under scrutiny in any such enquiry.
FIVE
IN IRELAND DAYS
DERRY
Much of the information in this article is taken from Five Days in Ireland, a report of a visit by a delegation to Belfast and Derry from Newcastle Trades report is an informative and interesting account of first hand experiences of a group of British trade unionist in the North of Ireland. It costs £l and is available from Newcastle on Tyne Trades Council, 199 Hugh
In later years the advocacy of the 'Better Life for All Campaign' was added to the elaborated 'solutions' for the North of Ireland. The 1975 council report enthusiastically noled "campaign' that 'tens of thousands of people have signed a calling for the right to live free from violence and discrimination; the right to security of employment; the right to free association and to advocate change by peaceful means; the right to The good housing; the right to equality of 1972 educational opportunity; the right to adequate social services'
The Better Life for All Campaign was designed to "rights'. Today it has joined the Peace People in history's dustbin.
Both the solution of the Bill of Rights and that of the Better Life for
and
its of the
no
the Comby Geoff Bell the Cormac, com up this surthe even might
meaningless supported.
repeated general described traditions.
Illusions
TUC has about
• in Ireland.
1974,
workers.
TUC's ritualistically
have declaration
based on silence. achieve all these
• becan
British Labour
Ireland: 1969~79
the cost of bipartisanship the case for troops out now
BRITISH LABOUR AND IRELAND 1969-79
A new pamphlet by Geoff Bell with cartoons by
which analyses bipartisanship over the last ten years. It is available from The Other Bookshop, 328 Upper St., London N1, cost 40p + 10p post. Bulk rates available on request.
All Campaign were promoted by members of the Communist Party Both were unanimously endorsed by the TUC; in that sense the vote was as
as the policies they
The unreality of the TUC and its Irish policy is illustrated in other ways. A constant theme has been the
references to what the council report 1971 as 'the non-sectarian of the trade union movement...extending from the workplace to the community at local and national level.
Throughout the last ten years the
been fond of moralising the non-sectarianism and strength of the trade union movement
Illusions about this movement's influence were rudely
19a4, eden a e dren ied by Lot
when a march led by Murray designed to break that strike attracted the support of less than 200
That was hardly surprising. By avoiding the central issue in Irish
- the partition of Ireland and the British presence — the TUC might
achieved the 'unity' membership in Northern Ireland, but it is a valueless 'unity' because it is
So there are no motions on H Block at this year's TUC, no motions on the Prevention of Terrorism Act, none on the revelations British torture in Ireland which have hit the world's headlines since last year's Congress. There are no motions at all on Ireland. Which, for Tory Northern Ireland Secretary Humphrey Atkins, is one of the few pieces of good news he has had since his miserable regime
cartoons by Cormac
the costs
Page 13 scan of this page
'He forged the Scottish link in the golden chain of world socialism'
By Pat Kane
JOHN MACLEAN has been recognised as one of Britain's foremost revolutionary leaders. He was a Marxist teacher educated the growing political movement along Clydeside in the first quarter of this century.
He opposed the First World War, and was involved in the industrial disputes that created 'Red Clydeside'. His principles was to guide him turbulent years of the Russian Revolution and the Easter Rising in described as the 'rapids of revolution'. Debates
When Maclean lived in Glasgow, it was the second city of the British Empire and one of the most industrialised regions on earth. In the East End of the city was Glasgow Green, every Sunday, thousands of workers turned out to listen to debates.
Not all the speakers spoke about politics. Many spoke about religion, between Catholic and Protestant, and atheist. active and flourishing. were of a high academic level.
Maclean. It had a radical tradition as a result of the influx of Highlanders and immigrant Irish and a socialist and trade union movement that was growing and becoming more political.
1910, Maclean debated who was later to become a Cabinet Minister, on the political nature of the Labour Party. Unlike other revolutionaries of the welcomed the Labour Party, since it increased the political independence of the working class. Marxism
In the weekly claimed that the Labour Party was the 'heir' to the Marxian tradition'. Maclean hotly disputed this:
'Marxism stands for the transformation of society. In fact Socialism established surely capitalism, and that workers party that is any use in my estimate is one that recognises that the workers are robbed by the canitalsts. and understands now that robbery takes place; and one that is organised to prosecute the class struggle politicatly until Socialism is attained. Such a party would be a Socialist Party based on Marxian principles.'
Maclean analysed how developed into a world economic system. He explained how imperialism competition that would lead to war.
Maclean's politics were hased on understanding the international nature of capitalism and the need to defend the class independence of the workers throughout the world. This is why Maclean was to become Britain's most important internationalist leader and achieved recognon as suen rom tae bolsnevik Icaders
Prior to the war, Maclean was a member of the British Socialist Party (BSP). He was active in the Co-operative movement, and started his famous educational classes in Glasgow. main textbook was stewards who attended his classes were later to become the leaders of 'Red Clydeside'.
Major test
The First World War was to become a major test for the world movement, splitting the BSP and destroying Ine Maclean's response to the war appeared in 1914 in "Justice', , the BSP paper.
'It is our first business to hate the British capitalist system... it is DONA LI refusing to murder one another for a sordid
world capitalism.'
There could be no reconciliation with the ruling class, either in Glasgow, Maclean established The Vanguard, a paper Wals movement, and that supported the growing nonstanted me acrones
The mass movement was growing around three issues: opposition to the Munitions Act, the raising of and conscription. The year 1915 started with the engineering strikes for a two pence an hour increase. These gave rise to the Clyde Workers Committee (CWC).
John Maclean: Born 24 August 1879
who organised and
grasp of Marxist through those
La period he
where,
the differences Christian The temperance movement was
Most of the speeches
of city that stimulated
time, Maclean
paper 'Forward', Johnson
revolutionary
revolution. The capitalism had
had increased His "Capital'. The shop
factories.
25,000 Second International. Noeler "class-patriotism"s our business • John
peace or in war.
lead the anti-war
of t the
Prominent the
leadership of the Committee was Willie Gallacher, and Maclean, although a teacher, was welcomed at all the meetings.
All that summer anti-war propaganda was circulating throughout the
But it was the rents threatened the 'war effort'. Rents had risen through the increase in workers flowing into Glasgow to work in the engineering shops.
Opposition grew. and by October 1915
people the landlords tried to convict one were
family for non-payment of arrears. The Clyde exploded. The CWC called the factories out, and they marched on the court.
Gallacher recalls the scenes at the Sheriff Court where the trial was due to take place.
Maclean was on addressing the crowd... It was obvious to the Sherift that the situstion was too dancerous to Pondon. " The workers have left the factoriest He telephoned Lloyd George in What am I to do? They are threatening to tear down Glasgow!" "Stop the case," he was told. «We'll introduce a Rents Restriction Act. " The mass movement had won its first great victory.'
This was the beginning of real mass actions against the government's attacks on workers' rights. Over the Munitions Act, many of the yards and factories struck.
Unfortunately the
separate agreement.
revolutionary working restrictions.
issue that
had enough
Clyde
strike.
On 11 April,
servitude. platform
around this
appear.
American
industrial front.
workers unity was
brokenat Parkhead Forge, wherethey reached a
Nevertheless, SCULOUS over war This break in the unity was to be used to the full when the introduction
On S January 1916, the Conscription Bill wa placed before Parliament. The ruling class had
of 'Red Clydeside'. understood that they would have to break the
workers if they had any hope conscription being introduced throughout the country. All the socialist press was banned. Maclean and the other leaders were arrested.
Maclean received the heaviest sentence of all those arrested, three years penal
Maclean was to spend the next 14 months in prison, while on the Clyde a massive campaign was launched to secure his release. It was
time that differences Gallacher and the CWC were beginning to
Gallacher, although a member of the BSP with Maclean, was heavily influenced by the
'Wobblies', and their brand syndicalism. He favoured concentrating on the
Maclean argued that it was necessary to develop an anti-war movement and the type of actions seen around the rents struggles, in order to develop the independent political capacities
Maclean was in
Ireland and the revolution in Kussia
He was
events in meland and Kussia.
Peace Crusade
on the march once more.
October
Revolution, and the Ireland. In
began to look to the
previously occupied.
appointed Russian Soviets.
socialist movements. For
was to make sure they kept it.
Maclean supported
Soviets. and his Revolution
had started the
100,000 workers
years imprisonment.
Ireland Through the summer movement once again of Maclean GN
re-selected the engin- prison, Gallacher
government before the December 1918 election
the defence of the isolation of the resulted in their defeat.
They
of
liefs. He founded
Scottish Communist Party
CPGB
with
fighting until John naturally."
of in the General Election.
The inscription
the Maclean Society says:
Chain of World Socialism.'
of the working class. As soon as Gallacher was released, he re-activated the CWC, and the main campaign was 'Free John Maclean'.
prison when two major events occurred that would shape the futur course of his politics: the Easter Rising in
All over the Clyde anti-war activity went hand in hand with the demand to free Maclean
Lloyd George visited Glasgow in June 1917.
advised that unless Maclean was released 'the workers were in a mood to tear up Glasgow'. He was released the next day.
The anti-war movement was boosted by the
Demonstration. were organised, and on 8 July, the Women's
organised two huge demon strations. With Maclean free, the movement was
Maclean could see that the war would not last, especially with the victory of the October
continued troubles in November 1917 he wrote pamphlet called the "War After the War'. He
miners to take the vanguard role that the Clyde engineers had
But it was Russia and Ireland that were to consume him for the rest of his life. In 1918, he was appointed Russian Consul in Glasgow, and along with Karl Liebknecht from Germany was
president of the All
The October Revolution reshaped the entire
the first time the workershad seized power. For Maclean the task
He campaigned everywhere for 'Hands off Russia', but always stressing that the most effective defence was the overthrow of capital in Britain. From the Bolsheviks he learned the importance of Soviet type democracy, and came to view Lenin as a close political comrade.
the formation Communist International, and was imprisoned once more for his propaganda in favour of
defence of the Russian
In 1918 he made his famous 'Speech from the Dock', where he outlined how capitalism
war for profit. He nevel cowered before the judge, instead he attacked the whole system, and urged the workers to follow the example of revolutionary Russia. His speech coincided with May Day, when
downed tools march through Glasgow. He was sentenced to five
of 1918, the mass demanded the release Barnes was the sitting Labour MP for Gorbals. He had supported the war, so his constituency had kicked him out and
Maclean. Maclean in stood and the was once forced to release him
Over the next five years he threw himself into
Irish revolution. The Clyde workers eventually
But the example of the political struggles or the Clyde and the national struggles in Ireland and India led him to evolve his republican be
the Scottish Workers Republican Party, after he failed to start a
affiliated to the Comintern. The dominance of the Russians in the Comintern and his distrust of the dubious polițical backgrounds of the early Communisi Party leaders meant that he never joined the
He was arrested twice more before his death, being sentenced to three and twelve months respectively. He had written that I'll continue
| Bull kills me, I die natumonia, while campaigning for the swif died in November 1923
on the memorial cairn erected by the Glasgow labour movement and
'He forged the Scottish link in the Golden
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979, Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
Consultants' backhander PUZZLED by the apparent absence of pay beds in NHS hospitals in South Glamorgan where I work, I began to ask patients how they hospital, ana a pattern emerged. £12 backhander to the consultant will get you over the longest waiting list. A
of NHS growing numer needing to go into hospital are being advised by their GPsto see Mr Xor Dr Z privately. One private consultation and your case becomes urgent!
Admission to a hospital bed is decided entirely by the "clinical judgement'. This is nothing more than a lucrative fiddle for some consultants taking advantage of the shortage of NHS beds and exploiting people who may be crippled and in pain.
İ am trying to get facts to back up what I've noticed. readers kmow about this practice, and what we can do to expose it?
NHS worker [Cardiff)
Studs Lonigan
WHATEVER the outcome of the industrial dispute at Television, it should at least have one beneficial effect. The screening programmes socialist journals an opportunity which, to the best of my knowledge, all of them have so far missed draw their readers' attention to the dramatisation of James T. Farrell's classic trilogy, Studs Lonigan.
If it leads some of them to read Studs Lonigan in recently paperback form, then that would be an agaca bonus. The moyement produced novelists, and James T. Farrell was a great novelist. Why should we forget his existence?
RAY CHALLINOR [Whitley Bay]
*James T. Farrell died of a heart attack on 22 August. obituary in a future issue.
was to come on 11 September 1973.
usurpation of their power and interests.
against a left-wing government.
London WC2. Tel 01-734 8508. Rental: £35.
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 14
State agents mushroom?
DAVID Yaffe's letter
got into Communist A political member patients
serves the interests of the
consultant's it disagrees administratively the working class', of course.
Comrade desperate, no time
What do other not the first excluded from Independent
delay will give
to
reissued
Trotskyist tew
Communist Tendency]
We will carry an - Eds. - Eds.
IT IS impossible for socialists to follow the course of the Popular Unity government in Chile, from Allende's election in September 1970 to the generals' coup three years later, without having one's emotions wrenched this way and that, writes GEOFFREY SHERIDAN. Exhilaration at such things as the land takeovers and the formation of the cordones, which established dual power in the industrial belts, is all the while overshadowed by what we know
The Spiral brilliantly pieces together those developments, concentrating on how imperialism and the Chilean bourgeoisie moved to crush the threatened
The 150-minute colour film, narrated by Donald Sutherland, takes its theme from a game devised at a law school in Massachusetts in 1965, which sought-to offer US imperialism a more sophisticated variant of gunboat diplomacy by examining how various political and social groups can be weighed
Although this model can overstate the part played by actual conspiracies, The Spiral ably illuminates the choices which were open to Popular Unity and the Chilean workers and peasants, with a compilation of the best film and TV footage taken of those fateful years. Not to be missed.
The Spiral is showing at the ICA in London from 14 September for three weeks and can be hired from The Other Cinema, 12-13 Little Newport St,
(16 August) attempts to justify the Revolutionary
Group's exclusion in the tendencies from their meetings, and their physical attack on
the Revolutionary Communist Tendency, by redefining
democracy The RCG argues that its concept of democracy is not a bourgeois one, but one 'which
working class'. Since the RCG can define these guy." interests as it sees fit, any views which
with can be dealt with • in the interests of
Yaffe's accusation about the RCT has no substance. At threaten RCG meetings. The RCT is RCT disrupt
organisation to RCG meetings Manchester and London. Presumably all these exclusions were done in the
The proletarian democracy is the RCG's tactic of labelling political opponents RCG told its supporters that the Spartacist League was financed by the CIA. In March this year, the RCG warned its supporters not to talk to members of the RCT because were agents of the state. Earlier this month, a South African comrade who criticised the RCG after a meeting of the Newham Defence Committee was
which
means by which the RCG seeks to discredit its political opponents.
We draw your attention to these
allegations against the RCT, but also to publicise this method of slander which can only undermine discussion and debate in the workers movement.
PAT ROBERTS [Revolutionary
*This correspondence is now closed.
Are appearances revealing?
I HAVE to tell Alexander Musgrave (16 August) that I waged a bitter fight
New York branch of Communist League against admitting
membership on the sole ground of his appearance and dress.
They asked: 'What have you against
I said: "He wears a corduroy suit up and down Greenwich Village, with a trick moustache and long hair.
There is something wrong with this
I wasn't making a joke either. I said people of this type are not going to be suitable for • approaching the ordinary American worker. They are going to mark our organisation as somethine freakish, abnormal, do i some normal te bithe American worker. I was dead right in general, and in this mentioned case in Darticulat after making all kinds of trouble in the organisation, eventually became an Ochlerite.
Ghost of James P.
London NIl
THE LENGTH of letters
printed will usually be kept
down to 400 words in order to
encourage as wide & range
contributions as possible.
letters may be cut at
Editor's discretion.
21-23 September 1979
MARXIST
SYMPOSIUM
DAYONE
10.30-1:30pm CURRENT ISSUES OF MARXISM Perry Anderson
2.30-5.00pm Workshops The Debate on English History, Alternative Economic Strategy, Bahro's Marxism Speakers include: Perry Anderson, John Ross, Alan Freeman, Gunther Minnerup
7.30-10.00pm RALLY 100th ANNIVERSARY OF TROTSKY'S BIRTH Speakers include: Pierre Frank, Tariq Ali, the Voice of Leon Trotsky
DAY TWO 10.00-1.00pm IS LENINISM OBSOLETE?
Dodie Weppler and two of the authors of Beyond the Fragments
Workshops Class Analysis and Political Strategy, Kautsky and Eurocommunism, The Communist International Speakers include: Robin Blackburn, Pierre Frank
2.00-5.00pm CULTURE AND POLITICS Francis Mulhern THE TRADE UNIONS TODAY Richard Hyman, Steve Jefferys
Workshops include youth and revolution
Fill in the form below:
Name.
Address.
picket
the
THE talks which open in London next month will see a concerted bid by the British Horeign Oftice to try isolate the Patriotic Front. Thatcher's partial retreat at Lusaka, forcea or her by the need to protect interests, in no way indicates that the I Was al c preparea to sanctions till the white settler regime is dismantled.
The Tories will introduce a few cosmetic changes in the constitution to Lusaka, isolate the Patriotic Front and try and carry the front line states with them. The front line states also retreated at Lusaka by agreeing to put the Patriotic Front on a par with the puppet parties
Any notion that Lusaka resolved anything would be extremely dangerCannon Ous
• Lusaka Communique of the white wower structure or now lie ceasculle will be supervised. In reality there are grounds for believing that the Prepare mahayderer to i of dominated by the Patriotic Front. AlI the
attending the London talks. But the SWP, IMG
Zimbabwe
Front
and
British
maintain ment.
liberation now aim to following
period:
acknowledge
Mon 3
death
9.30am. who signed the DAYTHREE
10:00-1.00pm TWO TRADITIONS OF MARXISM IN BRITAIN John Ross
Workshops Workers Plans and Workers Control, Women in Eastern Europe.
Speakers include: Hilary Wainwright, Dave Bailey
2.00-5.00pm THE REVOLUTIONARY LEFT IN EUROPE Chris Harman [SWP], Tariq Ali [IMG]
Creche facilities
Refreshments available
El a session.
£5.50 six sessions excluding the rally
£l for rally.
£5 for all the sessions except the rally [£6
including the rally] if paid before 1 September.
VENUE: Conway Hall, Red Lion Square,
Make Cheques and Postal Orders out to 'Socialist Challenge'
has right to supervise elections, negotiations or a ceasefire. The Front argues that elections can only be supervised by 'persons or groups of persons who possess objectivity and impartiality which is beyond question'. This would tend to exclude the present British govern-
We urge all supporters of th
struggle to support the actions over the next
September: Picket of Downing Street to protest against
sentences brothers found guilty of possessing firearms.
at kothmat Corner (corner of St James and Pall
6.30pm and then marching to Central Hall, Westminster for rally at 7.30pm (Speakers to include Patriotic Front
Sat 15 September:
Zimbabwe, 10.30am, NUR, Euston
Page 15 scan of this page
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Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge WHITE TERROR IN IRAN EXECUTION THREAT TO 14 SOCIALISTS
Khomeini has become the
Shah of Iran. His government
has deciared war on the national min-
Orities. Monters
attacked by the army. Nine militants were publicly
executed as revealed in the photograph above.
14 members of the Iranian
the Bazargan government be strengthened'. Registered + with the Post Office as
being
Socialise Workers Party (Iranian section of the Fourth International) face execution for defending the rights of
Zanu Ine class.
Mojahedeen are also facing repression. All left-wing papers have been banned.
The US State Department, currently defending human rights of a Soviet ballerina, has defended Khomeini's offensive and offered to resume the sale of arms so that 'the authority and effectiveness of
PROTEST PICKET: Saturday 1 September, 12-1pm, at Iranian Embassy, 16 Prince's Gate, London SW7 INSIDE: Fred Halliday on Iran today/interview with Hojabr Khosravi of Iranian SWP pp 10 & 11 Clive Turnbuli reports from Nicaragua on the state of the revolution, pp 8 & 9
newspaper: Published by
ine Fedayeen and
Relgocrest. Ltd. for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1.
Printed by East End (offset) Itd : P.O. Box 82, London E2
← Socialist Challenge No. 110, 23 August 1979Socialist Challenge No. 112, 6 September 1979 →